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Abstract

This paper examines George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949) through the framework of biopolitical theory, with particular emphasis on Giorgio Agamben’s concepts of homo sacer, bare life, and the state of exception. The totalitarian regime depicted in the novel illustrates the reduction of individuals to a condition of bare life, where legal protections are suspended and sovereign power governs the very terms of existence. Drawing on Agamben’s Homo Sacer: Sovereign Power and Bare Life (1998) and State of Exception (2005), this study contends that Orwell’s dystopia enacts an extreme form of biopolitical subjugation, in which authority is maintained through linguistic manipulation, constant surveillance, and systemic torture. The analysis also engages with contemporary scholarly discourse, positioning Nineteen Eighty-Four as a prescient text within current debates on biopolitics and power.


 

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