Talk:Nineteen Eighty-Four

Giant plot

Isn't the plot info about 1984 incredibly long? We have SIX sections talking about the plot (from "background" to "The Newspeak appendix"), and 18 subsections in them. And even more, 29 articles for plot elements (see {{Nineteen Eighty-Four}}). I think that there should be a big clean up of this.

As an initial proposal, I think that Ministry of Love, Ministry of Peace, Ministry of Plenty, Ministry of Truth and Room 101 should be merged into a single article, Ministries of Nineteen Eighty-Four (as with the countries). Or should we simply nominate them for deletion? Cambalachero (talk) 16:10, 14 November 2014 (UTC)

I agree that it's needlessly long and complex. I've made a first go at dramatically cutting down this section. Popcornduff (talk) 04:28, 9 December 2014 (UTC)

OR to be addressed

I started to selectively edit a few sentences that were OR. There are several instances throughout in which we say, in wiki's voice that such and such is the inspiration for Orwell's themes, motifs, etc. without a source indicating this is so. It may very well be true, but we're about verifiability, not truth. (which, I get, is subtly ironic given the themes of the book..:)) I started to look at the "source of literary motifs" section, and didn't know where to start. There's a lot of great information here, but I get the sense a lot of it is OR. Regardless, it needs sourcing not only of the source material, but of a source indicating a link between that and Orwell's work. It's not enough to just reference a book on Stalinism and say that it was a source of Orwell's motif; we need to have a source that specifically says that. Otherwise we have just referenced a book that mentioned Stalinism. Unfortunately, what sourcing we do have in this section seems to fail that test. Instead of wholesale slaughter of the section, I would like to ask folks to get some sources in. I'll wait a while before starting the bulldozers in the hope that we can retain the good. Honestly though, this whole subsection smacks of OR. Well-written OR, but OR. 12.11.127.253 (talk) 20:08, 8 June 2015 (UTC)

Revolution chronology

It being apparently the sixth quarter of the ninth Three Year Plan, is used to set the date of the first Plan at 1958 in the article. But if a Three Year Plan can have at least six quarters, the chance of it actually lasting 3 years is probably only true in Party doublethink. Five Year Plans were famous in "communist" dictatorships, as well as the government lying about them. We know The Party lies about basically everything, so it's not reliable to deduce a date from the idea of a Three Year Plan lasting 3 actual years. 188.29.165.64 (talk) 20:41, 19 December 2015 (UTC)

Neologisms

There are very few novels that introduce so many neologisms that become part of the vernacular, as does 1984. For many of these words, Wikipedia has a separate entry. (Consider, in addition, that they are all grouped under the very common adjectival neologism 'Orwellian'.) I suggest a new section, 'Neologisms in 1984', be added here. BooksXYZ (talk) 13:47, 21 September 2016 (UTC)

Sonia Orwell out of place in the lead?

Hi,
In the plot/theme summary in the lede, the first and only mention of Julia is the sentence "Orwell based the character of the heroine of the novel, Julia, on his second wife, Sonia Orwell." Would it not be better to introduce Julia first, and then present Sonia Orwell in the character list/analysis in the main body? T 85.166.160.7 (talk) 11:49, 15 December 2016 (UTC)