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Masaryk University

Faculty of Arts

Department of English

and American Studies

English Language and Literature

Otakar Svitavský

Post-war England: Alienation and

Totalitarian Threat in the Work of George

Orwell and Pink Floyd

Bachelor’s Diploma Thesis

Supervisor: Stephen Paul Hardy, Ph.D.

2015

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I declare that I have worked on this thesis independently,

using only the primary and secondary sources listed in the bibliography.

…………………………………………….. Author’s signature

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I would like to thank my supervisor, Stephen Paul Hardy Ph.D., for the professional advice he gave me

and for the endless patience he had with me.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

Table of contents ........................................................ Chyba! Záložka není definována.

1 Introduction ............................................................................................................. 5

2 George Orwell and Roger Waters ..................... Chyba! Záložka není definována.

2.1 George Orwell .................................................................................................. 29

2.2 Roger Waters ..................................................................................................... 11

3 Totalitarian threat and post-war Britain in the work of George Orwell ...... Chyba!

Záložka není definována.

3.1 Introduction.................................................. Chyba! Záložka není definována.

3.2 Animal Farm ..................................................................................................... 18

3.3 Nineteen Eighty-Four ....................................................................................... 22

4 Alienation and post-war Britain in the work of Pink Floyd .................................. 29

4.1 Historical context .............................................................................................. 29

4.2 Alienation ......................................................................................................... 32

4.3 Animals ............................................................................................................. 37

4.4 The Wall ............................................................................................................ 47

5 Conclusion ............................................................................................................. 56

6 Works Cited ........................................................................................................... 59

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1 INTRODUCTION

George Orwell and Roger Waters are writers and poets widely known for their socio-

political criticism of modern societies, although it has to be mentioned that George Orwell

expressed his ideas by means of writing novels, both fictional and non-fictional, and critical

essays, while Roger Waters has been writing lyrics with philosophical and socio-political

meanings, where he expressed his thoughts and emotions, to the songs generally composed

by a British rock band called Pink Floyd. One also has to take in account the fact that George

Orwell was born in 1903, eleven years before World War I started, and died two years after

the end of World War II, while Roger Waters belongs to the generation of orphans born

during the war latter mentioned, more precisely in 1943. Orwell thus died, unlike Roger

Waters, before he could experience or witness the socio-political condition of the post-war

Great Britain.

This thesis will mainly focus on a depiction of post-war Britain in the work of George

Orwell and Pink Floyd. More precisely, it will concentrate on investigation of the dystopian

version of British society in the year 1984, as depicted in Orwell’s fictional novel Nineteen

Eighty-Four. In Nineteen Eighty-Four Orwell portrays the possible catastrophic scenario of

totalitarian Britain. On the other hand, Roger Waters experiences the reality of the post-war

Britain from perspective of an orphan, whose father has been killed in the World War II. In

his life he witnesses how the post-war dream, the promise of realization of the welfare state

based on traditional values of freedom, equality and social justice, is breaking down because

of the destructive power of capitalism. The thesis further aims to compare and contrast the

two different versions of the post-war Britain, analysing George Orwell’s dystopian novel

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Nineteen Eighty-Four and the chosen songs from the work of Pink Floyd. It will mainly focus

on alienation and exploitation of an individual human being within both the capitalist and

the totalitarian society.

The second chapter of this thesis examines the life experiences of George Orwell and

Roger Waters. It aims to focus on investigation of how the experiences of both men

influenced their work and shaped their general attitudes towards the world affairs. The third

chapter deals with the depiction of post-war Britain in a dystopian way in the work of

George Orwell. The first part of the third chapter focuses on Orwell’s participation in Spanish

Civil War, as depicted in his autobiographical novel Homage to Catalonia. The second part of

the third chapter concentrates on Animal Farm and the third part finally deals with Nineteen

Eighty-Four. The fourth chapter of the thesis aims to deal with a depiction of post-war

Britain in the work of Pink Floyd. The first part of the chapter focuses on historical context,

the second part deals with the description of different kinds of alienation occurring within

the society of post-war Britain and the last two parts of the chapter concentrate on

investigation of the theme of alienation in more detail.

For the process of investigation it uses George Orwell’s novels and essays together

with the lyrics of Pink Floyd as primary sources. In order to examine the historical context of

post-war Britain it uses mainly the historical book The Peoples of the British Isles III written

by Thomas Heyck. The findings are subsequently compared to conclusions drawn from a

socio-political study by Stuart Hall and Tony Jefferson, Resistance through Rituals: Youth

Subcultures in Post-War Britain. In order to arrive at final conclusions of this thesis, it uses a

principal thought of Russell’s essay A Free Man’s Worship.

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2 GEORGE ORWELL AND ROGER WATERS

George Orwell and Roger Waters have a lot in common in terms of a political thinking

and a general attitude towards the world affairs. It can be stated that they cared for the

same values of social justice, freedom and equality, while at the same time they strictly

opposed any form of oppression. This chapter of the thesis aims to examine the lives of

George Orwell and Roger Waters, particularly how certain life experiences of both men

influenced their work and general attitudes to world affairs.

2.1 George Orwell

George Orwell, by his own name Eric Arthur Blair, was born in 1903 in British India to

Richard Blair and his wife Ida Blair. Once he was five years old, his mother took him to

England, where he was brought up separated from his father. In 1911 the young Eric Blair

was sent to St. Cyprian’s boarding school, where for the first time he faced the injustices and

cruelties of the world he grew up in.

In his essay Such, Such Were the Joys Orwell describes his life in St. Cyprian’s as rather

unhappy. First, he was frequently beaten by his schoolmasters for “bed-wetting”. (Orwell

379) He describes that he hated his schoolmasters, but at the same time he was supposed to

be grateful for their beatings and reprimanding as he was constantly told that they do it to

him for his own benefit, in order to correct him. The young Eric Blair knew very well that

bed-wetting was demonstration of his own subconscious frame of mind and that he could

not possibly prevent it. Nevertheless, by means of constant beatings and reproaches of his

schoolmasters he was indoctrinated a feeling of guilt. The result of these contradictions was

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“a sort of guilt-stricken loyalty” (Orwell 400) he used to demonstrate for the sake of

appearance, but at the same time he felt, deep in his heart, pure hatred.

Moreover, in St. Cyprian’s Orwell first faced the hierarchical structure of the society

as the boys descending from rich families were not regularly beaten, but to the contrary,

they were often demonstrated as shining examples to others. As a result of this favouritism

more powerful boys usually bullied the other, not so lucky ones.

“That was the pattern of school life – a continuous triumph of the strong over the weak.

Virtue consisted in winning: it consisted in being bigger, stronger, handsomer, richer, more

popular, more elegant, more unscrupulous than other people – in dominating them, bullying

them, making them suffer pain, making them look foolish, getting the better of them in every

way. Life was hierarchical and whatever happened was right. There were the strong, who

deserved to win and always did win, and there were the weak, who deserved to lose and

always did lose, everlastingly.” (Orwell 411)

The years spent in St. Cyprian’s thus meant Orwell’s entrance ticket to reality. It can be

argued that this life experience laid the foundations of Orwell’s tendency to express his

strong disagreement with injustice, inequality and power worship. These inclinations of

Orwell to write and fight for “common decency”, which was the way he called his ideal, were

deepened later in his life.

For instance, George Orwell soon became aware of the oppressive power of

imperialism, British imperialism in particular, as he spent a lot of time working for the Indian

imperial police in Burma. In his essay Shooting an Elephant Orwell writes that once he had

become a police officer, he immediately resolved that “imperialism was an evil thing”, for he

could see “the dirty work of Empire at close quarters”. He describes the feelings of guiltiness

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he experienced as he could observe the wretched condition of the oppressed Burmese and

admits that all the time he was secretly against the British. (Orwell 91-92) Moreover, while

ordered to shoot a wild elephant, Orwell realized fully the destructive power of imperialism

and its meaninglessness.

“Here was I, the white man with his gun, standing in front of the unarmed native crowd –

seemingly the leading actor of the piece; but in reality I was only an absurd puppet pushed to

and fro by the will of those yellow faces behind. I perceived in this moment that when the

white man turns tyrant it is his own freedom that he destroys.” (Orwell 95)

Later in his life, Orwell used to spend a lot of time among the poor. In his novels Down and

Out in Paris and London (1933) and The Road to Wigan Pier (1937) he examines the life and

working conditions of poor people; in the latter, for example, of the coal miners in the

northern England. All these direct experiences of poverty and almost unbearable life and

working conditions described in the mentioned novels led Orwell to his strong social

sentiment. In his essay The Road to 1984 George Kateb states that for Orwell socialism

meant “the abolition of extreme suffering (...) suffering brought about by want, class-feeling,

and stultifying labor.” (Kateb 571)

In terms of political attitude, George Orwell was thus socialist. He perceived socialism

as a way leading to more egalitarian society, or else, way to erase the most obvious signs of

poverty and inequality. In Lion and Unicorn Orwell states the necessary steps leading to

possible establishment of such a society.

(…) it has become clear in the last few years that "common ownership of the means of

production" is not in itself a sufficient definition of Socialism. One must also add the

following: approximate equality of incomes (it need be no more than approximate), political

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democracy, and abolition of all hereditary privilege, especially in education. These are simply

the necessary safeguards against the reappearance of a class system. (Orwell in Lion and

Unicorn)

This certain Orwell’s approach to socialism was also shaped during his life by life experiences

from Spanish Civil War and by an example of how socialism can go wrong, provided by the

Russian Revolution. It is important to take in account that Orwell very soon become aware of

the fact that the totalitarian regime established in Soviet Russia has nothing to do with

Socialism, as perceived by him. As V. C. Letemendia states in his essay Revolution on Animal

Farm: Orwell’s Neglected Commentary:

“The real problem, in his view, was that Western Europeans could not see the truth about

the Soviet regime, still considering it a Socialist country.” (Letemendia 131)

George Orwell was a supporter of democratic socialism, politically speaking, nonetheless,

one has to bear in mind that at the same time he strongly opposed any form of

totalitarianism.

