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A review by thaurisil
Nineteen Eighty Four: Anniversary Edition by George Orwell
5.0
Written in 1949, Nineteen Eighty-Four depicts a world where London has undergone WWII, a civil war and a revolution, and now resides in Airstrip One, Oceania, Oceania being one of three super-states (the other two being Eurasia and Eastasia). These three super-states are continuously in various states of alignment and war as they fight for an area consisting generally of North Africa and the Middle East. Oceania itself is governed by the Party, led by Big Brother, whose face appears on ubiquitous, enormous posters, but may or may not exist. The government has four ministries, the Ministry of Plenty, the Ministry of Truth, the Ministry of Love and the Ministry of Peace. Oceania's official language is Newspeak, but most people speak Standard English. There are three social classes, the Inner Party, the Outer Party and the proles.
The protagonist Winston Smith is a member of the Outer Party, with a job at the Ministry of Truth (Minitrue in Newspeak) where he falsifies records in line with the circumstances of the day to ensure that all historical documents portray the Party as being right. As a result, real history only exists in the mind, and nothing can be proven as fact, not even the year. In fact, most people in Oceania are proficient at erasing and aligning their memories with what the Party wants them to believe. When a speaker changes the target of his speech from Eurasia to Eastasia in mid-sentence, the people understand that Oceania had changed enemies from Eastasia to Eurasia, but they believe that Oceania had always been fighting Eastasia, as the Party proclaims.
Winston has dim memories of his childhood before the war, and rebels against the Party in secret, an act called thoughtcrime in Newspeak, which is punishable by "vaporisation", or death. He keeps a diary in which he writes things like "DOWN WITH BIG BROTHER", but only does this in an alcove in his room hidden from view of the telescreen, a television capable of both transmitting and receiving information, through which Party members are constantly monitored.
When helping a girl who has fallen down, Winston receives a surreptitious note from the girl, Julia, declaring her love for him. So begins their love affair. However, as the Party disapproves of love and loving sex in particular, believing that it weakens the ability of Party members to love the Party, the two conduct their affair in secret, eventually renting a room in an antique store owned by an old prole known as Mr Charrington. Their love is founded largely on a common hatred of the Party, Winston being an intellectual rebel while Julia being a physical "rebel from the waist down". Believing an Inner Party member known as O'Brien to be an enemy of the Party, Winston gets into contact with him, and O'Brien arranges for him to receive the book, supposedly written by Emmanuel Goldstein, the alleged leader of the Brotherhood, an organisation said to be rebelling against the Party.
Here beings what, for me, was the high point of the story, in that it lucidly clarified the nature of Oceania's society in a way that I had known but had never really understood. The book details the true meaning of the Party slogans, War is Peace, Freedom is Slavery, and Ignorance is Strength. It explains that war will never end as the three super-states are too similar in power to ever be defeated. Rather, the true reason for war is to ensure that surplus goods produced are quickly destroyed by war, to keep the people in a minimal, uneducated state in which they gain no desire to rebel. Being at war also puts the people in a continuous state of distress, directing their hatred externally rather than internally. Indeed, all three super-states have identical political scenes, and the continuous war maintains their internal political stability, thus resulting in peace.
The book further explains that there have always been three social classes, the High, the Middle and the Low. The Middle invariably try to gain the status of the High, and in the latest change of social structure, the Middle recognised this historical trend and decided to hold on to their power once they reached the top. They do this by rendering total obedience to the Party. The proles are kept in perpetual poverty so that they never rise above their drudgery to rebel, and as such they are the only group in society who are free and never need to be monitored. The Outer Party are most likely to rebel, and hence they are tightly controlled, their every action monitored and any unorthodox behaviour punished by death. To ensure the people believe in Big Brother's infallibility, the Party educates everyone in the art of doublethink, where one can simultaneously believe and not believe in something.
