1984
Author: George Orwell
Publication: 1949
Number of pages: 328 pages
Genre: social roman
Subject: cold war, freedom of press, communism
Content:
Winston Smith is a low-ranking member of the ruling Party in London, in the nation of
Oceania. Everywhere Winston goes, even his own home, the Party watches him through
telescreens; everywhere he looks he sees the face of the Party’s seemingly omniscient
leader, a figure known only as Big Brother. The Party controls everything in Oceania, even
the people’s history and language. Currently, the Party is forcing the implementation of an
invented language called Newspeak, which attempts to prevent political rebellion by
eliminating all words related to it. Even thinking rebellious thoughts is illegal. Such
thoughtcrime is, in fact, the worst of all crimes.
As the novel opens, Winston feels frustrated by the oppression and rigid control of the Party,
which prohibits free thought, sex, and any expression of individuality. Winston dislikes the
party and has illegally purchased a diary in which to write his criminal thoughts. He has also
become fixated on a powerful Party member named O’Brien, whom Winston believes is a
secret member of the Brotherhood—the mysterious, legendary group that works to overthrow
the Party.
Winston works in the Ministry of Truth, where he alters historical records to fit the needs of
the Party. He notices a coworker, a beautiful dark-haired girl, staring at him, and worries that
she is an informant who will turn him in for his thoughtcrime. He is troubled by the Party’s
control of history: the Party claims that Oceania has always been allied with Eastasia in a
war against Eurasia, but Winston seems to recall a time when this was not true. The Party
also claims that Emmanuel Goldstein, the alleged leader of the Brotherhood, is the most
dangerous man alive, but this does not seem plausible to Winston. Winston spends his
evenings wandering through the poorest neighborhoods in London, where the proletarians,
or proles, live squalid lives, relatively free of Party monitoring.
One day, Winston receives a note from the dark-haired girl that reads “I love you.” She tells
him her name, Julia, and they begin a covert affair, always on the lookout for signs of Party
monitoring. Eventually they rent a room above the secondhand store in the prole district
where Winston bought the diary. This relationship lasts for some time. Winston is sure that
they will be caught and punished sooner or later (the fatalistic Winston knows that he has
been doomed since he wrote his first diary entry), while Julia is more pragmatic and
optimistic. As Winston’s affair with Julia progresses, his hatred for the Party grows more and
more intense. At last, he receives the message that he has been waiting for: O’Brien wants
to see him.
Winston and Julia travel to O’Brien’s luxurious apartment. As a member of the powerful Inner
Party (Winston belongs to the Outer Party), O’Brien leads a life of luxury that Winston can
only imagine. O’Brien confirms to Winston and Julia that, like them, he hates the Party, and
says that he works against it as a member of the Brotherhood. He indoctrinates Winston and
Julia into the Brotherhood, and gives Winston a copy of Emmanuel Goldstein’s book, the
manifesto of the Brotherhood. Winston reads the book—an amalgam of several forms of
class-based twentieth-century social theory—to Julia in the room above the store. Suddenly,
, soldiers barge in and seize them. Mr. Charrington, the proprietor of the store, is revealed as
having been a member of the Thought Police all along.
Torn away from Julia and taken to a place called the Ministry of Love, Winston finds that
O’Brien, too, is a Party spy who simply pretended to be a member of the Brotherhood in
order to trap Winston into committing an open act of rebellion against the Party. O’Brien
spends months torturing and brainwashing Winston, who struggles to resist. At last, O’Brien
sends him to the dreaded Room 101, the final destination for anyone who opposes the Party.
Here, O’Brien tells Winston that he will be forced to confront his worst fear. Throughout the
novel, Winston has had recurring nightmares about rats; O’Brien now straps a cage full of
rats onto Winston’s head and prepares to allow the rats to eat his face. Winston snaps,
pleading with O’Brien to do it to Julia, not to him.
Giving up Julia is what O’Brien wanted from Winston all along. His spirit broken, Winston is
released to the outside world. He meets Julia but no longer feels anything for her. He has
accepted the Party entirely and has learned to love Big Brother.
Author:
George Orwell was born in India and moved to England but also lived in Paris. He was a
police officer and later a private teacher. He was unfit for military service.
Became a home guard and worked for a broadcasting company.
He also found a career as writer: political commentary, adventures / travels, animal farm +
1984 = fiction / refer to a dystopian novel
He made up words like doublethink, thought police, big brother and the cold war.
How do the author’s experiences affect his work?
- Nazi propaganda for BBC comes back in the novel
- Joined the army
- He was poor and travelled a lot (like the proles, uses this in his descriptions which
were very detailed)
What is Orwell’s message?
The book is written in a time where world wars took place, it tries to warn you for these
dangers that can happen during a world war.
The book is a warning for the future and also for totalitarian regimes (Stalin). Some parts of
the book are indeed realistic but not everything, it is a satire.
The setting of the story:
The story takes place in the year 1984 (according to Winston this is not certain), in London
which is no longer part of Great Britain but of Airstrip One. Airstrip One is part of Oceania,
one of the three major power continents with a totalitarian regime. Oceania consists of
England, Australia, New Zealand, North and South America and Canada.
The story lasts about a year and a half. There are a number of time jumps in between the
climaxes so that boring daily events do not come to light too much.
It must take place around 1984 because the regime must be fully established: after the
Second World War, there was a nuclear war in this story, after which the continents Oceania,
Eastasia and Eurasia were established. This settlement period would have lasted
approximately until 1960. Then enough time must have passed for a war baby like Winston
to be old and wise enough, and the memories for 1960 to be vague, making it difficult for
Winston to know for sure if the memories are still accurate. Also, it takes about 20 years for a
totalitarian regime to be fully established and self-evident to the people, making the 1980s
the most logical for the story.