“The Spanish war and other events in 1936-37 turned the scale and thereafter I knew where

I stood. Every line of serious work that I have written since 1936 has been written, directly or

indirectly, against totalitarianism and for democratic socialism, as I understand it.“ (Orwell in

Why I Write)

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2.2 Roger Waters

George Roger Waters was born in 1943 in Great Bookham – a village near London –

to Eric Fletcher Waters and his Scottish wife Mary. According to Dave Thompson, the author

of Waters’ biography Roger Waters: The Man Behind the Wall, both Eric and Mary were

teachers; however, Roger never had an opportunity to get to know his father as he

voluntarily enlisted in the army and subsequently died in the Battle of Anzio on February 18,

1944. His father’s early death deeply affected Roger’s future life and influenced his poetry.

In particular songs, as for example ‘When the Triggers Broke Free’, he directly

addresses his father’s death. In other songs, as for instance ‘Bring the Boys Back Home’, he

pleads the war commanders to bring the absent fathers back to their children and wives. By

all means, as Dave Thompson says in the biography, Roger “would not even have memories

of his father. But he would have memories of his absence.” (Thompson 10)

Roger Waters was thus raised by his mother Mary, who cared for him very much. This

protective instinct of his mother was even intensified by the fear resulting from the war:

“(...) the mournful wail of air-raid sirens that signalled another night cowering in the bomb

shelter, the way his mother would clutch her children to her body, tight and tearful through

the nights that never seemed to end – these things became a part of who he was, a part of

his emotional DNA, and all the more powerful because of his youth.” ( Thompson 11)

Once he started to attend Cambridgeshire High School, Roger Waters also had to face for the

first time its oppressive power directed at the children through “the Victorian dictate that

children should be seen and not heard”. (Thompson 15) In other words, as Thompson

explains in the biography, “education was less a matter of being taught than being cowed

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into submission with sarcasm and blunt put-downs.” (Thompson 15) The years spent at high

school rather encouraged Roger Waters to adopt a rebellious spirit, instead of leading him to

conformity. At that time he decided to express himself through music, although he started to

write lyrics later in his life.

In spite of Roger Waters’ determination to resist the oppressive forces of capitalist

culture developing and flourishing in the post-war Britain, he also became a victim of the

same indoctrinated ideology of affluence, investigated further in this thesis, because of the

involvement of Pink Floyd in with show-business. As a result Pink Floyd were transformed to

idols for young people and thus became alienated from their audiences. As Thompson

writes:

“For those people, the band’s music was nothing more than a succession of sweet sounds

and sweeping stereo effects with which to illuminate and enliven another night spent

huddled around the bong.” (Thompson 4)

The same process also caused their self-alienation as they were no more the authentic Pink

Floyd, but the puppets in the hands of music industry and recording companies. On the

other hand, this Waters’ self-reflexion influenced further his lyrics, where he depicts mostly

his criticism of capitalist culture and the processes of conformity it directs at the masses.

In terms of political attitude, Roger Waters was a supporter of welfare state and the

reforms apparently leading to an establishment of more egalitarian society. In 1980s he

critically responded to the neo-liberal politics of Margaret Thatcher, who became a Prime

Minister in 1979. First, besides other things resulting from his personal experience with war,

he criticised her military solution to the conflict over Falkland Islands. According to

Thompson, Roger Waters suggested that the conflict should have been resolved in a

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diplomatic way. In addition, he generally disagreed with her politics of neo-liberalism. In his

point of view it violated the principles of a welfare state – the effort of creating more decent

and egalitarian society – and thus caused the post-war dream to sink into oblivion. In The

Final Cut (1983) Waters depicted his own disillusionment from the condition of British

society in 1980s. As quoted in his biography, Waters explained:

“The Final Cut was about how, with the introduction of the Welfare State, we felt we were

moving forward into something resembling a liberal country, where we would all look after

one another and slowly that dream had become eroded – maybe people discovered that was

not what we wanted after all. There’s a selfishness in us, and a lack of community spirit that

led us, by the ‘80s, into a doctrine of pragmatic, radical, Reaganite-Thatcherite economic

system.” (Waters quoted in Roger Waters: The Man Behind the Wall: 51)

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3 TOTALITARIAN THREAT AND POST WAR BRITAIN IN THE WORK

OF GEORGE ORWELL

3.1 Introduction

The following chapter will deal with a depiction of post-war England in the work of

George Orwell. It is important to stress out that George Orwell died in 1950 and thus never

experienced the real historical development of post-war England. Nevertheless, proceeding

from his personal experience he gained in Spanish Civil War and the catastrophic result of

the Russian Revolution, he wrote a dystopian novel Nineteen Eighty-Four, in which he

portrayed Britain as a supreme form totalitarian state. The first two subchapters of this

chapter will describe in more details the events leading him to such a pessimistic vision, or

rather warning about a possible future.

George Orwell is besides other things writer of dystopian fiction. In 1984: Oceania as

an Ideal State Gorman Beauchamp argues:

“Each dystopian writer selects the elements in his own world that seem to pose the greatest

threat to liberty and dignity and then extrapolates these factors into a future where they are

completely triumphant.” (Beauchamp 4)

According to Beauchamp Orwell thus perceives his novel to be a warning against the

possible threat of realization of an ideal totalitarian society in a near future. Orwell himself

wrote following of Nineteen Eighty-Four in his letter to Francis A. Henson:

“I do not believe that the kind of society I describe necessarily will arrive, but I believe

(allowing of course for the fact that the book is a satire) that something like it could arrive. I

believe also that totalitarian ideas have taken root in the minds of intellectuals everywhere,

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and I have tried to draw these ideas out to their logical consequences.” (Orwell in The

Collected Essays, Journalism and Letters of George Orwell Volume 4 In Front of Your Nose:

1945-1950: 564)

On the one hand, at the end of the Second World War Orwell held the view that the war

itself, and the fact that it has been won by the allies, would serve as a catalyst of a revolution

in England, possibly leading to the establishment of democratic socialism in his country.

"War is the greatest of all agents of change. It speeds up all processes, wipes out minor

distinctions, brings realities to the surface. Above all, war brings it home to the individual

that he is not altogether an individual. . . . If it can be made clear that defeating Hitler means

wiping out class privilege, the great mass of middling people . . . will probably be on our side"

(Orwell in Lion and Unicorn)

The events in the Spanish Civil War described in his novel Homage to Catalonia and his essay

Looking Back on the Spanish War, made George Orwell start to be aware of the emerging

threat of totalitarianism, hiding under the veil of Russian communism.

In Homage to Catalonia he describes both the revolutionary, almost romantic,

enthusiasm he felt at the beginning of his participation in a Spanish War, and the bitter

disappointment, resulting from the betrayal of the Spanish Communist Party controlled by

Russia, at the end.

The first chapters of the book tell of his arrival to Barcelona, where he immediately

became infected with the revolutionary atmosphere in the streets. According to Orwell

Spanish people seemed really not only to believe in the revolution and the better future of

equality and freedom, but they even looked like they truly cared for their ideals. He

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describes the friendly, truly egalitarian atmosphere he felt in the streets. His feelings of

astonishment grew even stronger, when he found himself within the militia.

“There is a sense in which it would be true to say that one was experiencing the foretaste of

Socialism, by which I mean that the prevailing mental atmosphere was that of Socialism.

Many of the normal motives of civilised life-snobbishness, money-grubbing, fear of the boss,

etc.-had simply ceased to exist. The ordinary class-division of society had disappeared to an

extend that is almost unthinkable in the money-tainted air of England.” (Orwell 83)

Nevertheless, it is important to mention that while he was fighting for the “common

decency”, which was Orwell’s response to the question, why he had come to Spain, he found

himself very confused about the political background of the revolution. It can be argued that

Orwell failed to realize the true state of affairs because of the astonishment he experienced

in the militia.

“One had been in a community where hope was more normal than apathy or cynicism,

where the word ‘comrade’ stood for comradeship and not, as in most countries, for humbug.

One had breathed the air of equality.” (Orwell 83)

However, Orwell soon became convinced that this state of affairs happened to be reality

only in the trenches. After his return to Barcelona he discovered that the revolutionary

atmosphere one could feel in the air at the beginning had ceased to exist. Moreover, he was

bewildered from the fact that the different socialist political parties and militia turned

against each other. Some of them, like for example the militia Orwell served in, had been

even proclaimed by the communist government as illegal, accused from a crime of being

Fascist, and its members were later prosecuted and put on a trial, despite that in reality they

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had been fighting all the time against Fascism. In Orwell's Image of the Man of Good Will

Thompson writes:

“For here in Spain of the 1930’s is a classic example of what in our time has become

commonplace: the revolution betrayed. Here in a revolution advertised as a civil war Orwell

finds images of the man of good will amid treachery and deceit (…) (Thompson 238)

Orwell himself had to escape from Spain in order not to end in jail like some of his fellow

militiamen. This unexpected change in development of affairs meant the turning point in

Orwell’s political thinking. More specifically, he started to be sceptical about a future

development of democratic socialism.

“Until recently the full implications of this were not foreseen, because it was generally

imagined that socialism could preserve and even enlarge the atmosphere of liberalism. It is

now beginning to be realised how false the idea was. Almost certainly we are moving into an

age of totalitarian dictatorships.” (Orwell in Inside the Whale)

In this extract from his essay Inside the Whale George Orwell expresses his doubts about

realization of free society based on democratic socialism. The betrayal of the Spanish

Communist Party was one of the crucial events leading to Orwell’s scepticism. In his essay

Orwell’s Image of the Man of Good Will Frank H. Thompson, Jr. suggests that “from the

reality of the Spanish Civil War to the unreality of Oceania seems a distressingly short step.”

(Thompson 240) The following subchapters thus aim to deal with an analysis of Orwell’s

dystopian novels Animal Farm and Nineteen Eighty-Four.

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3.2 Animal Farm

Animal Farm is an allegorical novel portraying the Russian Revolution and the events

following it. Orwell uses animal characters to represent certain classes in Russian society and

by means of writing a fable he describes vain effort of Russian society to become egalitarian

and classless. The pigs of course represent the cleverest of all animals. They use their

intellect to illuminate the other animals about their oppression and exploitation, thus

leading them to successful rebellion against their human oppressor. Nevertheless, once the

human race has been overthrown, the pigs realize their own power and happen to misuse it

to oppress and exploit the other animals.