After reading the book, Winston and Julia are captured, with Mr Charrington revealing himself as a 35 year old member of the Thought Police. They are separated and Winston is brought to the Ministry of Love, a windowless building where he has no sense of time. He is brutally tortured, admitting crimes that he did and did not commit. He meets O'Brien, the real author of the book and not actually an enemy of the Party. When Winston reaches his weakest state after much torturing, O'Brien begins to re-educate him in the ways of the Party. He encourages Winston to tell the truth, electroshocking him when he does not, and as Winston speaks of his misgivings, O'Brien appears to understand, winning Winston's reverence, and slowly educates Winston in the art of doublethink. Still, Winston continues to love Julia.
After he calls out her name in his dreams, O'Brien brings him to Room 101, where people face the worst thing in the world for them. For Winston, it is rats. As O'Brien brings a cage of flesh-eating rats closer to Winston's face, Winston panics and screams for the punishment to be done to Julia instead. With that, his love for Julia vanishes. The last chapter describes Winston as a broken drunkard in a cafe, accepting his fate of death yet ardently supporting the Party's activities and loving Big Brother.
I read this when I was 13 and I gave it a one-star review. Clearly I was too young to understand the ending, for I absolutely loved the book this time. I thought I would hate it, but the book prepared me well for the end by repeatedly saying that Winston and Julia were doomed to their deaths. In fact, the dreadful ending only enhances the charm of the book, for a happy end would only destroy the dystopia. For me, the most chilling part was that O'Brien was not content with merely torturing and killing Winston, but instead he had to bring Winston over to the Party's side, and force Winston to betray everything important to him, even his love for Julia. O'Brien's methods were flawless, as he first tortured Winston then allowed him to recover, hence acting as a protector that Winston lionized. In this way the Party asserted its invincibility, never to be defeated by actions or by thought.
The strongest part was the comprehensive world that was built. Orwell considered all relevant aspects of it, including the government, the structure of society, the daily lives of the people and even the language that was used. In this way, the world was believable. And what a world - full of control and hatred, the only love allowed being that towards Big Brother. All the people Winston trusts eventually betray him. Either you are a Party member and are controlled, or you are a prole and disdained.
A scary thought is that this dystopia could occur anywhere, not just in the post-war world that Orwell wrote this book in, but even in today's world, if only we were to let our guard down and a group of people were cunning and strategic enough. And as the book demonstrates, once such a government is established, it can never be destroyed, because those who can do not want to and those who want to cannot.
I don't tend to enjoy political novels, but this was so frightening and emotionally penetrating that it is impossible for me to criticize it. This is truly a classic in every sense of the word.
The protagonist Winston Smith is a member of the Outer Party, with a job at the Ministry of Truth (Minitrue in Newspeak) where he falsifies records in line with the circumstances of the day to ensure that all historical documents portray the Party as being right. As a result, real history only exists in the mind, and nothing can be proven as fact, not even the year. In fact, most people in Oceania are proficient at erasing and aligning their memories with what the Party wants them to believe. When a speaker changes the target of his speech from Eurasia to Eastasia in mid-sentence, the people understand that Oceania had changed enemies from Eastasia to Eurasia, but they believe that Oceania had always been fighting Eastasia, as the Party proclaims.
Winston has dim memories of his childhood before the war, and rebels against the Party in secret, an act called thoughtcrime in Newspeak, which is punishable by "vaporisation", or death. He keeps a diary in which he writes things like "DOWN WITH BIG BROTHER", but only does this in an alcove in his room hidden from view of the telescreen, a television capable of both transmitting and receiving information, through which Party members are constantly monitored.
When helping a girl who has fallen down, Winston receives a surreptitious note from the girl, Julia, declaring her love for him. So begins their love affair. However, as the Party disapproves of love and loving sex in particular, believing that it weakens the ability of Party members to love the Party, the two conduct their affair in secret, eventually renting a room in an antique store owned by an old prole known as Mr Charrington. Their love is founded largely on a common hatred of the Party, Winston being an intellectual rebel while Julia being a physical "rebel from the waist down". Believing an Inner Party member known as O'Brien to be an enemy of the Party, Winston gets into contact with him, and O'Brien arranges for him to receive the book, supposedly written by Emmanuel Goldstein, the alleged leader of the Brotherhood, an organisation said to be rebelling against the Party.