Author: George Orwell
Publication: 1949
Number of pages: 328 pages
Genre: social roman
Subject: cold war, freedom of press, communism
Content:
Winston Smith is a low-ranking member of the ruling Party in London, in the nation of
Oceania. Everywhere Winston goes, even his own home, the Party watches him through
telescreens; everywhere he looks he sees the face of the Party’s seemingly omniscient
leader, a figure known only as Big Brother. The Party controls everything in Oceania, even
the people’s history and language. Currently, the Party is forcing the implementation of an
invented language called Newspeak, which attempts to prevent political rebellion by
eliminating all words related to it. Even thinking rebellious thoughts is illegal. Such
thoughtcrime is, in fact, the worst of all crimes.
As the novel opens, Winston feels frustrated by the oppression and rigid control of the Party,
which prohibits free thought, sex, and any expression of individuality. Winston dislikes the
party and has illegally purchased a diary in which to write his criminal thoughts. He has also
become fixated on a powerful Party member named O’Brien, whom Winston believes is a
secret member of the Brotherhood—the mysterious, legendary group that works to overthrow
the Party.
Winston works in the Ministry of Truth, where he alters historical records to fit the needs of
the Party. He notices a coworker, a beautiful dark-haired girl, staring at him, and worries that
she is an informant who will turn him in for his thoughtcrime. He is troubled by the Party’s
control of history: the Party claims that Oceania has always been allied with Eastasia in a
war against Eurasia, but Winston seems to recall a time when this was not true. The Party
also claims that Emmanuel Goldstein, the alleged leader of the Brotherhood, is the most
dangerous man alive, but this does not seem plausible to Winston. Winston spends his
evenings wandering through the poorest neighborhoods in London, where the proletarians,
or proles, live squalid lives, relatively free of Party monitoring.
One day, Winston receives a note from the dark-haired girl that reads “I love you.” She tells
him her name, Julia, and they begin a covert affair, always on the lookout for signs of Party
monitoring. Eventually they rent a room above the secondhand store in the prole district
where Winston bought the diary. This relationship lasts for some time. Winston is sure that
they will be caught and punished sooner or later (the fatalistic Winston knows that he has
been doomed since he wrote his first diary entry), while Julia is more pragmatic and
optimistic. As Winston’s affair with Julia progresses, his hatred for the Party grows more and
more intense. At last, he receives the message that he has been waiting for: O’Brien wants
to see him.
Winston and Julia travel to O’Brien’s luxurious apartment. As a member of the powerful Inner
Party (Winston belongs to the Outer Party), O’Brien leads a life of luxury that Winston can
only imagine. O’Brien confirms to Winston and Julia that, like them, he hates the Party, and
says that he works against it as a member of the Brotherhood. He indoctrinates Winston and
Julia into the Brotherhood, and gives Winston a copy of Emmanuel Goldstein’s book, the
manifesto of the Brotherhood. Winston reads the book—an amalgam of several forms of
class-based twentieth-century social theory—to Julia in the room above the store. Suddenly,
, soldiers barge in and seize them. Mr. Charrington, the proprietor of the store, is revealed as
having been a member of the Thought Police all along.
Torn away from Julia and taken to a place called the Ministry of Love, Winston finds that
O’Brien, too, is a Party spy who simply pretended to be a member of the Brotherhood in
order to trap Winston into committing an open act of rebellion against the Party. O’Brien
spends months torturing and brainwashing Winston, who struggles to resist. At last, O’Brien
sends him to the dreaded Room 101, the final destination for anyone who opposes the Party.
Here, O’Brien tells Winston that he will be forced to confront his worst fear. Throughout the
novel, Winston has had recurring nightmares about rats; O’Brien now straps a cage full of
rats onto Winston’s head and prepares to allow the rats to eat his face. Winston snaps,
pleading with O’Brien to do it to Julia, not to him.
Giving up Julia is what O’Brien wanted from Winston all along. His spirit broken, Winston is
released to the outside world. He meets Julia but no longer feels anything for her. He has
accepted the Party entirely and has learned to love Big Brother.
Author:
George Orwell was born in India and moved to England but also lived in Paris. He was a
police officer and later a private teacher. He was unfit for military service.
Became a home guard and worked for a broadcasting company.
He also found a career as writer: political commentary, adventures / travels, animal farm +
1984 = fiction / refer to a dystopian novel
He made up words like doublethink, thought police, big brother and the cold war.
How do the author’s experiences affect his work?
- Nazi propaganda for BBC comes back in the novel
- Joined the army
- He was poor and travelled a lot (like the proles, uses this in his descriptions which
were very detailed)
What is Orwell’s message?
The book is written in a time where world wars took place, it tries to warn you for these
dangers that can happen during a world war.
The book is a warning for the future and also for totalitarian regimes (Stalin). Some parts of
the book are indeed realistic but not everything, it is a satire.
The setting of the story:
The story takes place in the year 1984 (according to Winston this is not certain), in London
which is no longer part of Great Britain but of Airstrip One. Airstrip One is part of Oceania,
one of the three major power continents with a totalitarian regime. Oceania consists of
England, Australia, New Zealand, North and South America and Canada.
The story lasts about a year and a half. There are a number of time jumps in between the
climaxes so that boring daily events do not come to light too much.
It must take place around 1984 because the regime must be fully established: after the
Second World War, there was a nuclear war in this story, after which the continents Oceania,
Eastasia and Eurasia were established. This settlement period would have lasted
approximately until 1960. Then enough time must have passed for a war baby like Winston
to be old and wise enough, and the memories for 1960 to be vague, making it difficult for
Winston to know for sure if the memories are still accurate. Also, it takes about 20 years for a
totalitarian regime to be fully established and self-evident to the people, making the 1980s
the most logical for the story.