It can be argued that the novel depicts not only Russian Revolution and its failure, but

it explores generally the assumption that human race tends to divide its society into

different casts or classes, depending on which role does particular class have or what

relationship does it have towards the other classes. Or else, as Letemendia suggests in his

essay, Orwell is expressing in Animal Farm his “own disillusion with any form of

revolutionary political change.” (Letemendia 127)

According to George Orwell revolution means only the act of overthrowing of the

ruling class by the middle class, which subsequently become the ruling class. In other words,

revolution in this sense means nothing else than a handover of power.

Throughout history, one revolution after another . . . has simply led to a change of masters,

because no serious effort has been made to eliminate the power instinct.... In the minds of

active revolutionaries, at any rate the ones who 'got there', the longing for a just society has

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always been fatally mixed up with the intention to secure power for themselves. (Orwell in

Catastrophic Gradualism)

This statement expresses Orwell’s reflection upon Russian Revolution as well as the novel.

Once the seven commandments are established on Animal farm, it seems that by their

means the animals will be able to live in mutual care and equality. Nonetheless, at the same

time they find out that most of the animals do not posses enough mental capacity for their

understanding, some of them even for remembering them. The pigs, representing the ruling

class in the established classless society, soon discover that they can easily misuse the

unconscious state of the other animals for their oppression and exploitation. Snowball is the

only pig lacking “the power instinct” and thus making efforts to educate the other animals

for their well-being. As a consequence of this attitude he is subsequently exiled by Napoleon

and his dogs as he constitutes the last obstacle for the other pigs to overcome in order to

secure total control over the rest of the animals.

It is obvious that the motive of pigs for usurping power lies in “the power instinct”

mentioned by Orwell in his essay cited above. One can argue that they just intend to eat

more apples, drink all the milk and sleep in beds. However, it would not explain why they

just do not share their comfortable lives with the other animals that happen to maintain all

the physical work and thus create the commodities for the pigs. The only possible

explanation for this behaviour of pigs is that they intentionally aim to restore the order of

class divisions. In other words, they just intend to be “more equal than the others”. (Orwell)

It is not difficult for the pigs to manipulate and control the weak-minded animals like

sheep and horses. They use the notorious methods of arousing the animals’ fear and

subsequently claiming that the pigs, as the cleverest and the most powerful, are the ones

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protecting them against their fictitious enemies. This powerful instrument of oppression is

depicted in the novel by means of the pigs claiming constantly that the disobedience of their

orders would cause “Mr Jones to come back”. (Orwell)

The purpose of the novel Animal Farm is thus to portray Russian Revolution in

satirical way and illuminate the real consequences of the revolution leading just to another

form of tyranny. In the essay Catastrophic Gradualism George Orwell states that “no change

in the structure of society can by itself effect a real improvement.” (Orwell) He further

argues that in order to establish a better society based on mutual care and equality people

need to “eliminate the power instinct”. (Orwell) It is obvious that if the pigs lacked the

mentioned “power instinct”, they would probably not misuse the other animals’ insufficient

mental capacity in order to oppress them, but to the contrary, they would teach them how

to think for themselves in attempt to lead them to real progress.

In this way George Orwell indirectly follows the British philosopher Bertrand Russell,

particularly his thoughts depicted in the essay A Free Man’s Worship. Russell writes in his

essay that once upon a time the cruel laws of Nature taught man to worship Power, without

questioning its true value. He argues that such behaviour of man is absurd and enslaves him

in a circle of pain.

“The religion of Moloch--as such creeds may be generically called--is in essence the cringing

submission of the slave, who dare not, even in his heart, allow the thought that his master

deserves no adulation. Since the independence of ideals is not yet acknowledged, Power may

be freely worshipped, and receive an unlimited respect, despite its wanton infliction of pain.”

(Russell 2)

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Russel further suggests that people worshiping power, even though they may realize the

senselessness of their doing, often argue that power was created together with universe in

order to be worshipped. In other words, people tend to worship blindly the factual

arrangement of the world without realizing that something might be wrong with facts.

Finally, Russel comes to a following conclusion:

“The worship of Force, to which Carlyle and Nietzsche and the creed of Militarism have

accustomed us, is the result of failure to maintain our own ideals against a hostile universe: it

is itself a prostrate submission to evil, a sacrifice of our best to Moloch. If strength indeed is

to be respected, let us respect rather the strength of those who refuse that false ‘recognition

of facts’ which fails to recognize that facts are often bad.” (Russel 3)

George Orwell thus indirectly suggests in the two dystopian novels, Animal Farm and

Nineteen Eighty-Four, that people still tend to respect mentioned “Power” more than some

more noble ideals, and thus any revolution can hardly lead to success. In Nineteen Eighty-

Four Orwell further explores this theme.

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3.3 Nineteen Eighty-Four

Nineteen Eighty-Four is a dystopian novel depicting Orwell’s vision of post-war

England turned to totalitarian super state called Oceania. As a title suggests, the plot is set

up to a near future, considering the fact that this novel was written in 1949. The Orwellian

world of 1984 consists of three super states leading permanent war with each other.

Oceania is a supreme form of totalitarian state, controlling its society by means of advanced

technology, induced fear, physical pain and encouraged hatred.

It is meant by the term “supreme” that the ruling class is able to control the members

of its society in such a powerful way, that the possibility of being overthrown by middle class

is excluded. In other words, the power instinct, together with technological progress, can

lead the ruling class to the permanent possession of power. The Party holding power is able

to achieve it by means of the tools mentioned in the previous paragraph, thus converting

individual human beings into the faceless crowd mindlessly worshipping imaginary moloch

created by the Party and unquestioningly accepting indoctrinated falsehood as reality.

Winston Smith, the main protagonist of the novel, lives in a state of complete

spiritual isolation from the rest of the society, and yet he is a part of it. Deep inside of his

mind, he is convinced about an evil committed by the ruling class upon humanity, and yet he

is a member of the Party participating in a process of truth distortion. He can achieve this

duality by means of so called “doublethink”. Everybody living within the society of Oceania

needs to adopt this ability in order to blend in with it.

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To know and not to know, to be conscious of complete truthfulness while telling carefully

constructed lies, to hold simultaneously two opinions which cancelled out, knowing them to

be contradictory and believing in both of them (...) (Orwell 44)

The basic principles of the Party indoctrinated in the whole society of Oceania are based on

such a contradictory duality of human personality. Even though Winston Smith knows that

they are absolutely wrong; for war is not peace, slavery is not freedom and ignorance is not

strength, he cannot show his strong disagreement and for the sake of appearance he needs

to demonstrate the contrary.

In the first chapter the third person narrator describes the city where Winston lives

as a cold and grey place. The most colourful things in the entire city are the posters pasted

behind every corner portraying powerful looking face of moloch and claiming in capitals:

“BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING YOU”. (Orwell 4) Together with telescreens and bugging

devices the posters create paranoid sensation of being observed inside of everybody

including Winston. Orwell uses telescreens, the devices capable of both transmission and

receiving, as a depiction of how technological progress can be misused for the purposes of

civil control. In the world of Nineteen Eighty-Four they are placed on every wall and usually

broadcast the distorted news about economical improvement of Oceania or phoney

information about a victorious battle in an everlasting war. Moreover, they cannot be

switched off and by their means the Party is able to hear every word uttered in every single

conversation. Additionally, one is obliged to have a telescreen installed in one’s house.

The advanced technology thus causes people to live in a state of complete alienation

as they are forced to hide their true feelings, in the case they still possess some. They cannot

communicate them to nobody, because in most of the cases the person turns to be secret

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informer of the Party. Even if they are absolutely certain that they are talking to a friend, the

telescreens are everywhere and hear everything.

“You had to live—did live, from habit that became instinct—in the assumption that every

sound you made was overheard, and, except in darkness, every movement scrutinized.”

(Orwell 5)

Deep inside of his mind Winston is well familiar with the doctrines of the Party, because as a

representative of the middle class he happens to be its inferior member. As a result of such a

“privilege” he is obliged to attend occasions like for example “Two Minutes Hate” (Orwell

18-19) and together with the other members participate in expressing pure hatred aimed at

an imaginary enemy of the Party. Even though deep inside of his mind he is horrified by such

a performance of deliberately aroused hate and subsequent irrational worship of Big

Brother, the moloch created by the Party, he needs to hide his own feelings and by means of

“doublethink” act like the others.

“To dissemble your feelings, to control your face, to do what everyone else was

doing, was an instinctive reaction.” (Orwell 22)

In other words, Winston needed to blend in with the crowd, because if he expressed himself

in different way, he would be proclaimed by the Party as a traitor and subsequently

“VAPORIZED”. (Orwell 24) Nevertheless, throughout the novel he manages to see through

the entire disguise created by the Party.

Like in Animal Farm, the ruling class in Nineteen Eighty-Four controls its inferior

beings by means of distorting universal truth, thus creating falsehood and this falsehood is

subsequently indoctrinated in the heads of the mentioned inferior beings, so it becomes

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reality. The universal truth still exists as it is unchangeable; however, the Party in Nineteen

Eighty-Four has enough power to make people forget it and replace it efficiently with the

indoctrinated falsehood, which is modified according to the Party’s needs. The ones

stubbornly loyal to universal truth, like the protagonist of the novel, are broken by means of

unbearable physical torture. For example, Winston Smith is by means of physical and

psychological pain slowly persuaded that 2+2=5. The process of his “vaporization” is

completed once he betrays his only real friend Julia because of the impossibility of bearing

the mentioned torture. At the end of the process he is completely alienated from himself

and ends like a soulless servant of the Party.

The falsehood created by the Party and indoctrinated in the whole society is

composed of several parts. First, the servants of the ruling class are infiltrated by a notion

that “WAR IS PEACE”. (Orwell 6) In other words, they are told that the neighbour country of

Oceania is their enemy and that Big Brother is the only one, who can protect them against

the enemy. The citizens of Oceania are thus made to love and worship moloch, because he is

told to be their protector. Winston soon discovers that in reality the war does not exist and

their enemy is imaginary.

