The Concept of Memory in George Orwell’s novel “1984”

Abstract

The purpose of this article is to analyze the concept of memory through its realization through the categories of thinking, history, past, time, identity, and power. Based on the novel “1984” by Orwell, the author shows ways to influence human thinking through the manipulation of the memory of members of society, namely, changing and constructing historical facts, erasing individual and collective memory. The article substantiates the theses on the interrelation of memory, thinking, history, and identity. Orwell’s artistic practice, which revealed methods of constructing history and manipulating memory, was significantly ahead of theoretical research in this field, for example, P. Ricoeur, P. Norа, as well as the philosophers M. Foucault, J. Agamben. A brief review of the literature allows us to determine the degree of research on the problems of the novel related to the concept of memory in modern English-language literary criticism. Despite a considerable number of research papers, modern critical approaches and theories allow us to see new facets of the novel “1984”. The analysis of the concept of memory in the novel is based on the modern theory of collective and individual memory, the concept of identity, and cognitive theory.