Reviews with content warning for Rape - Nineteen Eighty-Four

Reviews tagging 'Rape'

Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell

225 reviews

_eelenaa_'s review against another edition

adventurous dark reflective tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

2.0

The premise of a totalitarian government and a rebellion against it is very exciting and has a lot of potential, but I think that this book is pretty over-hyped. In my opinion, it ends up being a little pretentious, often opting for philosophical language that really means nothing if you think about it (especially near the ending), and the characters are bland and unlikeable.
It is also too vulgar for my taste. If you have a weak stomach and can't or don't want to read about torture and other gross things, do not read this book, or read with caution.
This is a cult classic, many people adore this book and the social commentary of the story is, all-in-all, good, so I would actually suggest that everyone who is interested in this book reads it, but do not expect anything mind-blowing.

First of all, I just thought it was a bit weird and unnecessary for Julia and Winston to mention how much they hate women and how stupid they think women are on several occasions. Maybe there is a deeper meaning here, but, if there is, I missed it.

Also, WOW this book is vulgar. I understand Winston and Julia sleeping together to defy Big Brother, but the way he describes violently raping and killing her (twice, I believe) is unsettling, to say the least. This also cannot have the excuse of happening to represent them defying Big Brother because, clearly, Big Brother loves violence. They literally perform public executions in front of children. Also, the 10-or-so year age gap? Why?

This book is pretty gross in general, though I suppose sometimes this is not a bad thing; Orwell is very good at describing disgusting textures, smells, tastes and atmospheres.

The ending is what I couldn't stand the most. All of the aforementioned stuff is trivial and generally unimportant but I was really hoping for a mind-blowing ending. Instead, I got O'Brien torturing Winston until Winston pretends to agree with O'Brien's screwed-up worldviews... and magically Winston actually begins agreeing with them?

It's like the book was missing a chunk. At what point did Winston completely do a 180 and go from hating Big Brother to loving it? He clearly knows that what O'Brien is saying and doing is wrong, and yet somehow he changes his mind? This brainwash aspect is, in my opinion, weak and poorly executed.

Content Warnings

starofash's review against another edition

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dark reflective slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

2.75

1984 is a book about a surveillance state. it's worldbuilding is very strong, and it deals with interesting questions like "what is realitiy?", "(how do we know) what happened in the pasr?" and "what influence does language have on us?", but other than that, i must say that this is not a very good book.
the main character, winston smith, is portrayed as extremely careful and untrusting for the first part of the book, but one encounter with a woman who (apparently) loves him is enough to make him throw all his concerns about how awfully loyal to the party and undeserving of trust all young women are over board and he then enters a relationship with her.
his actions seem to contradict the character as we got to know him in the first 100 pages of the book.
(he also had r@pe fantasies about his love interest, julia, in these first 100 pages of the book and she later says that she "hates women". there's a lot of misogony in this book!)
also, the whole book basically builds up to this high suspense point where winston gets in contact with a high-ranking party member who he is convinced is part of the rebellion, or at least dislikes the party and the big brother, but once it actually happens, the book is basically over. there's a whole lot of dense, mildly interesting political theory and directly after that, the thing winston knew would happen from the start actually happens,

he gets tortured and his spirit breaks and the only interesting things are the mindcontrol and that two characters we trusted before weren't actually trustworthy

and then the book ends. it's not very rewarding, honestly. you wait 3/4 of the book that finally something happens, and just as it gets to it, the book's over.
i AM glad i read it, but i don't think my life would've been worse if i hadn't.

Content Warnings