“The war, therefore, if we judge it by the standards of previous wars, is merely an imposture.

It is like the battles between certain ruminant animals whose horns are set at such an angle

that they are incapable of hurting one another. But though it is unreal it is not meaningless. It

eats up the surplus of consumable goods, and it helps to preserve the special mental

atmosphere that a hierarchical society needs.” (Orwell 251)

In other words, the imaginary war serves the ruling class as a tool to keep the citizens of

Oceania in a state of constant fear and obedience. It also encourages the proletariat to work

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constantly in order to produce more materials and thus causes the workers not to dedicate

their time to activities that would possibly lead to their higher intellect. In short, war is a

powerful tool for ruling classes to maintain control over the masses.

Another part of the falsehood is created by means of constant modifications of

history. For example, the citizens of Oceania are being continually told that before the final

revolution, having led to takeover of power by the actual ruling class, the living conditions

were much worse than the actual ones. The truth is of course the contrary; nevertheless,

people are forced by the Party not to remember the real history and to accept the one

modified by the Party. In the case the disobedient ones fail to forget the real history, they

need to use “doublethink” in order not to be “vaporized”.

“And if all others accepted the lie which the Party imposed— if all records told the same

tale—then the lie passed into history and became truth. ‘Who controls the past,’ ran the

Party slogan, ‘controls the future: who controls the present controls the past.’” (Orwell 44)

The modified history thus becomes reality in the public sense and the mindless masses live

in a belief that their actual life conditions are good, or even better than before. In short, the

modifications of history make them more obedient.

Furthermore, the ruling class claims the property collective. Nevertheless, the

process of dispossession of the former property holders established the ruling class as the

real owners of collective property. Additionally, before the final revolution the ruling class

was in fact middle class intending to overthrow the former masters and for its purposes the

working class was fooled into believing that the ones leading revolution aim to establish

egalitarian society.

27

“In the past the Middle had made revolutions under the banner of equality, and then

had established a fresh tyranny as soon as the old one was overthrown.” (Orwell 256)

In short, according to Orwell, all the societies proclaimed by the ruling class to be based on

equality and justice, were in reality aimed intentionally to be based on “UNfreedom and

INequality”. (Orwell 256) The only difference between the perfect totalitarian society of

Oceania and the former totalitarian regimes, like for example Soviet Russia or Nazi Germany,

lies in the fact that the ruling class, by means of an advanced technology and indoctrinated

“doublethink”, remains in its position on the top of the social hierarchy.

The novel Nineteen Eighty-Four thus further explores the theme already touched on

in Animal Farm, and that is the inability of human race to create more egalitarian society,

where empathy would be more valuable than power worship. The reason for the incapability

of man to make this world better, according to both Orwell and Russell, is the fact that the

power instinct has not been removed from his heart yet. By means of Nineteen Eighty-Four

Orwell also expresses his worries about possible realization of perfect totalitarian society in

the post-war Britain, or in general, the possibility of reign of totalitarian regimes in the

modern world.

In his essay Orwell in 1984 John Atkins states that “1984 is unrealistically pessimistic.”

(Atkins 41) He further argues that his vision was realised only partially. On the one hand the

condition of people depended on the political decisions of the two superpowers. But on the

other hand, the ruling class of British society in 1984 does not use “fear and oppression to

maintain its power” (Atkins 42) over the rest of the society. Additionally, Atkins argues that

modern society tends to be controlled rather by means of pleasure than by means of pain.

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Christopher Lash in essence agrees with Atkins. On the one hand, he states in his

essay 1984: Are We There? that Orwell’s prophecy about 1984 has partially come true, at

least in the terms of technological improvement and its manipulative influence on society.

(Lash 51) He further argues that society can be controlled by means of terror depicted in

Nineteen Eighty-Four as effectively as by means of affluence.

“If this puts the contrast too sharply, it still alerts us to the danger that individual

autonomy, as Orwell called it somewhat misleadingly- that is, the capacity for moral

judgment and self-regulation, the capacity for self-sacrifice, the willingness to accept the

consequences of one's actions- can be weakened as effectively by the empty freedom of

consumerism as by dictatorship and regimentation.” (Lash 61-62)

The next chapter of this thesis aims to investigate the real conditions of post-war Britain as

depicted in the work of Pink Floyd.

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4 ALIENATION AND POST WAR BRITAIN IN THE WORK OF PINK

FLOYD

This chapter of the thesis aims to examine the depiction of capitalism and post-war

Britain in the work of Pink Floyd. More precisely, it focuses on investigation of the alienating

effect that the dark aspects of capitalism has upon an individual human being. This theme is

already touched in the lyrics of albums Dark Side of the Moon (1973) and it is further

explored in Animals (1975) and The Wall (1981). But before the thesis approaches to the

analysis of the particular songs and concepts, it is important to look upon the historical

context of post-war Britain.

4.1 Historical Context

In the book The Peoples of the British Isles III Thomas Heyck writes that post-war

period, more precisely the period between 1945 and 1970, is characterized by three themes:

“the creation of a welfare state, the faltering performance of British economy and the

decline of Britain from the status of a great world ad imperial power” (...) (Heyck 217).

According to Heyck, the political consensus of Labour and Conservative party involved “a

commitment to full employment, a comprehensive system of state-sponsored social welfare,

nationalization of certain industries, and governmental management of economic demand

by Keynesian techniques.” (Heyck 217)

The common efforts of the both political parties, together with a help of Marshall

Plan, led to “a period of consumer affluence.” (Heyck 217) Heyck suggests that the positive

features of the period were “full employment, fairly strong economic growth, and a

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consumer boom”. (Heyck 225-226) He further states that “by the early 1970s half of British

households owned their own homes, half had cars, two-thirds had washing machines, three-

fourths had refrigerators, and nine-tenths had televisions”. (Heyck 226)

Heyck thus provides reader with a testimony about general material welfare as even

a worker with lower salary could afford the commodities mentioned above plus “three

weeks holiday a week”. (Heyck 229) He also writes about the apparent disappearance of

differences between working and middle class.

“Working class and middle class people became more alike in material comforts and leisure

activities. (...) many working-class families could have homes, cars, and holidays. (...) The

distribution of incomes became somewhat less unequal: by one account the richest 1 percent

of the population owned 43 percent of all wealth in 1954 but only 30 percent in 1972.”

(Heyck 229)

However, in the book Resistance through Rituals: Youth Subcultures in Post-War Britain

Stuart Hall and Tony Jefferson argue that the state of affluence had also more negative

impact on the society.

First, they suggest that “this general rise in living standards critically obscured the

fact that the relative positions of the classes had remained virtually unchanged.” (Hall and

Jefferson 13) In other words, despite the fact that for example the factory workers earned

more money, spent more time on holiday, or accumulated more possessions; their spiritual

horizons or leisure activities remained the same. Additionally, the products of their labour

remained alienated from them as the “meritocratic educational system” caused them to

occupy “meaningless, poorly paid and uncreative” jobs. (Hall and Jefferson 18) Moreover,

the “rediscovery of poverty” and “continual, great inequalities of wealth” (Hall and Jefferson

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15) prove the fact that the apparent disappearance of class differences was merely an

illusion. As Heyck admits, “the welfare state fell short of creating a classless society”. (Heyck

223)

Second, the period of affluence, leading to the rise of consumerism, together with

development of mass media become also means of oppression and exploitation, mainly of

the young generation. In other words, according to Hall and Jefferson “more and more

people were being submitted (and the passivity implied was not accidental) to ever-more

uniform cultural processes.” (Hall and Jefferson 11) In order to prove this fact and examine

the mentioned processes in more detail, the study of Hall and Jefferson focuses mainly on

youth subcultures and the ways of their expression and response. The result of their

investigation is a thesis that the youth subcultures tend to express themselves, besides other

ways, by means of creating a particular style, which is identified by wearing particular

clothes, bracelets, etc. The study points out that such tendency of young people was easy to

exploit by the dominant capitalist society.

In many aspects, the revolutions in ‘life style’ were a pure, simple, raging, commercial

success. (...) Much the same could be said of the music and leisure business, despite the

efforts to create real, alternative, networks of distribution.” (Hall and Jefferson 40)

The study concludes, with regard to the negative aspects of affluent society of post-war

Britain, that affluence ironically caused the working classes to remain fixed into their

“hegemonic order”. (Hall and Jefferson 23) More specifically, the dominating capitalistic

culture converts affluence to an ideology, which is subsequently promoted by means of mass

media, and thus indirectly forces the masses “to conform to its interests”. (Hall and Jefferson

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23) In other words, they are imprisoned in a never-ending circle of consumption and they

cannot complain as they have it so good.

(...) This involves the exercise of a special kind of power—the power to frame alternatives

and contain opportunities, to win and shape consent, so that the granting of legitimacy to the

dominant classes appears not only ‘spontaneous’ but natural and normal. (Hall and Jefferson

23)

Hall and Jefferson thus demonstrate the dark aspects of post-war affluence period in British

history. On the one hand, the welfare state together with the other reforms implemented by

Labour party “have achieved a comparatively decent, civil, humane society”. (Heyck 217) But

on the other hand, the rise in uncontrolled consumerism together with development of mass

media led the masses to another kind of conformity and emotional oppression. The

following pages of this thesis aim to examine further the processes of conformity and

demonstrate how the dark aspects of capitalist culture are depicted in the work of Pink

Floyd.

4.2 Alienation

“Strangers passing in the street

By chance two separate glances meet

And I am you and what I see is me.” (Waters in ‘Echoes’)

The following subchapter introduces and defines the theme of alienation and

provides some examples of how different forms of alienation occur within modern society. It

has already been stated in this thesis that even though the society of post-war Britain

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remained democratic, the dominant capitalist culture subdued the masses to new “uniform

processes”. The following pages aim to investigate those processes in more detail,

particularly how they lead to conformity of an individual and one’s alienation, by means of

interpreting the lyrics of chosen songs written by Roger Waters.

The alienation of human being within modern society is a major theme of most of the

Pink Floyd’s lyrics. In order to examine this complex phenomenon it is important to know

how to define it. In his essay Dragged Down by the Stone: Pink Floyd, Alienation, and the

Pressures of Life David Detmer states that “to be alienated is to be cut off, or estranged,

from something or someone with which one should be connected.” (Detmer 41) David

Detmer further argues that there are several different kinds of alienation, like for example

social alienation, alienation from products of one’s work, alienation from nature and finally,

alienation from oneself.

