Abstract
The novel Nineteen Eighty-Four is one of George Orwell’s (1903-1950) masterworks who is treated as the 20th century’s most influential English writer. The novel is known as the most famous political allegory of the literary world. In the novel, Orwell depicts a horrific and fictitious totalitarian society set in a country of Oceania in the year of 1984. By close reading, this paper attempts to expound the idolatrous phenomena in Nineteen Eighty-Four based on the theory of crowd psychology in Gustave Le Bon’s book The Crowd: A Study of the Popular Mind, and tries to explain the connection between idolatry and totalitarianism in the novel.
Keywords   George Orwell   Nineteen Eighty-Four   idolatry  
crowd psychology

小说《1984》是二十世纪最具影响力的英国作家乔治•奥威尔（George Orwell,1903~1950）的代表作之一，堪称世界文坛最著名的政治讽喻小说。书中奥威尔刻画了一个以1984年的大洋国为背景的，令人感到恐怖的、假想的极权主义社会。本文通过“细读”法，运用法国社会心理学家古斯塔夫•勒庞在《乌合之众》一书中提出的大众心理学理论，对《1984》中的偶像崇拜现象进行阐释，并探寻小说中偶像崇拜与极权主义的关系。
关键词  乔治•奥威尔   《1984》   偶像崇拜   大众心理学

This paper attempts to probe into the idolatrous phenomena in George Orwell’s novel Nineteen Eighty-Four based on the crowd psychology in Gustave Le Bon’s book The Crowd: A Study of the Popular Mind, and tries to explain the connection between idolatry and totalitarianism in the novel.

George Orwell (1903-1950) is a British journalist and novelist. Due to his contributions to novels, poetry, criticism and journalism about social issues, Orwell is honored as the top recorder of English culture and the most influential political writer in the 20th century. His writing features are mainly lucidness, intelligence and wit, opposition to totalitarianism, concern of inequity, and commitment to democratic socialism. The novel Nineteen Eighty-Four was one of his master works. In this dystopian novel, he made political predictions about totalitarianism, which were proved in the real world later. Hence, Nineteen Eighty-Four is considered as one of the best political satire in literary history.