Oceania (Nineteen Eighty-Four)



Oceania is the superstate in which protagonist Winston Smith dwells. It is believed to be composed of the Americas, the British Isles (called "Airstrip One" in the novel), Iceland, Australia, New Zealand, Polynesia, and Southern Africa below the River Congo. It also controls, to different degrees and at various times during the course of its perpetual war with either Eurasia or Eastasia, the polar regions, India, Indonesia, and the islands of the Pacific. Oceania lacks a single capital city, but London and apparently New York City may be regional capitals. In the novel, Emmanuel Goldstein, Oceania's declared public enemy number one, describes it in the fictional book The Theory and Practice of Oligarchical Collectivism as a result of the United States having absorbed the British Empire. Goldstein's book also states that Oceania's primary natural barrier is the sea surrounding it.

The ruling doctrine of Oceania is Ingsoc, the Newspeak neologism for English Socialism. Its nominal leader is Big Brother, believed by the masses to have been the leader of the revolution and still used as an icon by the party. The cult of personality is maintained through Big Brother's function as a focal point for love, fear, and reverence, more easily felt towards an individual than towards an organization.

The unofficial language of Oceania is English (officially called Oldspeak), and the official language is Newspeak. The restructuring of the language is intended to eliminate unorthodox political and social thought by eliminating the words needed to express it.

The society of Oceania is sharply stratified into three groups: the small ruling Inner Party, the more-numerous and highly indoctrinated Outer Party, and the large body of politically-meaningless Proles. Apart from exceptions such as Hate Week, the proles remain essentially outside Oceania's political control and are placated by trivial sports and other entertainment: the Thought Police manages any Proles who are socially aware enough to be a problem.

Oceania's national anthem is "Oceania, Tis For Thee."

Even the names of countries, and their shapes on the map, had been different. Airstrip One, for instance, had not been so called in those days: it had been called England, or Britain, though London, he felt fairly certain, had always been called London.

Like the rest of Europe, Britain was hit by atomic weapons in the conflicts before the revolutions in Oceania and then elsewhere. One British town, Colchester, is referenced specifically as having been destroyed; flashbacks to Smith's childhood also include scenes of Londers taking refuge in the [London Underground tunnels in the midst of the bombing.

In When the Cold Breeze Blows Away, it is one of the puppet states of the Global Confederation, and like Norsefire, they would get to team up to destroy the British monarchy once and for all, but it was failed by the Resistance, the government of the United Kingdom the entire Commonwealth of Nations. NATO, the European Union and the rest of the Grand Alliance.