Comparing Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four And Life Is Beautiful
957 Words4 Pages
Reinforcing the central ideas within their texts, setting is used in both George Orwell’s novel Nineteen Eighty-Four (1984) and Robert Benigni’s film Life is Beautiful. Deceptive trickery, freedom or lack of it, and unconditional love are portrayed through various literary and film techniques, enabling setting to allow the audience to understand these major themes.
Setting reinforces the mutually shared central idea of deception in both texts, through the inclusion of contradictory establishments. In the novel 1984, the four Party Ministries of Truth, Peace, Love, and Plenty reveal contradictory elements. The Ministry of Plenty insinuates that endless supplies of essentials for the population are confined within their building; however this is deceitful as they ration the food supply, maintaining starvation across the population. Further deceit in Orwell’s text is the…show more content… Winston explains, ‘The Party seeks to control the present by mandating the destruction of all records of the past through “memory holes”’, demonstrating the power that ‘Big Brother’ has over society, including past histories. Life is Beautiful, in comparison to 1984, also contains deception reinforced through setting, however, for a more optimistic purpose. In order to preserve Giosue’s childhood innocence, Guido uses deception to make the experience of the concentration camp more positive. The point of view film shots illustrate the dull and controlled setting as viewed by the prisoners, while Guido contrastingly creates a game simulation, communicating to Giosue “The game starts now. You have to score one thousand points. If you do that, you take home a tank with a big gun.” This well-intentioned deception protects Giosue from discovering the