Religion In George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four

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Finally, along with the human inequalities that a communist society would lead to, Orwell also addresses the consequences of the lack of religious beliefs in his dystopian fiction novel named Nineteen Eighty-Four. In the novel, all religious institutions are forbidden by the Party and are considered as illegal, which parallels to Karl Marx’s theories about the abolition of religions, but for a different reason. In his book Communist Manifesto, Marx claims that, “religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people” (www.brainyquote). Marx believes that religions give people artificial and illusory happiness like the effects of drugs on human beings. He argues that it encourages the workers …show more content…
Charrington in the upstairs room, a picture of the St. Clement’s Dane church catches his attentions. “‘I know that building.’ Said Winston finally. ‘It is a ruin now.’ [...] ‘That’s right. Outside the Law Courts. It was bombed in – oh, many years ago. It was a church at one time. St Clement’s Dane, its name was” (101). This quote demonstrates that all religious institutions like churches are bombed and abandoned because the Party disallows religions. The Party believes that religious institutions are evil. It gives people hope that life could be better, which the government would not want this considering that hope is a valuable thing. Hope encourages people to imagine a better place and starts to ask questions, which might result in any forms of rebellions against the Party. Also, the Party denounces religions given the fact that all religions encourage the same values such as respect, free will and personal choices while on the other hand; the Party discourages independence and advocates the ignorance of individuals. Orwell writes the novel with the purposes of warning people that communism and totalitarian states do not
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