A Study On The Ethical Confusion In George Orwell’s 1984

George Orwell’s novel 1984 is definitely known as an anti-totalitarian novel describing the absurd principles, the confusing ethics, and the twisted ideology of a fictive country---Big Ocean which is under the domination of the imperator---Big Brother. People there are forced to abandon their personal wills and sink into ethical confusion. They give up their ethics of blood and ethics of making friends as well. Their ethical relationships have changed from intimate lover to enemy and from rational humans into irrational beasts. Hence, Big Ocean opens a new era in which the animal factor has defeated the human factor. In order to explore the ethical confusion under totalitarianism in 1984, this thesis intends to adopt Ethical Literary Criticism as the theoretical base to make the critical and detailed interpretation of Big Ocean’s terror. In other words, this thesis attempts to present the death of human thought, the ruin of human love, and the disappearance of humanity under totalitarianism in the aspects of ethical identity, ethical consciousness and ethical environment manifested in this novel.The thesis is composed of 5 chapters. As for the introduction part, there are some epitomes of George Orwell and his novel 1984. Then, it comes to the literature review both at home and abroad. After that, it comes to the brief introduction of Ethical Literary Criticism as well as the significance of choosing this topic. Chapters 1, 2 and 3have analyzed the ethical confusion in Big Ocean from the three main concepts of Ethical Literary Criticism; they are ethical identity, ethical consciousness and ethical environment respectively. Firstly the thesis presents the changes of ethical identity in Big Ocean. Then it goes further into people’s ethical consciousness to analyze the loss of humanity, the death of human mind and the terror of ideological control. After that it has focused on the irrational environment inside Big Ocean and the troublous environment around the world in the first half of 20 thcentury, which can help readers better understand the tendency of Orwell’s creation. In conclusion, the author of this thesis finds that analyzing 1984 from the perspective of Ethical Literary Criticism willhelp the readers better understand the terror of losing humanity and social ethics.In fact, 1984 describes a totally unreal ethical tragedy, so that ethic is just like a weapon to fight against the real political or social facts, which has caused an even larger dilemma. It is definitely not the words or repeated sentences that have initiated tragedy,but the ethical identity, ethical consciousness and ethical environment that have made Big Ocean a dark world---a world without sunshine, love, close relationship or humanity.Thus, it is maybe the confusion of social ethics rather than any other factors like economic crisis or wars that has led a nation to destruction.