Two Minutes Hate
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In George Orwell's novel Nineteen Eighty-Four, the Two Minutes Hate (more properly, "Two Minutes' Hate" or "Two-Minute Hate") is a daily period in which Party members of the society of Oceania must watch a film depicting The Party's enemies (notably Emmanuel Goldstein and his followers) and express their hatred for them and the principles of democracy.
[edit] Details in Nineteen Eighty-Four
The film and its accompanying auditory and visual cues (which include a grinding noise that Orwell describes as "of some monstrous machine running without oil") are a form of brainwashing to Party members, attempting to whip them into a frenzy of hatred and loathing for Emmanuel Goldstein and the current enemy superstate. Apparently, it is not uncommon for those caught up in the hate to physically assault the telescreen, as Julia does during the scene. The film becomes more surreal as it progresses, with Goldstein's face morphing into a sheep as enemy soldiers advance on the viewers, before one such soldier charges at the screen, machine gun blazing. He morphs, finally, into the face of Big Brother at the end of the two minutes. At the end, the mentally, emotionally, and physically exhausted viewers chant "BB" over and over again, ritualistically.
Orwell's obvious reference in the sequence is to the utter demonisation of an enemy during a time of war and the exultation of the cult of personality of the leaders of totalitarian states.[citation needed] Parallels (in form, if not content) to the Two Minutes Hate can be seen in real-world propaganda films from World War II.[citation needed]
In one such Two Minutes Hate, the audience is introduced to Inner Party member and key character O'Brien. Within the novel, hate week is an extrapolation of the two minute period into an annual week-long festival.
[edit] Origins of the term
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"The evening of this same inspection was one of the few occasions on which Pommier was bombarded. A sudden two minutes’ ‘hate’ of about 40 shells, 4.2 and 5.9, wounded three men and killed both the C.O.’s horses, ‘Silvertail’ and ‘Baby’" |
| From "A record of the 1/5th Battalion the Leicestershire Regiment, T.F., during the War, 1914-1919"[1]; emphasis added. |
Orwell did not invent the term "Two minutes' hate"; it was already in use in the First World War.[1] At that time, British writer satirised the German campaign of hatred against the English, and imagined a Prussian family sitting around the kitchen table having its "daily hate."[2]
In addition, short daily artillery bombardments made by either side during the First World War, and aimed at disrupting enemy routines, were known as "hates", as in the extract, left, from a record of the British Leicestershire Regiment from October 1916.
[edit] References
- ^ a b "Monchy Au Bois". British Isle Genealogy. http://www.bigenealogy.com/leicestershire/monchy_au_bois.htm. Retrieved 12 November 2009.
- ^ Graves, Charles Larcom (1st March 2004 [Upload date]). "Mr. Punch's History of the Great War" (Various [plain text or HTML]). Project Gutenberg. http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/11571. Retrieved 12 November 2009.
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