Emmanuel Goldstein

For other uses, see Emmanuel Goldstein (disambiguation).

Emmanuel Goldstein's ominous face on a telescreen in Michael Radford's 1984 film adaptation. Played by actor John Boswall.

Emmanuel Goldstein is a character in George Orwell's classic dystopian novel Nineteen Eighty-Four. He is the number one enemy of the people according to Big Brother and the Party, who heads a mysterious and possibly fictitious anti-party organization called The Brotherhood. Despite being a key part of the story, he is only actually seen and heard on telescreen, and may in fact be nothing more than a useful propaganda fabrication of the Ministry of Truth.

However, Goldstein's persona as an enemy of the state serves to distract, unite and focus the anger of the people of Oceania. Ostensibly, Goldstein serves an important role as both a convenient scapegoat for the totalitarian regime in 1984, and justifying reason for more military buildup, surveillance and elimination of civil liberties.

Character

In the novel, Goldstein is rumoured to be a former top member of the ruling (and sole) Party who had broken away early in the movement and started an organization known as "The Brotherhood", dedicated to the fall of The Party. The novel raises but leaves unanswered the questions of whether Goldstein, "The Brotherhood," or even "Big Brother" really exist.

Each member of "The Brotherhood" is required to read The Book, supposedly written by Goldstein, The Theory and Practice of Oligarchical Collectivism. Each person is said to have three or four contacts at one time which are replaced as people disappear, so that if a member is captured, he can only give up three or four others.

Goldstein is always the subject of the "Two Minutes Hate," a daily, 2-minute period beginning at 11:00 AM at which a purported image of Goldstein is shown on the telescreen (a one-channel television with surveillance devices in it that cannot be turned off). The reader may surmise that a political opposition to Big Brother—namely, Goldstein—was psychologically necessary in order to provide an internal enemy posing a threat to the rule of the Party; the constantly reiterated ritual of the Two Minutes Hate help ensure that popular support for and devotion towards Big Brother is continuous.

It is never revealed whether Goldstein really exists. In fact, Inner Party member O'Brien adamantly refuses to reveal whether The Brotherhood truly exists when asked by Winston in the torture room:

Winston: Does the Brotherhood exist?

O'Brien: That, Winston, you will never know. If we choose to set you free when we have finished with you, and if you live to be ninety years old, still you will never learn whether the answer to that question is Yes or No. As long as you live it will be an unsolved riddle in your mind.

Although O'Brien claims to have collaborated in writing the book himself, his statement still leaves the questions of Goldstein and the Brotherhood's existence unanswered, as it could have been an untrue statement made by O'Brien in order to manipulate Winston's thinking and break his spirit.

Leon Trotsky as potential real-life origin

Not long after the novel's appearance, a number of contemporary commentators noticed that the biography, appearance, writing style and political thought of Emmanuel Goldstein closely paralleled Leon Trotsky's. In 1954, Isaac Deutscher wrote that "The Book" in 1984 was intended as a "paraphrase" of Trotsky's The Revolution Betrayed. In 1956, Irving Howe described Goldstein's book as "clearly a replica" of Trotsky's The Revolution Betrayed, writing that the parts that seemed to be imitating Trotsky were "among the best passages" of the novel. Harold Bloom described Goldstein's book as a "parody" of The Revolution Betrayed, noting that Orwell was deeply ambivalent about Trotsky. Christopher Hitchens likewise wrote that the character is based on Trotsky.

Orwell wrote of Trotskyism that:

Leon Trotsky, 1918

[T]he fact that Trotskyists are everywhere a persecuted minority, and that the accusation usually made against them, i.e. of collaborating with the Fascists, is obviously false, creates an impression that Trotskyism is intellectually and morally superior to Communism [i.e. supporters of Stalin]; but it is doubtful whether there is much difference.

Contemporary comparisons

Richard Nixon

The widespread vilification of President Richard Nixon in the wake of the Watergate scandal inspired commentary comparing his treatment in the media with the Two Minutes Hate sessions focused on Emmanuel Goldstein. Nixon's earlier decision to go to China, long considered a Cold War foe, had earlier inspired comparisons with Emmanuel Goldstein's analysis of the shifting alliances of the three superpowers in Nineteen Eighty-Four.

Osama bin Laden

Goldstein has also been compared to al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden.

"Goldstein is the Osama Bin Laden figure in Orwell’s novel, an extremely elusive person who is never seen, never captured, but believed by the leadership of Oceania to be still alive and hatching his conspiracies: perhaps somewhere beyond the sea, under the protection of his foreign paymasters. Since Goldstein is never captured, the battle against his crimes, treacheries, sabotages must never end."

Drawing parallels between Goldstein and bin Laden a week after the September 11 attacks, Professor William L. Anderson at Frostburg State University wrote a column for LewRockwell.com entitled "Osama and Goldstein".

Legal scholar Cass Sunstein, in his 2009 book Worst-Case Scenarios, coined the term "Goldstein Effect", described as "the ability to intensify public concern by giving a definite face to the adversary, specifying a human source of the underlying threat." According to Sunstein, since the U.S.-led War on Terror so heavily associated terrorism with bin Laden, the outrage intensified in similar ways as displayed in 1984. However, he also pointed out how Saddam Hussein, to a great degree, and George W. Bush (to a much lesser degree) had been subject to the same Goldstein Effect.

See also

• Eric Corley - hacker using Emmanuel Goldstein as a pseudonym
• Notes on Nationalism - Orwell essay, discusses Trotsky

External links

• Emmanuel Goldstein: War is Peace. George Orwell: Nineteen Eighty-Four, Part II, Chapter 9.
• Emmanuel Goldstein: Ignorance is Strength. George Orwell: Nineteen Eighty-Four, Part II, Chapter 9.