First, the most common example of estrangement takes place, when one human

being is alienated from other people around him. This kind of estrangement, in its strongest

form, occurs for example in war, where a soldier wearing particular military uniform is

forced not to perceive the other soldier clothed in different colours as human being, but as

an object that is ordered by leading institution to be destroyed. The lyrics of the song Us and

Them by Roger Waters addresses this estrangement caused by uniform, which is the artificial

alienating element created by the military institution, between the soldiers of different

nations fighting against each other for no universal purpose. In the first four verses of the

song Waters suggests that despite the soldiers belong to different fighting teams, “after all”

they are “only ordinary men” and killing each other “is not what” they “would choose to do”

(Waters in Dark Side of the Moon), because it has no fundamental meaning. In other words,

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no matter the colour of their uniform, they are all human beings and they could be friends

sharing their emotions and happiness of being alive. However, they are forced to wear

uniforms, and thus manipulated to hate each other and kill each other, by military leaders

and politicians, who desire to have some superficial profit from meaningless bloodshed.

(Detmer 47-48) The sixth verse of the song addresses directly a “general”, who “sat and the

lines on the map moved from side to side.” (Waters) It can be argued that in this verse

Waters accuses those in charge of having a lack of empathy, because if they have directly

experienced a battle, they would probably not make other humans to wear the estranging

military uniform.

Nevertheless, the division between “us and them” does not necessarily need to be

related to the situation in a battlefield. In The Wall the character Pink undergoes this kind of

social alienation as he happens to be detached from his audience. The first scenes of the

movie obviously take place in USA, the centre of consumerism and show business. In 1970s

Pink Floyd were performing several concerts for masses of young people all over the United

States and Roger Waters later pointed to the disconnection he felt between Pink Floyd and

the audience, disconnection that later led him to an idea to construct a wall, which would

separate him and his band from the masses of their fans. “I don’t think there was any

contact between us and them.” (Waters quoted in Pink Floyd and Philosophy: 49) He

explains that their audience was composed of mostly drunk people, who obviously paid a

large sum of money in order not to be connected to the music and subsequently understand

the message it addresses, but to meet their idols, who happened to be famous, because

their recording company promoted their work.

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This alienation from “artistic authenticity” (Detmer 50) is clearly depicted in the first

song of The Wall, where Pink’s audience gather in attempt to see their rock-star “in the

flesh”, nonetheless, the fans do not happen to see what they “expected to see”. Waters, or

Pink in the movie, explains in the last two verses, addressing the fans, that if they “wanna

find out what's behind these cold eyes”, they will “just have to claw” their “way through this

disguise.” (Waters in The Wall) In other words, in the song Waters appeals to his audience

for trying to make connection to his art, to understand the message, so they would not have

to be alienated from each other.

On the other hand, Roger Waters admits that not only the audience is responsible for

the mutual estrangement. He points out that in order to have money Pink Floyd got involved

with the music industry and show-business, thus creating their own disguise. Money is

depicted within the work of Pink Floyd as a powerful alienating, emotionally oppressive

force.

“Money, get away.

Get a good job with good pay and you're okay.

Money, it's a gas.

Grab that cash with both hands and make a stash.

New car, caviar, four star daydream,

Think I'll buy me a football team.” (Waters in The Dark Side of the Moon)

The lyrics of the song Money from The Dark Side of the Moon mock the illusionary need,

indirectly promoted by the capitalist culture by means of advertisements in mass media etc.,

to purchase unimportant and unnecessary things. It also intends to point out in a satirical

way that one’s life problems are not solved once he or she gets “a good job with good pay”.

36

It might provide one with material sustenance; however, it is debatable whether it also

supplies the person with affection, connection to other people, etc. In other words, it can be

argued, whether it satisfies one’s spiritual needs.

According to Roger Waters money is one of “the pressures and preoccupations that

divert us from our potential for positive action.” (Waters quoted in Pink Floyd and

Philosophy: 43) By positive action he means anything one can do in order to make this world

a little better place. He further argues that “during his or her life one makes choices that are

influenced by political considerations and by money and by the dark side of all our natures.”

(Waters) His message is not really negative as finally he concludes that one gets “the chance

to make the world a lighter or darker place in some small way”. (Waters) In other words,

even though there are obstacles that are really tempting one still has the possibility to

choose whether to overcome those obstacles or whether to give up and thus slip into the

alienation and conformity.

“Breathe, breathe in the air.

Don't be afraid to care.

Leave but don't leave me.

Look around and choose your own ground.” (Waters in The Dark Side of the Moon)

The lyrics of the song Breathe convey the positive message and appeal to an individual

human being for not being “afraid to care”, in other words, for not being afraid to take the

“positive action” in order to make this world slightly a better place. The last verse of the first

stanza also appeal to one for choosing his or her “own ground”. It can be argued that Waters

advises people not to be self-alienated. In other words, he tries to deliver a message that

37

only by means of resistance against the uniform processes of conformity one can prevent to

be self-alienated.

4.3 Animals

Animals (1977) is an allegorical fable criticizing the capitalistic economic system that

developed in post-war Britain. More precisely, the concept depicts the mechanisms of

conformity projected on an individual human being by the dominating capitalist culture and

at the same time it appeals to one for resistance against the oppressive forces. Similar to

George Orwell’s Animal Farm, it “uses anthropomorphized animals to bring certain features

of human beings into sharp relief.” (Croskery 27) It also uses different animal figures to

represent different classes within a society, nonetheless, in the case of Roger Waters’

concept, there are only three species; pigs, dogs and sheep.

Concerning the ways, by which different animals stand for different social classes,

Roger Waters, either directly or indirectly, follows the scheme already set up by George

Orwell in Animal Farm, at least in the case of pigs and sheep. In both allegorical works pigs

represent the ruling class, whereas sheep are those oppressed and exploited by pigs, in

other words, they are the working class. In the case of dogs the Waters’ conception slightly

differs from that established by Orwell. In Animal Farm dogs stand for the ones protecting

pigs, whereas in Animals they represent the heartless social climbers that aspire to become

pigs.

Nevertheless, the fundamental difference between the two allegorical works lies in

the fact that George Orwell’s Animal Farm is a fable focusing on how things can turn

38

absolutely wrong while building a society based on democratic socialism, in other words,

how easily utopia can turn into dystopia, whereas Animals is a fable focusing on, according

to Patrick Croskery, “what can go wrong within modern capitalist society and its basic

institutions; (...) the marketplace, the government and the community” (Croskery 27). In his

thesis Which One Is Pink? Phillip Anthony Rose argues that in Animals Roger Waters for one

thing “attempts to illuminate the masses about their exploitation and oppression” and for

another shows “the effects that capitalism has on the nature of human beings, and the

divisions that it creates between them as individuals.” (Rose 93)

“If you didn't care what happened to me,

And I didn't care for you,

We would zig zag our way through the boredom and pain

Occasionally glancing up through the rain.

Wondering which of the buggars to blame

And watching for pigs on the wing.” (Waters in Animals)

The first song clearly addresses “the importance of human relationships”. (Rose 95) In other

words, it tells of what life would be like on this planet, if people would not care for each

other. The result would be a dystopian “world without empathy” (Croskery 27), where

people live mutually isolated in “boredom and pain”, which is a depiction of modern life in

the way perceived by Roger Waters. Rose further suggests that by means of characterizing

modern life that way Waters expresses his “lack of interest in the greedy, competitive nature

of his society and the tendency that it has to create barriers between people.” (Rose 95)

In the second song, which is called ‘Dogs’, Roger Waters depicts the corruption within

the capitalist hyper-market place that incites dogs to compete with each other in the

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“capitalist game” (Rose 96). On the one hand, as Patrick Croskery argues in his essay Pigs

Training Dogs to Exploit Sheep: Animals as a Beast Fable Dystopia, “each participant, in

pursuing his or her own self-interest and competing in the marketplace, indirectly

contributes to overall well-being.” (Croskery 28) He further explains that for instance a

producer of soda, in order to sell his product to more people and thus gain more profit,

makes soda tastier and by this action he contributes to the general well-being, because the

millions of people drinking soda suddenly enjoy soda a little bit more. (Croskery 28)

On the other hand, Roger Waters portrays the self-interest in the free market in a

different way. The first stanza of the song expresses an irrationality of a free market

competition as it says “You gotta be crazy, you gotta have a real need.“ (Waters) In other

words, the poet suggests that in attempt to be successful one needs to be “fanatically

obsessed” (Rose 97) with the pursuit of material possessions. The second stanza says that

one also needs to wear disguise and lie to other people in order to be better than them. In

other words, one has to adopt a “deceitful, business-like persona”. (Rose 99)

„And after a while, you can work on points for style.

Like the club tie, and the firm handshake,

A certain look in the eye and an easy smile.

You have to be trusted by the people that you lie to,

So that when they turn their backs on you,

You'll get the chance to put the knife in.“ (Waters)

Here the marketplace is depicted as “a self-destructive game requiring us to gain by

deceiving and manipulating others.” (Croskery 28) At this point it is debatable whether it is

worth to make a profit in exchange for a price of being deceitful to others and thus living in

40

estrangement. Furthermore, while participating in such a deceitful game one can easily

become paranoid as one needs to be careful and watch out continually for the other

competitors so they do not “stab him in the back”. In Dragged Down by the Stone: Pink

Floyd, Alienation, and the Pressures of Life Detmer argues that capitalism turns the greedy

dogs against each other and thus estrange them one from another.