Here beings what, for me, was the high point of the story, in that it lucidly clarified the nature of Oceania's society in a way that I had known but had never really understood. The book details the true meaning of the Party slogans, War is Peace, Freedom is Slavery, and Ignorance is Strength. It explains that war will never end as the three super-states are too similar in power to ever be defeated. Rather, the true reason for war is to ensure that surplus goods produced are quickly destroyed by war, to keep the people in a minimal, uneducated state in which they gain no desire to rebel. Being at war also puts the people in a continuous state of distress, directing their hatred externally rather than internally. Indeed, all three super-states have identical political scenes, and the continuous war maintains their internal political stability, thus resulting in peace.
The book further explains that there have always been three social classes, the High, the Middle and the Low. The Middle invariably try to gain the status of the High, and in the latest change of social structure, the Middle recognised this historical trend and decided to hold on to their power once they reached the top. They do this by rendering total obedience to the Party. The proles are kept in perpetual poverty so that they never rise above their drudgery to rebel, and as such they are the only group in society who are free and never need to be monitored. The Outer Party are most likely to rebel, and hence they are tightly controlled, their every action monitored and any unorthodox behaviour punished by death. To ensure the people believe in Big Brother's infallibility, the Party educates everyone in the art of doublethink, where one can simultaneously believe and not believe in something.
After reading the book, Winston and Julia are captured, with Mr Charrington revealing himself as a 35 year old member of the Thought Police. They are separated and Winston is brought to the Ministry of Love, a windowless building where he has no sense of time. He is brutally tortured, admitting crimes that he did and did not commit. He meets O'Brien, the real author of the book and not actually an enemy of the Party. When Winston reaches his weakest state after much torturing, O'Brien begins to re-educate him in the ways of the Party. He encourages Winston to tell the truth, electroshocking him when he does not, and as Winston speaks of his misgivings, O'Brien appears to understand, winning Winston's reverence, and slowly educates Winston in the art of doublethink. Still, Winston continues to love Julia.
After he calls out her name in his dreams, O'Brien brings him to Room 101, where people face the worst thing in the world for them. For Winston, it is rats. As O'Brien brings a cage of flesh-eating rats closer to Winston's face, Winston panics and screams for the punishment to be done to Julia instead. With that, his love for Julia vanishes. The last chapter describes Winston as a broken drunkard in a cafe, accepting his fate of death yet ardently supporting the Party's activities and loving Big Brother.
I read this when I was 13 and I gave it a one-star review. Clearly I was too young to understand the ending, for I absolutely loved the book this time. I thought I would hate it, but the book prepared me well for the end by repeatedly saying that Winston and Julia were doomed to their deaths. In fact, the dreadful ending only enhances the charm of the book, for a happy end would only destroy the dystopia. For me, the most chilling part was that O'Brien was not content with merely torturing and killing Winston, but instead he had to bring Winston over to the Party's side, and force Winston to betray everything important to him, even his love for Julia. O'Brien's methods were flawless, as he first tortured Winston then allowed him to recover, hence acting as a protector that Winston lionized. In this way the Party asserted its invincibility, never to be defeated by actions or by thought.
The strongest part was the comprehensive world that was built. Orwell considered all relevant aspects of it, including the government, the structure of society, the daily lives of the people and even the language that was used. In this way, the world was believable. And what a world - full of control and hatred, the only love allowed being that towards Big Brother. All the people Winston trusts eventually betray him. Either you are a Party member and are controlled, or you are a prole and disdained.
A scary thought is that this dystopia could occur anywhere, not just in the post-war world that Orwell wrote this book in, but even in today's world, if only we were to let our guard down and a group of people were cunning and strategic enough. And as the book demonstrates, once such a government is established, it can never be destroyed, because those who can do not want to and those who want to cannot.
I don't tend to enjoy political novels, but this was so frightening and emotionally penetrating that it is impossible for me to criticize it. This is truly a classic in every sense of the word.