There has been many apocalyptic predictions how the world will end or which disaster will annihilate humanity. George Orwell focused on something little different – a total control over individuals, a regime against which fascism pales in comparison.
- Author – George Orwell
- First edition – 1949
- Genre – Sci-Fi
General Background
The Big Brother sees you. The Party is everything. Love means hatred, peace means war, freedom means enslavement. Every last bit of your life is controlled and documented, you are constantly under guard. You make even one minor mistake, one unpredictable move and you will be removed – permanently, like you were never born.
There are three large countries in the world, but it doesn’t really matter in which you live – they are all the same. Poor, decimated, terrorized, under permanent threat of war… life really could not have been much worse.
Plot Summary
Winston Smith, a member of the Outer Party, is a miserable man who lives in the ruins of London and works at the Ministry of Truth. His job is to alter the past news so that they would fit the present, thus make The Party look unerring.
Winston hates his live; he hates being watched at all times, he hates the propaganda and above all, he secretly hates The Party. He writes his own journal, because there is a secret spot in his apartment where no camera can reach. He knows he is committing a “Thinkcrime” – something punishable by death if found out by the police force called Thought Police.
One day, Winston encounters a woman named Julia and over time, he develops a romantic relationship with her. They are both approached by a member of the Inner Party (top 2% of the population) and asked whether they want to enter an underground organization whose purpose is to overthrow The Party.
Eventually, their little personal rebellion ends as they are captured by the Thought Police, tortured beyond imagination and eventually broken down; because The Party does not tolerate even the smallest thought of defiance, it wants to own even the backmost piece of human mind.
MPB Rating
- 10 out of 10
There’s nothing much to add really. 1984 is an ingenious work with almost prophetic forecast of what would happen if totalitarian ideologies were perfected. This book should be mandatory for every single human, because we will then understand that one quality rises above “safety”, “fighting terrorism” or “Facebook” – Freedom.
Thank you for reading!
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This has been on my “to-read” list forever. I also want to read “Brave New World” and it would be interesting to compare them.