An Analysis Of The Operation Mechanisms Of Totalitarianism In Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four From The Perspective Of Jung’s Collective Unconscious Theories

George Orwell, as one of the most influential writers in the western world in the 20 th century, expressed his sharp opinion on politics in his essays and novels. In his Nineteen Eighty-Four, Orwell created a lot of words such as “big brother”, “thought police”, etc., which have become proper nouns in English and have been composed in the dictionary. It is enough for us to see the far-reaching influence of this work on western civilization. Since the new century began, the Orwell research has increasingly drawn the attention of domestic academia and the deep value of Orwell’s works has been also excavated gradually.As a political phenomenon, totalitarianism has brought a huge and profound influence or even disaster to the people in the world since the 1920s- Hitler’s Nazi Germany and Stalin’s Soviet Union are typical examples of the totalitarian society. In Nineteen Eighty-Four, Orwell depicted a cold totalitarian society of depression and despair. Orwell described all aspects of people’s life under the totalitarian society in detail from the perspective of the protagonist-Winston. This kind of description not only expresses Orwell’s condemnation against totalitarian, but also embodies his humanistic care for the people at the bottom of the realistic society.Based on the textual analysis of Nineteen Eighty-Four, with Carl Jung’s theories of collective unconscious as the theoretical basis, this paper interprets the operation mechanisms of the totalitarian society described by Orwell and related archetypes from the perspective of Jung’s theories of collective unconscious. With the deep anatomy on the reason why totalitarian rulers take the devices as the operation mechanisms, the interaction relationship between the masses and the rulers can be revealed.This paper mainly discusses the role collective unconscious played in the operation mechanisms of Totalitarianism regime from four aspects: the image of dictator, the propaganda of ideology, the machines of violence, economical foundation and cognition. The conclusion can be drawn as follows: the operation mechanisms of Totalitarian regime delicately make use of the influence of collective unconscious on individual psychological activities. With the help of ideological propaganda and terrorism control of machinery of violence, the thinking and acting modes of individuals in totalitarian society are influenced gradually. Therefore the regime could maintain its dominate position. This paper enriches the practice of applying Jung’s theories of collective unconscious on textual analysis and also provides a new vision for Orwell study, which has both theoretical and practical significances.