Reality

Reality can have a more fluid and complicated definition than we might realize. Instead of being a concrete ability to see 'black-and-white' differences between ideas and basing beliefs on outside evidence, a person's conception of reality might accommodate contradicting beliefs, reject and ignore truth when convenient, or embrace concepts seemingly preposterous in a 'sane' world. A postmodern work of fiction allows for the shifting and changing of reality, thus giving the audience an alternate reality to compare to the perceived reality outside the work. To this end, postmodernism employs the simulacrum to blot out reality and insert a fabricated concept in its place. In a passage involving Winston and O'Brien from George Orwell's 1984, we witness part of the process of such a replacement of a simulacra-filled world for conventional reality. Winston's forced acceptance of the simulacra in place of reality leaves him quite unable to question the power of the state. The replacement of reality by the Party's simulacra in 1984 illustrates the flexibility of reality in the use of creating simulacra to support the apparently illogical, contradictory world of Big Brother ideology.

Before examining the replacement of reality with the simulacrum, one might first examine the idea of reality itself. Reality, as explained by Orwell's 1984 character O'Brien, "exists within the human mind, and nowhere else" (Orwell 205). What the human mind sees, it absorbs as truth. The novel's protagonist, Winston, believes "that reality is something objective, external, existing in its own right...that the nature of reality is self-evident" (Orwell 205). He sees reality as bigger than life, untouchable by any one person or the power-hungry group mind of the Party. Winston contends that what is, is. None of the state's lies and deceptions could change any part of reality, although the state could, and did, obscure the truth of reality for its purposes. O'Brien tells Winston that he is mistaken in this idea of reality. In a reeducation session, O'Brien challenges Winston's belief, telling him "reality is not external" (Orwell 205). He claims that it is only existent within the mind. In other words, "it's all in your head." O'Brien essentially says that the outside world does not contain anything real until the mind perceives it, and the mind should not perceive it until given permission by the Party. What the mind believes to be true, to be real, affects the world outside of that mind. As an introduction to this idea, O'Brien tries to convince Winston he sees five fingers, when his senses, conscious to a reality [idiom] independent of Big Brother, report only four. The audience finds that a person could actually see five fingers instead of four if the person's reality allows for the possibility and existence of such things. Winston himself, his sense of an external reality dulled by pain and drugs, sees the five fingers instead of four (Orwell 213). For a moment, he shares the reality of the Party. He felt a "luminous certainty" (Orwell 213) and briefly absorbed the Party ideology before "everything was normal again" (Orwell 213). After a few more "teaching" sessions, Winston let go of his earlier concept of independent, external reality and willingly embraced the structured reality incorporating the Party's simulacra. The Party replaced the reality of the physical world with the reality of dictated thought--the real replaced by the simulacrum.

The simulacra constructed by the Party serves to enforce, and reinforce the supremacy of the Party. A simulacrum, as explained by Jean Baudrillard, is a matter of "substituting the signs of the real for the real" (Baudrillard 2). For the Party, this means constructing for the citizens of Oceania every aspect of existence, from entertainment to occupation to the very language they speak, and replacing inconvenient concepts with safer, standardized simulacra. Big Brother himself is a simulacrum, the idea and image of a leader in place of a flesh and blood person, given to the people as a symbol of the Party. [Excellent] Winston asks if Big Brother exists (Orwell 214). O'Brien answers "of course he exists" (Orwell 214). Though Big Brother cannot be touched or seen by the physical senses, he exists because he is created "within the human mind" (Orwell 205) of the Party's reality. That is, he exists because the Party says he exists. His corporeal existence is irrelevant because Big Brother is important in idea form. The Big Brother simulacrum fits in neatly to plug the space vacated for it by reality: an operation of deterring every real process via its operational double, a programmatic, metastable, perfectly descriptive machine that offers all the signs of the real and