“These dogs are alienated from themselves in so far as they rationalize their conduct as

necessary and defensible. They’ve persuaded themselves both that this is a cutthroat world

with no room for empathy or moral principle, and that everyone else is acting the same

way.” (Detmer 47)

The dogs participate in the competition in order to become wealthy and powerful. However,

they do not realize that even though they might get what they want, in the case they win the

competition; they always end up “all alone”. (Waters)

The song only extends the theme already touched on in Money and that is the

meaninglessness of the pursuit of material welfare and power. Each dog spends the whole

life competing with the others in attempt to become rich and powerful like pigs, his greed

makes him to be hostile towards others, but finally he realises that his money does not make

him happy as he happens to be “sad old man, all alone dying from cancer”. (Waters) In other

words, his earned money and gained power does not compensate the fact that his life has

been empty and that he ends up lonely and isolated, because capitalism, as Romero and

Cabo argue in their essay Roger Waters’ Poetry of the Absent Father: British Identity in Pink

Floyd’s the Wall , is a system that “does not give love (that is, recognition, affection, etc.) in

return for obedience”. (Romero and Cabo 52)

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The fifth stanza expresses the awakening of one dog from the state of mental

unconsciousness. In other words, he starts to realise that he has been all the time lured and

brainwashed by pigs.

“I gotta admit that I'm a little bit confused.

Sometimes it seems to me as if I'm just being used.

Gotta stay awake, gotta try and shake off this creeping malaise.

If I don't stand my own ground, how can I find my own way out of this maze?” (Waters)

Here the awakening dog expresses his doubts about the capitalist race as he finds out that

he has not been rewarded by the system for his obedience. He is “confused”, because he still

feels lonely and alienated. This awakened state of his mind makes him to see the light and it

appears to him that he is “just being used.” It can be argued that here Roger Waters

documents his own awakening from a dream of success resulting from his participation in

music business. Additionally, the last stanza delivers a message that each dog, “who was

fitted with collar and chain” (Waters), as well as every sheep, is a slave of the same

dehumanizing system established by the pigs.

Pigs are of course the ones winning the whole game. According to Rose “they

represent the pinnacle of materialistic progress, the symbols of ambition that the capitalist

system, by its very nature, promotes.” (Rose 94) In the first stanza of a song ‘Pigs (Three

Different Ones)’, which is incidentally a narration of the awakened dog, the first pig is

portrayed in this way, more precisely as “big man, pig man” or “well heeled big wheel”,

persuading dogs to “keep on digging”, with his “head down in a pig bin”. (Waters)

The lyrics set up an image of a powerful and greedy person manipulating others,

those of a lower social status, into aspiring to be like him, “creating for both them and

42

himself an unhappy, lonely state.” (Rose 108) The dogs, unconscious of their sad and empty

condition, are thus enslaved in an endless capitalist game described in the previous song,

desiring to become the same powerful and successful like pigs. However, they do not realise

that the pigs, even though they are the most powerful and wealthy ones, the ones in the

control of the whole game, are after all the same unhappy and lonely creatures like dogs.

The narrating dog ridicules each one of the pigs laughing “ha ha charade you are”,

but on the other hand, at the end of each stanza says: “You’re nearly a laugh, but you’re

really a cry.” (Waters) In other words, the pigs are depicted in the song as “almost comic, but

ultimately tragic.” (Rose 109)

The second pig is portrayed in the song as an “old hag”, who “radiates colds shafts

from a broken glass.” Moreover, she “likes the feel of steel” and is a “good fun with a gun.”

(Waters) The lyrics refer to somebody, who is probably not capable to share human

emotions and at the same time inclines to warfare. Those predispositions establish a real

threat to society in her as they make “her not only capable of exploiting others, but a

physical threat to them also.” (Rose 109-110)

It can be argued that the second pig represents Margaret Thatcher, the British Prime

Minister between 1979 and 1990. She was also a leader of the Conservative party from

1975 to 1990. On the one hand, during her first years of reign she managed to reduce

inflation, but on the other hand, she caused the highest rate of unemployment since the

1930’s. In 1982 Argentina invaded the Falkland Islands, which were part of the British

Empire, and she opposed its forces in a military way. 255 British soldiers thus died in the

Falklands War and Roger Waters expressed his strong disagreement with the military

43

solution of the conflict. But on the other hand, the conflict began in 1982, whereas the song

has been written in 1977, so a direct connection cannot be proved.

Nevertheless, it is certain that the third pig represents Mary Whitehouse, an English

social activist supported by Margaret Thatcher in the 1980’s. Roger Waters perceived her as

a figure threatening the basic principles of freedom as she launched open campaigns against

permissiveness of demonstrated content in TV, newspapers and other means of mass

communications. For example, she prosecuted Gay News newspapers, the Doctor Who

series, or the play The Romans in Britain because of their specific content.

„Hey you, Whitehouse,

Ha ha charade you are.

You house proud town mouse,

Ha ha charade you are

You're trying to keep our feelings off the street.“ (Waters)

The last verse cited here refers to her effort to censor television and art creations in the

1970s. In the song she is depicted as a threat, because by means of censorship she causes

human beings to alienate one from another “by not having them communicate their

thoughts and feelings.” (Rose 111)

The fourth song of the album expresses the oppressed condition and exploitation of

the working classes. The message is delivered again by the same means of narrating dog,

who is addressing the mindless sheep in order to draw their attention to the fact that they

are oppressed and exploited by pigs and other dogs.

„Harmlessly passing your time in the grassland away;

Only dimly aware of a certain unease in the air.

44

You better watch out,

There may be dogs about

I've looked over Jordan, and I have seen

Things are not what they seem.“ (Waters)

The narrating dog points out that sheep do not realise the true danger of their oppression

and exploitation, because they are wasting their “time” feeding themselves “in the grassland

away.” Croskery suggests in his essay:

“False consciousness serves as a cover for exploitation. The Wal-Mart shopper, who is happy

to receive ‘everyday low prices,’ might also be a Wal-Mart worker, prevented from unionizing

and tightly controlled for the purposes of management and stockholders.” (Croskery 30)

He uses the term “false consciousness” to describe the state of mind of sheep. As long as

sheep has enough to eat, she is only “dimly aware” of the fact that she might be exploited.

The caring dog further arouses the sheep until he succeeds in his effort to illuminate them.

„What do you get for pretending the danger's not real.

Meek and obedient you follow the leader

Down well trodden corridors into the valley of steel.

What a surprise!

A look of terminal shock in your eyes.

Now things are really what they seem.

No, this is no bad dream.“ (Waters)

In the third verse of this stanza Waters uses a metaphor “valley of steel” as a depiction of

“alienating mechanization of modern society.” (Rose 119)

He suggests that the members of working class let themselves to be employed for

instance as “assembly-line workers” (Detmer 41) in order to make necessary amount of

45

money just to feed themselves. As Detmer argues, their passivity causes them to bear the

awful conditions of their job, where do they perform “boring, uncreative tasks” (Detmer 41),

to which they do not feel any spiritual connection. In other words, they happen to be

alienated from the products of their work and this estrangement further leads to their “self-

alienation” (Detmer 41), or else, it causes them to turn from human beings into “raw

materials.” (Croskery 30)

„The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want

He makes me down to lie

Through pastures green He leadeth me the silent waters by.

With bright knives He releaseth my soul.

He maketh me to hang on hooks in high places.

He converteth me to lamb cutlets,

For lo, He hath great power, and great hunger.“ (Waters)

The third stanza is narrated by the awakened sheep, addressing the pigs symbolically as

“shepherd”. The sheep admits that their “shepherd” led her to the grasslands, but at the

same time “releaseth her soul”, converting her to “lamb cutlets”. In other words, he

employed her in a factory and thus provided her with a low salary, but at the same time

made her self-estranged and thus turned her into a component of a machine, to make a

profit from her. The last two stanzas of the song tell of an uprising of the sheep and its

subsequent failure.

„Bleating and babbling we fell on his neck with a scream.

Wave upon wave of demented avengers

March cheerfully out of obscurity into the dream.“ (Waters)

46

According to Waters there have been several riots, as for example in Brixton and Toxteth,

which inspired him to write about uprising of the sheep. However, at the same time he

argues that the riots change nothing (Waters in Dallas 1987: 117) In the last stanza he

expresses his advice to masses not to rebel in a violent way.

“Have you heard the news?

The dogs are dead!

You better stay home

And do as you're told.

Get out of the road if you want to grow old.” (Waters)

The narrating dog suggests that pigs cannot be defeated as they are too strong and advises

sheep to stay away and get back to their work. Nevertheless, the last song of the album

delivers a positive message that there are other ways, not violent at all, how to resist the

destructive power of the pigs, and that is by means of human affection.

You know that I care what happens to you,

And I know that you care for me.

So I don't feel alone,

Or the weight of the stone,

Now that I've found somewhere safe

To bury my bone.

And any fool knows a dog needs a home,

A shelter from pigs on the wing.

Here Waters proposes a solution for those, who did not let “the dehumanized pigs and dogs

to crush their spirit.” (Rose 124) He suggests that as long as those illuminated people are still

47

able to express their emotions, they can make friendships based on real affection and thus

create “a shelter from pigs on the wing.”

Animals thus portrays the capitalist economic system as oppressive and destructive,

but on the other hand, it is part of state based on democracy and post-war Britain is still a

democratic state. In other words, Waters suggests that the system oppresses people

indirectly by means of tempting them to accumulate unnecessary possession. Nevertheless,

they are free to choose their own values and in the case they want to, they can emancipate

from its oppressive and alienating influence.

4.4 The Wall

The Wall (1981) is an album elaborating more the theme of alienation already

touched in The Dark Side of the Moon (1973) and Animals (1977). The previous albums

explore the theme in more general way, whereas in The Wall alienation is depicted from the

individual perspective of a character Pink, who tries to resist the oppressive forces of

modern society, described in the previous subchapters, and who is subsequently beaten by

those forces and thus becomes the self-alienated, conform citizen. From the

autobiographical point of view Pink represents Roger Waters himself as both are orphans

growing up in post-war Britain, both are rock stars consumed by show-business and both are

alienated in certain ways from their surroundings.

During his childhood and early life Pink faces the conditions that modern life and the

society set up for him. Each of these obstacles and difficulties, starting with his father’s

48

death and ending with broken relationship with his wife, symbolically means “another brick

in the wall” (Waters in The Wall), which he builds in order to isolate his soul from the society

and generally, the “cruel world” around him. Once the wall is completed, his soul remains

inside and Pink is thus led by the society to the state of self-alienation.

