Résumé
Truth often adopts different shapes in the realm of literature. The latter presents truth as a versatile concept which is constantly remolded and reinvented in genres such as dystopian fiction. Such fiction heralds and epitomizes the totalitarian regime that circumscribes and hinders truth through the means of censorship. Such totalitarian practices, which are often portrayed as revolutionary ideas that promote a utopian ideal, distort language as we know it. Indeed, most dystopian writers shed light on the power of language in its salient ability to distort the lexicon by censoring and restricting access to the areas of the mind through a “linguistic distortion” modus operandi. This distortion is aptly illustrated by George Orwell. In his novel Nineteen Eighty-Four, Orwell probes the power of language as a tool used by the state to enforce a totalitarian regime on its people. Relying on Hannah Arendt’s definition of totalitarianism as seeking to dominate every aspect of its citizens’ lives, this paper aims to discuss how such regime tries to undercut the capacity for effective opposition at a cognitive level through the means of “linguistic distortion”, as it can be observed in Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four through the linguistic manipulations known as “Double think” and “Newspeak”. Indeed, when Arendt refers to the “perpetual motion-mania of totalitarian movements”, she is pointing to the fact that, totalitarians, as observed in Nineteen Eighty-Four, pour out endless streams of propaganda, disinformation and lies that can disrupt, suppress, or overwhelm the capacity for calm, reasoned deliberation of truth by reshaping the dynamic of language.