A review by lectrixnoctis
1984 by George Orwell

challenging dark mysterious reflective sad medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

Winston Smith works for the Ministry of Truth in London as the chief city of Airstrip One. Big Brother stares out from every sign; the Thought Police discover every act of disloyalty. When Winston encounters love with Julia, he uncovers that life does not have to be tedious and deadening and revives to new opportunities. Despite the police helicopters that approach and circle aloft, Winston and Julia start to question the Party; they are drawn towards conspiracy. Yet Big Brother will not tolerate conflict - even in mind. For those with original thoughts, they invented Room 101...

"1984" is a political novel written to warn readers in the West of the risks of totalitarian government. Having seen firsthand the horrific lengths to which totalitarian governments in Spain and Russia would go to support and expand their power, Orwell designed "1984" to sound the warning in Western nations still uncertain about how to approach the rise of communism. In 1949, the Cold War had not escalated, many American intellectuals advocated communism, and the prudence between democratic and communist nations was highly unclear. The Soviet Union was often described as a great moral experiment in the American press. Orwell was deeply concerned by the widespread cruelties and oppressions he observed in communist countries and seemed to have been mainly affected by the role of technology in enabling oppressive governments to monitor and control their citizens. In "1984", Orwell portrayed the perfect totalitarian society, the most powerful realisation of a modern-day government with absolute power. The novel's title was meant to indicate to its readers in 1949. The narrative represented a real opportunity for the near future. If totalitarianism were not objected to, the title suggested, some variation of the world described in the novel could become a fact in only thirty-five years. Orwell portrays a state in which the state monitors and controls every aspect of human life to the extent that even having a traitorous thought is against the regulation. As the novel advances, the timidly rebellious Winston Smith sets out to challenge the limitations of the Party's power, only to uncover that its ability to manage and enslave its subjects dwarfs even his most paranoid visions of its reach. The reader understands through Winston's eyes that The Party uses several techniques to control its citizens, each of which is an essential component of its own.

The Party attacks its subjects with psychological triggers designed to overcome the mind's capacity for independent thought. The giant telescreen in every citizen's room fires a constant brook of propaganda designed to make the failures and weaknesses of the Party appear to be achieving successes. The telescreens also monitor behaviour—everywhere they go, citizens are continuously reminded, especially using the universal posters reading "BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING YOU," that the leaders scrutinise them. The Party damages the family system by inducting kids into the Junior Spies, which brainwashes and enables them to spy on their parents and inform any instance of disloyalty to the Party. The Party even forces individuals to conceal their sexual desires, regaling sex as merely a procreative task whose fate is the creation of new Party members. The Party then directs people's pent-up frustration and feeling into intense, brutal displays of hate against the Party's political enemies. The Party has developed many of these opponents expressly for this goal.

Additionally, to using their minds, the Party also prevents the bodies of its issues. The Party always watches for any sign of betrayal, to the point that, as Winston watches, even a tiny facial twinge could lead to a detention. A person's nervous procedure becomes his grandest enemy. The Party pushes its members to undergo mass morning exercises called the Physical Jerks and then work long, gruelling days at state agencies, keeping people in a public state of exhaustion. Anyone who drives to defy the Party is disciplined and "reeducated" through systematic and brutal torture. After being subjected to weeks of this harsh treatment, Winston concludes that nobody is more powerful than physical pain—no emotional commitment or moral conviction can overwhelm it.

One of the authors most important messages in "1984" is that vocabulary is central to human thinking because it structures and defines the ideas that individuals can formulate and express. Suppose control of language were centralised in a political agency. In that case, Orwell proposes, such an agency could alter the very design of language to make it unattainable to even conceive of rebellious or rebellious thoughts because there would be no way they could think of it. This idea exemplifies itself in the language of "Newspeak". The Party has introduced to replace English. Moreover, it does simplify the langue. They even translate old litre like Shakespeare into "Newspeak".

The idea of "doublethink" emerges as an essential significance of the Party's massive movement of large-scale psychological manipulation. Doublethink is the capability to hold two contradictory views in one's mind simultaneously. As the Party's mind-control techniques fail an individual's capacity for independent thought, it becomes possible for that person to believe anything that the Party tells them, even while including information that runs counter to what they are being told.
For instance, at the Hate Week rally, the Party redirects its prudent allegiance, so the country it has been at war becomes its ally, and its former partner becomes its new enemy. When the Party speaker suddenly changes the government he refers to as an adversary in the middle of his address, the crowd accepts his words instantly. It is ashamed to find that it has made the ominous signs for the event. In the same way, people can get the Party ministries' names. However, they contradict their parts:
  • The Ministry of Plenty oversees monetary shortages.
  • The Ministry of Peace pays war.
  • The Ministry of Truth executes propaganda and historical revisionism.
  • The Ministry of Love is the centre of the Party's suffering operations punishment.

I have a lot of thoughts in my head, but I am not sure if I can put them into words correctly to describe the feelings I felt while reading this book. I am still not a person who enjoys dystopian fiction. However, I say that George Orwell has a beautiful writing style. Likewise, I wondered if all these concepts he has written down in this book could happen. In conclusion, I believe it is possible, and however, if you do read this book with open eyes, you can clearly see the strategic methods they are using and could probably see through them if it would happen in real life. I highly recommend this book to pretty much anyone who wants to read about the dangers of a controlled society.
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