One of the bricks for Pink is the British educational system, depicted in The Wall as

machinery turning individual human beings into conform particles of a modern society. In

other words, according to Waters it does not teach children to think critically for themselves,

thus raising creative and independent human beings, but to the contrary it prevents them

from such an individual critical thinking by means of “thought control”. According to Detmer,

British educational system is depicted in The Wall as an institution turning education into

“indoctrination”. (Detmer 50)

“We don't need no education

We don’t need no thought control

(...)

Hey! Teachers! Leave them kids alone!

All in all you’re just another brick in the wall.” (Waters)

The process of “thought control” is further explored in the movie, where Pink composes a

poem, thus showing creativity and critical thought too as the poem ridicules the

indoctrinated desire of accumulating possessions. The teacher obviously does not like it,

because Pink shows his true colours of being different than the other obedient children

“content to take orders” (Detmer 50), and punishes Pink by means of “pouring derision”

(Waters) upon him and beating him. He punishes him, because his task is to maintain

“thought control” over children and erase any signs of individuality and disobedience.

49

Moreover, in the song The Happiest Days of our Lives the teacher is depicted as an

unfortunate wretch tyrannized by his own wife and generally destroyed by the system,

which he has become part of. In other words, the inhumane system subdued him, so he

could tyrannize the children and cause them to “grow into modern, alienated citizens”

(Detmer 51) in a world where, as Detmer states, “commerce is more important than

creativity, spectacle is more valuable than communication and competition is more

important than empathy.” (Detmer 50-51)

The lyrics of the song cited before suggest that children need “education”, but not

“indoctrination”. As Detmer writes, only by means of thinking for themselves they can

establish their own values and thus “lead a richly meaningful life as an autonomous person.”

(Detmer 51)

Pink’s mother of course represents another brick in his wall, for due to her hyper-

protection she has further alienating impact on him.

„Mother's gonna make all your nightmares come true.

Mother's gonna put all her fears into you.

Mother's gonna keep you right here under her wing.

She won’t let you fly, but she might let you sing.

Mama will keep baby cozy and warm.

Ooooh baby ooooh baby oooooh baby,

Of course mama's gonna help to build the wall.“ (Waters)

In the song she is portrayed as an oppressive force and a puppet of the same system. On the

one hand she protects him and “keeps him cozy and warm”, but on the other hand “puts all

her fears into” him and does not allow him “to fly”. In order to protect him and stand for his

50

well-being, she prevents him and discourages him from expressing himself in true colours

and acting like an independent human being. However, she does not realise that by means

of behaving like this, instead of communicating with him and sharing his emotions, she only

contributes to his isolation and mental break down.

In the movie the scenes with Pink’s mother correlate with the wedding scene and

series of motion pictures with Pink’s wife ending by break up of their relationship. Romero

and Cabo argue, that by means of such correlation Waters suggests that Pink’s mother “lays

the seed of distrust and undermines his capacity to love the woman that loves him and who

leaves him for someone else.” (Romero and Cabo 53)

At this point Pink successfully completes his wall and isolates himself entirely from

the outside world as his wife is the last person he could communicate his feelings to. The

lyrics of the song Hey You express Pink’s last attempt to reach behind the wall and thus

establish some spiritual contact with the other side.

“Hey you, out there in the cold

Getting lonely, getting old

Can you feel me?” (Waters)

More precisely, he appeals to the people outside of the wall for not “helping them to bury

the light” and “not giving in without a fight”. (Waters) In other words, he aims to tell the

society not to invert the true values like communication, empathy and creativity; or else, not

to replace them for the material values. In the last stanza of the song Pink addresses

alienation as a force leading to failure: “Together we stand, divided we fall.” (Waters) In

other words, he suggests that the world can never be a better place as long as people do not

51

communicate their feelings. Nevertheless, he fails in reaching the other people, because the

wall is too high.

In his essay Thinking Outside the Wall: Michel Foucault on Madness, Fascism, and—if

you think about it—Syd Barrett George A. Reisch argues that once Pink is isolated from the

outside world he is “constantly at war with himself”. Reisch further states, that he is “his

own doctor trying to redeem himself”. (Reisch 153) In his head Pink is submitted to feelings

of guilt and schizophrenia, resulting from the reproaches of his mother, teacher and wife.

Both of these of course lead to his final self-estrangement as part of him, who wants to

maintain some contact with the other side of the wall, accuses the other part of “showing

feelings of an almost human nature”. (Waters) Waters suggest that in order to live within

modern society one has to wear disguise and hide his true feelings. In other words, one

needs to be self-alienated, or else, one needs to become “comfortably numb.” (Waters)

At first sight The Wall appears to be an individual story told by an orphaned artist

called Pink, who definitely represents Roger Waters himself as he is the artist, whose father

was killed in World War II. On the one hand it is a story about an artist “skating on a thin ice

of modern life” (Waters in The Wall), little by little estranging himself from the rest of the

society and thus building up the imaginary wall between himself and his surroundings and

finally becoming “comfortably numb”. However, it is possible to state, according to Jorge

Sacido Romero and Luis Miguel Valera Cabo, that Pink’s story reflects the one of all nation as

in the post-war Britain there is all generation of orphans growing within a society depicted in

Animals; in the democratic society that still tends to divide people.

52

The first person, who made a clear reference to the parallelism mentioned in the

previous paragraph, was Phillip Jenkins, who stated in his short essay that “Pink’s tragedy

reflects that of the nation at large.” (Jenkins quoted in Roger Waters’ Poetry of the Absent

Father: British Identity in Pink Floyd’s the Wall: 49) The two identities, the one of an artist

beyond the wall and the other of the whole nation, are interconnected mainly by means of

an absent father. The lyrics of a song Another Brick in the Wall Part I address a father, who

has “flown across the ocean leaving just a memory”. (Waters) On the one hand the father

clearly represents Roger Waters’ father, who has gone to fight and die in World War II.

Nonetheless, as Jorge Sacido Romero and Luis Miguel Valero Cabo argue in their

essay Roger Waters’ Poetry of the Absent Father: British Identity in Pink Floyd’s the Wall, the

absent father might also represent the national ideal of Welfare State, or in other words, the

post-war dream of a better society based on human affection, which has not been realised.

According to Romero and Cabo Great Britain is a “nation of orphans, both literally and socio-

politically speaking”. (Romero and Cabo 51) They all long for a father, who would take care

of his children in a familiar way and teach them to live connected in peace and to love each

other. This caring father happens to be absent and replaced by machinery of modern

capitalistic culture that brings its children up to become not loving human beings living

connected and taking care for each other, but conform “producers and consumers” (Romero

and Cabo 52) in a world, where there is a little place for empathy. Such a world forced Pink

to isolate himself beyond his wall and subsequently led him to self-estrangement.

In the opening scene of the movie Pink encounters himself isolated in a hotel room in

a state of depressive contemplation, watching television and thinking of his past. In his head

there is a picture of a young boy, or rather young Pink, running alone in a sundrenched rugby

53

field, which is subsequently replaced with another, more frightening picture of furious crowd

running, destroying gates and fighting the police.

According to Romero and Cabo, the sunlit field is a symbolical representation of a

possible past or future of the post-war dream paradise, while the other motion picture of

rioting young mob happens to be reality of a present. (Romero and Cabo 50) From the

autobiographical point of view the young crowd represents fanaticized Pink Floyd fans

manipulated by show-business to visit their concert. At this point Roger Waters faces the

destructive power on capitalism over the American youth generation. In the movie Pink is

depicted as an artist dreaming about the better society, but at the same time as a puppet of

the recording companies and show-business forces in general.

Furthermore, the real condition of post-war England is depicted in the first animated

scene created by Gerard Scarfe. The scene portrays White Dove of Peace flying over London,

which subsequently coverts into “sharp, metallic and menacing Eagle”. (Romero and Cabo

53) The same scene also depicts the flag of United Kingdom and its splitting up into bleeding

St George’s Cross, whose blood runs into sewers. It is obvious that mentioned Eagle

represents a threat of the Cold War, nevertheless, Romero and Cabo argue that it can also

represents “the Bald Eagle of the Seal of the United States.” (Romero and Cabo 53)

According to their interpretation the decomposition of the Union Jack symbolically stands

for “the damaging effect that the post-war period had on British identity” (Romero and Cabo

53) and the blood on a St George’s Cross represents “both the sacrificial blood shed on the

war front and the essence of a nation passed on from generation to generation”. (Romero

and Cabo 53) It can also be stated that all the colours of the flag disappear together with the

post-war dream, whereas the red colour standing for blood remains. The blood subsequently

54

runs into sewers as the soldiers, who died in the Second World War, shed their blood in vain,

for the post-war dream they died for has not been realised.

The Wall and The Final Cut not only shed a tear over the broken post war dream. It

also explores different and even darker alterations of history. For example, the lyrics of the

song ‘Your Possible Pasts’ address for one thing “some bright-eyed and crazy“, and for

another “some frightened and lost“. (Waters in The Final Cut) The first mentioned represents

the dreamy post war England, where people stand for the right values and live in mutual

care, whereas the other may represent some totalitarian or other dystopia, where people

live oppressed in mutual alienation. In the first stanza Waters also appeals to “anyone still in

command of their possible future, to take care.” (Waters) In other words, he suggests that

those having a power to manipulate the steering wheel of history shall do it carefully in

order not to realise the dystopian condition.

In The Wall the mentioned dystopian threat is also depicted by means of Pink

himself, or more precisely his alter Nazi ego, symbolically standing for dystopian version of

totalitarian post war Britain. After the worms “eat into his brain” (Waters), he is portrayed as

a fascist dictator manipulating his brainwashed fans to “clean up the city” from “the coons

and the reds and the jews”. (Waters) In their essay Romero and Cabo argue that the rioting

skinheads, together with the Gerard Scarfe’s animation of marching hammers, are “an

explicit indictment of totalitarianism in the century of totalitarianisms and a warning against

the temptation to fall into tentative totalitarian solutions to the problems of the present.”

(Romero and Cabo 54) They further argue, that such a totalitarian solution was “considered

by some a viable possibility” (Romero and Cabo 54) because of the frustration of British

55

nation resulting from the loss of British Empire. Roger Waters addresses such a danger

mainly in the song Waiting for the Worms.

