Barnhill as Eeerie Sanctuary, Georgia Zele

The house I’ve decided to analyze for this research project is Barnhill.  Barnhill is located on the small island of Jura, Scotland, and heavily influenced Orwell’s dystopian novel 1984.  Barnhill has been in use since the twentieth century, and is owned by the same Fletcher family that rented it out to Orwell from 1946-1948.  The old farm-style house is made of white-washed brick, and has beautiful blue shutters on the top of the roof.  The house was entirely off-grid, surrounded by deserted landscape.  The house had no electricity, and was considered to be primitive even for its time.  The isolated territory and privacy of the property inspired Orwell to curate one of his greatest literary achievements.  

For a quick analysis of the plot, 1984 focuses on Winston Smith, a man living in a dystopian society where The Party (the government) controls everything.  The Party controls what society eats, what they watch, who they are allowed to speak to, and how they are allowed to spend their days.  Everything and everyone is under high security watch by “Big Brother”.  Winston Smith starts to question the morality of The Party, and yearns for a life of freedom and liberation.  By the end of the novel, Winston Smith manages to escape from The Party with a group of rebels (an anti-party group), and together they form their own society. Throughout the novel, readers can easily identify the dark themes of paranoia, censorship, dangerous propaganda, and power.   

Many may be wondering - how does Barnill, a seemingly excluded area with all of the freedom in the world lead to the curation of 1984, a book centered around control and restraint?  After some deep diving, I learned that Barnhill was truly the only fitting place for him to write a novel of such horrifying and violent extremes.  Barnhill allowed Orwell to fully step outside of the society he was living in, and re-evaluate the world from an observant perspective.  Throughout the course of the novel, Winston Smith is constantly trying to find places to retreat to that had no listening devices or security.  Barnhill was a real-life representation of this for Orwell.  

Although Orwell was not living in a totalitarian society in 1946-1948, the seclusion of Barnhill acted as a portal for him to analyze the potential dangers of mass-media and upcoming technology that was not so realized by the general public of his time.  During the time of Orwell’s stay at Barnhill, Britain was recovering from the war, and times were bleak.  On top of this, Orwell was suffering from tuberculosis, which added another layer to his dark mindset at the time.  Orwell was a prisoner to his sickness, much like Winston Smith was a prisoner to the corrupt government.  All of these struggles going around and happening to Orwell forced him to consider a world of frightening (yet realistic) extremes.  Exiting the postwar world, it is understandable that Orwell was able to produce a story of a war-torn oppressive society. 

Despite this, Barnhill embodied a place of escape, and a place where Orwell could truly think without barriers.  We can see this reflected in the novel, as Winston Smith was trying to find his Barnhill.  Readers are able to see how Orwell transformed his personal goal of free-thought without distraction into his character in the text.  

Similar to the novel Wuthering Heights, written by Emily Brontë, readers can see just how much influence a house can have on a novel, the characters, and the author themselves.  The two biggest themes that Wuthering Heights and 1984 share are manipulation and isolation.  In Wuthering Heights, characters are being locked into rooms, verbally abused, and manipulated by one character in power - Heathcliff.  Everytime characters visit the house of Wuthering Heights, something dark happens.  There seems to be this haunting aura that embodies the house and affects the characters.  Much like 1984, where Winston Smith is being banished to his home under top-notch security by The Party, the houses play a significant role to the quality of life the characters are able to live in each story. 

The central effect that houses have on novels is undeniable. Authors for centuries have been able to take inspiration from houses in their reality, and elude them into their work.  Before doing this project, I would’ve never known the influence that Barnhill had on 1984.  It is amazing to see how Orwell was able to create a story that was beyond his time from the environment around him.  Ultimately, his story begs the question and opens the possibility of whether or not the novel is truly “dystopian”.