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Oceania is pink, Eurasia is orange and Eastasia is green on the fictitious 1984 world map; the "disputed area" rests roughly between the dotted lines. Note: At the end of the novel, there are news reports that Oceania has captured all of Africa, though as propaganda, the credibility of the reports is uncertain.

Oceania, Eurasia and Eastasia are the three fictional superstates in George Orwell's novel Nineteen Eighty-Four.

Oceania

Oceania is the location of the novel's version of London, where Winston Smith, the main character, lives. It is apparently composed of the Americas, Britain (called Airstrip One in the novel), Ireland, Australia, New Zealand, and southern Africa below the River Congo. It also controls - to different degrees and at various times during the course of its eternal war with either Eurasia or Eastasia — the polar regions, India, Indonesia and the islands of the Pacific. It is described in The Theory and Practice Of Oligarchical Collectivism by Emmanuel Goldstein, Oceania's declared Public Enemy Number One, as resulting from the merging of the British Empire and the United States. Goldstein's book also states that Oceania's primary natural defence is the sea surrounding it. This may be the reason why the Party highlights the Floating Fortresses.

It occasionally conquers the rest of Africa, but is later driven back by Eurasia. Oceania lacks a single capital, although what could be seen as regional capitals such as London and apparently New York City are in place.

The ruling doctrine of Oceania is Ingsoc, the Newspeak term for English Socialism, which is ultimately devoted to the naked exercise of power. Its nominal leader is Big Brother, who is believed by the masses to have been the leader of the revolution, but may now be dead (used as a figurehead by the party), or he may have never existed. The personality cult is maintained through Big Brother's function as a focal point for love, fear, and reverence, emotions which are more easily felt towards an individual than towards an organization.

The unofficial language of Oceania is English (officially Oldspeak) and the official language is Newspeak. The restructuring of the language is intended to ultimately eliminate even the possibility of 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 power-seeking Inner Party, the more numerous and highly indoctrinated Outer Party, and the large body of politically meaningless and mindless Proles. Except for certain rare exceptions like Hate Week, the proles remain essentially outside Oceania's political control.

Oceania's national anthem is Oceania, Tis For Thee which, in one of the three film versions of the book, takes the form of a crescendo of organ music along with operatic lyrics. The lyrics are sung in English, and the song is reminiscent of God Save the Queen and Die Stem van Suid-Afrika.

Eurasia

It is implied that Eurasia was formed when the Soviet Union absorbed the rest of continental Europe, creating a single nation stretching from Portugal to the Bering Strait. The ruling ideology of Eurasia is reported in the book to be "Neo-Bolshevism," a term that is not clearly defined but which presumably refers to the dominance of Soviet-style government after its absorption of Europe.

According to Goldstein's book, Eurasia's main natural defence is its vast landspaces.

Eastasia

Eastasia's borders are not as clearly defined as the other two superstates, but it is known that they at least comprise most of modern day China, Indochina, Japan, and Korea as well as fluctuating areas of Manchuria, Mongolia and Tibet. Eastasia repeatedly captures and loses Indonesia, Papua New Guinea and the various Pacific archipelagoes. Its political ideology is, according to the novel, "called by a Chinese name usually translated as Death-worship, but perhaps better rendered as 'Obliteration of the Self'."

Not much information about Eastasia is given in the book. It is known that it is the newest and smallest of the three superstates. According to Goldstein's book, it emerged a decade after the establishment of the other two superstates, placing it somewhere in the 1960s, after years of fighting among its predecessor nations. It is also said in the book that the industriousness and fecundity of the people of Eastasia allows them to overcome their territorial inadequacy in comparison to the other two powers.

Disputed Area

The "disputed area", which lies "between the frontiers of the super-states", is "a rough quadrilateral with its corners at Tangier, Brazzaville, Darwin, and Hong Kong".¹ This area is fought over during the perpetual war between the three great powers, with one power sometimes exerting control over vast swaths of the disputed territory, only to lose it again the next time the alliances switch.

International relations

The world of Nineteen Eighty-Four exists in a state of perpetual war between the three major powers. At any given time, two of the three states are aligned against the third; however, as Goldstein's book points out, each Superstate is so powerful that even an alliance of the other two cannot destroy it, resulting in a continuing stalemate. From time to time, one of the states betrays its ally and sides with its former enemy. In Oceania, when this occurs, the Ministry of Truth rewrites history to make it appear that the current state of affairs is the way it has always been, a perfect example of doublethink.

Goldstein's book states that the war is not a war in the traditional sense, but simply exists to use up resources and keep the population in line. Victory for any side isn't attainable or even desirable, but the Inner Party, through an act of doublethink, believes that such victory is in fact possible. Although the war began with the use of atomic weapons in the 1950s, none of the combatants use them any longer for fear of upsetting the balance of power. Relatively few technological advances have been made (the only two mentioned are the replacement of bombers with "rocket bombs" and of traditional capital ships with the immense "floating fortresses").

Controversy

It should be noted that almost all of the information about the world beyond London is given to the reader through government or Party sources, which by the very premise of the novel are unreliable. Oceania may control only Britain, or it may be the sole unchallenged world government. In fact, the very existence of the superstates may be a lie; "Airstrip One" may be an isolated totalitarian enclave similar to that of North Korea or of Albania under Hoxha. The war, similarly, may be entirely, or in part, fiction. The whole Earth may well be controlled by one state which pretends to exist as three states, perpetually warring in order to maintain the climate of fear needed for totalitarian rule. By the book's references, and the period in which it was written, Big Brother and Goldstein can be compared with Joseph Stalin and Leon Trotsky, whose conflict over the future of international Communism was well known and a subject of constant debate within the movements of the post-war international Left.

External links

• Flags of Oceania and Eurasia at Flags of the World