Critical Lens Essay

Logan Pearsall Smith was right when he said, ”It is not what an author says, but what he or she whispers that is important.” This is true for almost all pieces of literature, all the great ones that is. A story without an underlying message is just ink on a page, an empty volume of letters. The written story is not that important, what is important is the message that the reader is able to get from reading that story. Two pieces of literature that display this whisper quality are George Orwell’s 1984 and Arthur Miller’s play The Crucible. These two stories deal with the issue of communism although it is never actually stated in the text. The message about communism each story is trying to get across comes to the reader as an afterthought or a feeling gathered from the tone, theme and setting.
George Orwell’s novel 1984 was written in 1949 when the majority of the west saw communism as a moral experiment and not something altogether bad. Orwell had seen the atrocities that totalitarian governments wrought. The setting of the novel is as mentioned in the title and it is a very bleak future. The London that the main character now lives in is in a state of urban decay, a rundown city in which buildings are crumbling, conveniences such as elevators never work, and necessities such as electricity and plumbing are extremely unreliable. Though Orwell never discusses the theme openly, it is clear that the shoddy disintegration of London, just like the widespread hunger and poverty of its inhabitants, is due to the Party’s mismanagement and incompetence. One of the themes of 1984, inspired by the history of twentieth-century communism, is that totalitarian regimes are viciously effective at enhancing their own power and miserably incompetent at providing for their citizens. The grimy urban decay in London is an important visual reminder of this idea, and offers insight into the Party’s priorities through its contrast to the immense technology the Party develops to spy on its citizens.
Arthur Miller’s play takes place in an entirely different time. The play centers around the Salem witch trials of the 1600’s. the majority of the play surrounds a group of girls who become “bewitched” and go about accusing members of the community who they didn’t like. Miller wrote The Crucible right about the same time as the McCarthy hearings. The widespread paranoia of those hearings is directly paralleled in The Crucible. Communism is never mentioned in the play but if one had any knowledge of Cold War history than the overwhelming image of the McCarthy Red Scare would come to mind.
It is the message that an author is trying to convey that is important, not always the story that it is carried in. The Crucible and 1984 both carried messages about topics important to the authors and the general public. The context that the piece of literature was written in is usually needed to be understood in order for the meaning to have an affect on the reader. What is a story without the author’s whispers behind the words? An unnecessary waste of paper and ink.