“Would you like to see Britannia

Rule again, my friend?

All you have to do is follow the worms.

Would you like to send our colored cousins

Home again, my friend?

All you need to do is follow the worms.” (Waters)

In association with historical context of post war Britain, it has to be mentioned that there

were some movements, or at least its indications, resembling the scenes in the movie, like

for example Enoch Powel’s speeches in 1960s or Notting Hill riots in 1958. Hall and Jefferson

argue in Resistance through Rituals that those riots were the result of frustration of the

working class youth converted into hatred towards coloured immigrants. (Hall and Jefferson

49) Those inclinations of working class youth to gather in order to protest against

immigration were perceived by Roger Waters as a threat against the basic principles of

freedom.

56

5 CONCLUSION

George Orwell and Roger Waters are both idealists thrown into a world governed by

evil forces. Despite the fact that their ideals are obviously not in accordance with the factual

condition of the universe, or as Russell calls it – “the world of fact” (Russell 3), which is

according to him “hostile” (Russel 3), they try their best in order to resist those forces, in

direct or indirect way, and thus demonstrate their disagreement with the unfriendly

condition of this world.

In their work Orwell and Waters demonstrate an example, deterrent or positive, of

how humans can respond to the evil forces. George Orwell is the one providing a deterrent

example by means of the dystopian novels Animal Farm and Nineteen Eighty-Four. In Animal

Farm the pigs represent those, who subdued themselves to the evil forces and because of

their power instinct led the revolution on Animal Farm to failure. They are the most

powerful creatures. Nevertheless, as Russell states in his essay, they are also the weakest

ones because of their inability to resist the evil forces. They are the ones who oppress, but

they are also the ones oppressed by the unfriendly condition of the universe.

Similarly, in Animals the pigs represent those, who failed to resist the temptations of

capitalist culture, which is according to Hall and Jefferson the hegemonic and dominating

structure of a society of post-war Britain. In terms of the dogs’ and sheep’s indoctrinated

point of view they are the most powerful creatures, but as well as the pigs in Animal Farm,

they are also enslaved. Dogs are manipulated to become as rich and powerful as they are, so

they are imprisoned in a meaningless competition over material possessions and power that

leads to their spiritual isolation. Nevertheless, Roger Waters, as he perceives himself to be

57

the awakened dog, provides a positive example. He managed to see through the golden

facade of capitalism and realized the true value of human relationships.

The post-war Britain of The Wall is much different from post-war Britain as depicted

in Nineteen Eighty-Four, although it shares some features. The fundamental difference

obviously lies in the fact that in Nineteen Eighty-Four Orwell expresses his biggest nightmare

and warning against the dangers of totalitarianism, resulting from his direct experiences in

Spain and general observations of world affairs between 1930s and 1950s, whereas The Wall

depicts the actual condition of post-war Britain, or rather the dark aspects of it, as perceived

by Roger Waters. As Christopher Lash investigated, Orwell’s prediction of possible future

proved to be far too pessimistic and exaggerated, even though certain aspects of it have

become, at least partially, true. On the one hand, the post-war Britain is a democratic state,

which consists of individual human beings having relative freedom of choice and thought

expression. In other words, they are not directly terrorized by thought police and

telescreens. But on the other hand, as Hall and Jefferson observed, they are confronted with

a different form of indirect oppression, directed at them by means of mass media and vast

consumption, leading them to certain state of conformity again.

In Orwell’s 1984, the whole society of Oceania is indoctrinated by the Party, which is

the dominating structure of the society, false consciousness that causes principal values to

pervert. As a result of this process, leading the individuals to conformity and self-alienation,

Winston Smith, who represents “the man of good will” (Thompson 240), cannot exist in the

society as his values remain the same; they cannot be changed as he resists the forces of

conformity. Nevertheless, even his spirit is finally crushed by means of an unbearable

physical and psychological pain directed at him.

58

Similarly, the society of The Wall and Animals is indoctrinated, by the hegemonic

capitalist structure of the society, another form of false consciousness, perverting the

principal values in different ways. As in Nineteen Eighty-Four, the dominating culture uses

technological advancement, introducing television and mass media in general as new forms

of mass communication, to manipulate the masses into its interests. As a result of this

indirect manipulation the individual human beings, who fail to resist the forces of

oppression, become conformist dogs fighting each other and mindless sheep allowing

themselves to be exploited. As Detmer examined, they tend to worship competition rather

than empathy, spectacle rather than communication and commerce rather than creativity.

Such a society leads Pink to his isolation, mental break down and subsequent self-alienation.

Similar to Winston case, his resisting spirit is finally crushed as well, even though in Pink’s

case it is caused by means of reproaches of his mother, teachers and wife, and not by means

of psychological pain.

In addition, The Wall also expresses, as Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four, a warning

against the possibility of totalitarian solution to the socio-political problems of post-war

Britain, as for example high level of unemployment in 1980s. This is depicted in the movie by

means of the Gerard Scarfe’s animation of marching hammers together with the scenes

picturing rioting skinheads.

In conclusion, both George Orwell and Roger Waters in their work appeal to the

individual human beings, in different ways and different historical contexts, for being

autonomous persons and not conformist particles in societies controlled by evil forces. In

other words, they appeal to people for resisting against the forces of oppression and

conformity, directed at them through all the possible means.

59

6 WORKS CITED

Orwell, George. Animal Farm. Penguin, 1983. Print.

Orwell, George. Nineteen Eighty-Four. 10 November 2015. PDF File.

<http://www.planetebook.com/ebooks/1984.pdf>

Orwell, George. Homage to Catalonia. London: Penguin Books, 2000. Print.

Orwell, George. Selected Essays. Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1957. Print

Orwell, George. The Collected Essays, Journalism and Letters of George Orwell Volume 4 In

Front of Your Nose: 1945-1950. Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1970. Print

Pink Floyd. The Dark Side of the Moon. Harvest SMAS 11163, 1973.

Pink Floyd. Animals. Columbia JC 34474, 1977.

Pink Floyd. The Wall. Columbia PC2 36183, 1979.

Pink Floyd. The Final Cut. Columbia QC 38243, 1983.

Pink Floyd. Meddle. Harvest SMAS 832, 1971.

Detmer, David; Croskery, Patrick; Reisch, A. George. Pink Floyd and Philosophy. 2007.

19 October 2014. PDF File.

<http://www.slideshare.net/r2Felix/30-pink-floyd-and-philosophy>

Rose, Philip Anthony. Which One Is Pink?. 31 October 2015. PDF File.

<https://macsphere.mcmaster.ca/bitstream/11375/11030/1/fulltext.pdf>

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Romero S. Jorge and Cabo M. Luis. Roger Waters’ Poetry of the Absent Father: British

Identity in Pink Floyd’s The Wall. Atlantis, 2006. 31 October 2015. PDF File

<http://www.atlantisjournal.org/old/ARCHIVE/28.2/2006SacidoRomero_VarelaCabo.

pdf >

Hall Stuart and Jefferson Tony. Resistance through Rituals: Youth Subcultures in Post-War

Britain. New York: Routledge, 2006. PDF File

<https://www.academia.edu/8263650/Resistance_Through_Rituals_Youth_subculture

s_in_post-war_Britain_Edited_by>

Heyck, Thomas W. The Peoples of the British Isles: A New History: From 1870 to the

Present, Volume 3. Lyceum Books, 2002. PDF File

<http://lyceumbooks.com/pdf/PeoplesBritishIslesIII_Chapter_11.pdf>

Thompson, Dave. Roger Waters: The Man Behind the Wall. Backbeat Books, 2013. Print.

Russel, Bertrand. A Free Man’s Worship. PDF File

<http://www.spiritual-minds.com/philosophy/BertrandRussel/(Ebook%20-

%20Pdf%20-%20Philosophy)%20Russell,%20Bertrand%20-

%20A%20Free%20Man'S%20Worship.pdf>

Kateb, George. The Road to 1984. Political Science Quarterly, Vol. 81, No. 4 (Dec., 1966),

pp. 564-580. JSTOR. Web. 10 October 2015

Letemendia, V.C. Revolution on Animal Farm: Orwell’s Neglected Commentary. Journal of

Modern Literature, Vol. 18, No. 1 (Winter, 1992), pp. 127-137. JSTOR. Web. 10

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Thompson, Frank H., Jr. Orwell's Image of the Man of Good Will. College English, Vol. 22,

No. 4 (Jan., 1961), pp. 235-240. JSTOR. Web. 10 October 2015

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Web. 10 October 2015

62

RÉSUMÉ

The aim of this thesis is to examine the ways George Orwell and Roger Waters

depict post-war Britain in their work. The thesis is divided into three main chapters.

The first chapter deals with life experiences of George Orwell and Roger Waters. It

focuses on investigating a way how these experiences influenced the work of both

men and shaped their general attitudes to world affairs. The second chapter

investigates the way George Orwell depicts post-war Britain in his dystopian novel

Nineteen Eighty-Four. It also examines his particular life experience from Spanish

Civil War as depicted in Homage to Catalonia and observations of the Russian

Revolution portrayed in Animal Farm. Finally, the third chapter investigates post-war

Britain as depicted in the lyrics of Pink Floyd composed by Roger Waters.

63

RÉSUMÉ

Cílem této Bakalářské práce je zjistit, jak George Orwell a Roger Waters

zobrazují poválečnou Británii ve svém díle. Práce je rozdělená do tří hlavních kapitol.

První kapitola zkoumá životní zkušenosti George Orwella a Rogera Waterse. Průzkum

se hlavně zaměřuje na to, jak tyto zkušenosti ovlivnily dílo obou autorů a formovaly

jejich postoje vůči světovému dění. Druhá kapitola se zaměřuje na vyobrazení

poválečné Británie v dystopické knize Orwella Devatenáct set osmdesát čtyři. Stejná

kapitola také zkoumá jeho zkušenost ze Španělské občanské války, zobrazenou

v románu Hold Katalánsku, a postřehy z Ruské Revoluce vykreslené v knize Farma

zvířat. Třetí kapitola se konečně zaměřuje na vyobrazení poválečné Británie v textech

kapely Pink Floyd, které napsal Roger Waters.

64

65