An insight of George Orwell's masterpiece 1984

An insight of George Orwell’s 1984

 

 

George Orwell’s most famous work 1984 is based on dystopian literature. Dystopian literature is nothing but a genre of speculative fiction that explores social and political structures.  The book portrays the horrors of dictatorship and how everything belongs to the Inner party. “Big brother” is the person or group of people (no one knows if he/she or they actually exist) who monitors and controls everything happening in and around Oceania. The dystopian world of 1984 is divided into three totalitarian states- Oceania, Eastasia and Eurasia. The book in brief discusses how the totalitarian government manipulates the common people into believing things that are not true.

 

The book starts with Winston, a man of forty five (the protagonist) walking along the stairs with innumerable thoughts suffocating him as he sees the pictures and the telescreen.  He worked in the ministry of truth ( ‘minitrue’ in newspeak). Newspeak was the official language of Oceania. The party had three slogans:

 

WAR IS PEACE

FREEDOM IS SLAVERY

IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH

   

The administration was extremely unusual and harsh (unlike present-day London). The government always uses censorship and only reveal things that they want to. There were four ministries- Ministry of truth which dealt with news, entertainment, education and the fine arts, Ministry of peace which of course concerned itself with war, The Ministry of plenty which was responsible for the economic affairs and The Ministry of love and trust me you don’t want to know its purpose.

 

            The common people of Oceania are unaware of everything. They are like PUPPETS who do what they are assigned to do and believe what they are supposed to. But however some people like Winston himself remember memories of the past when the party had not invaded their country. Winston seems to remember the taste of coffee, the people who actually invented the aircraft, the way things were in the past where people were not under the surveillance of hidden cameras and microphones. He initially had no idea that even the members of the party believed everything until he met Julia.

 

             Julia worked in the Fiction department of the Ministry of truth. In the beginning of the book Winston felt she was member of the thought police (it was a department which literally dealt with the thought crimes of people). One fine day, Julia managed to slip a note to Winston. I think you all will succeed in guessing what was written in the note. The three words “I LOVE YOU”. Winston and Julia’s relationship was also quite “predictable”, as they met in a secret avoiding telescreens and microphones. No one knew except them. They used to talk trash about the party and mostly just have sex. After a few days Winston discovered a place which had no telescreens to meet in the future. (Spoiler alert: it did). When they were finally caught, Mr Carrington (owner of the place) they found out was actually a spy from the thought police.

 

             The last 100 pages of the book just deals with how O’Brien (a member of the inner party, who had quite a good relation with Winston) tortured Winston into believing what has to be believed. Winston’s mind was similar to O Brien except Winston’s was insane. (According to the party). All efforts of O Brien had apparently failed and he thus decided to take him to room101. Now, room101 was another torture room. It did not just physically hurt the thought criminals but instead used their fears against them.  The inner party knew that the criminals would choose death rather than face the dreadful torture of room101. That’s when Winston finally couldn’t bear it anymore and did the one thing he had not done during his entire imprisonment, his exact words were “DO IT TO JULIA, BUT NOT ME”. He betrayed her, very willingly. After this incident, O’ Brien felt Winston was cured from his impure and “insane” unorthodox thoughts. Winston was freed. After some days, things were back to normal except for the fact that Winston had given up on his hatred towards ‘Big brother’.

 

In fact at the end of the book, Winston even confesses his love for ‘Big Brother’ (its cheesy I know, but it’s just the correct way in that world). So the book just reflects the power of manipulation. It gives us an idea of the world we dread to live. (For example: the time when Hitler, Mussolini, Stalin ruled their areas).

 

Lastly I would like to thank you for having the patience of reading this far and I will advise you to go and read this fascinating and interesting, complicated book.