Emmanuel Goldstein

For other uses, see Emmanuel Goldstein (disambiguation).

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

Emmanuel Goldstein is a fictional character in George Orwell's dystopian novel Nineteen Eighty-Four. He is the principal enemy of the state according to the totalitarian Party. He is depicted as the head of a mysterious (and possibly fictitious) dissident organization called "The Brotherhood" and as having written the book The Theory and Practice of Oligarchical Collectivism. He is only seen and heard on telescreen, and he may be a fabrication of the Ministry of Truth, the State's propaganda department.

Character history

In the novel, Goldstein is a character rumoured to be a former top member of the Party and an early associate of its leader, "Big Brother", but having broken away early in the movement and started "The Brotherhood". Ostensibly "The Brotherhood" is organized into cells, with each member required to read The Book, supposedly written by Goldstein, The Theory and Practice of Oligarchical Collectivism. Goldstein is always the subject of the "Two Minutes Hate", a daily programme beginning at 11:00 a.m. at which an image of Goldstein is shown on the telescreen and subjected to extreme contempt.

The novel raises but leaves unanswered the questions of whether Goldstein or "The Brotherhood" really exist. When asked by protagonist Winston, Inner Party member O'Brien replies as follows:

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.

O'Brien claims that Goldstein's book was written by the Party leadership, including himself, but this statement leaves the questions of Goldstein and the Brotherhood's existence unanswered, and may be an untruth by O'Brien to deceive Winston.

The reader may surmise that a political opposition to Big Brother — namely, Goldstein — was psychologically necessary in order to distract, unite and focus the anger of the people of Oceania. Ostensibly, Goldstein serves as a convenient scapegoat for the totalitarian regime in Nineteen Eighty-Four, and justifies its surveillance and elimination of civil liberties.

Trotsky as potential real-life origin

Trotsky, 1918

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 resembled that of Leon Trotsky. Born Lev Bronshtein, Trotsky was a close associate of Russian revolutionary Lenin and later the chief rival of Stalin, the latter branding Trotsky a traitor and expelling him from the Soviet Union in 1927. In exile, Trotsky wrote The Revolution Betrayed, denouncing Stalin and the Soviet Union. During the Great Purges of the 1930s, Stalin's propaganda invariably depicted Trotsky as the instigator of all supposed plots and acts of sabotage. In 1940, he was murdered in Mexico by Ramón Mercader, a Stalinist agent.

In 1954, Isaac Deutscher wrote that Goldstein's book in Nineteen Eighty-Four was intended as a "paraphrase" of 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. Critic Adrian Wanner, writing in a collection of essays edited by Harold Bloom, described Goldstein's book as a "parody" of The Revolution Betrayed, noting that Orwell was deeply ambivalent about Trotsky. Orwell wrote of Trotskyism that

The 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; but it is doubtful whether there is much difference.

Contemporary comparisons

Richard Nixon

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

Osama bin Laden

Goldstein has also been compared to former 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 Nineteen Eighty-Four. 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.

Hillary Clinton

In the United States, Hillary Clinton has been used by the right to distract from damaging news and unify media consumers toward a common enemy:

The lack of information, on a case that could have major ramifications for the president, left many current and former Trump advisers livid, focusing their rage on how the information leaked and on a forever target: Hillary Clinton.

So, 1 tweet by a dumbass (Douthat, Ross (18 July 2017)) in documentational proof on Wikipedia? LMAO!

Others

The computer underground publisher Eric Corley used the name Emmanuel Goldstein as a pseudonym.

In the 1995 film Hackers, Matthew Lillard plays a character named Emmanuel Goldstein, who makes a reference to Nineteen Eighty-Four with the line: "'1984'? Yeah, right. That's a typo."

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.