1984 is read by seniors all across the nation- a book that explores concepts from individualism to dictatorship to human need and truth, 1984 is a masterpiece that history teachers across US schools beg students to read. And more importantly to comprehend the hidden message that Orwell wanted to portray to his readers.
Summary
1984 follows Winston Smith who is a rebellion deep down and who works in the Ministry of Truth that falsifies history records to fit the narrative of the Party and Big Brother. He is the omniscient entity that watches over Oceania and essentially dictates the society while the Party consists of the officials who execute his will.
In the terrifying reality that Orwell created in 1984, everyone in society is watched and listened to through telescreens and vaporized at first signs of intelligence or critical thinking. Amidst this chaos, Winston gets acquainted with Julia who also shares resentment towards the Party. They get involved with each other physically which goes against the Party’s rules and they are eventually caught.
Naturally, they are tortured until they confess to everything and inevitably betray each other. Symbolically, the book ends with Winston at a cafe who now is convinced, after a number of days of torture, that he loves Big Brother and that 2+2=5.
Themes
Some of the biggest themes explored in 1984 include the human need for love/companionship, solitude, totalitarianism, and the tendency of people in power to go corrupt.
Orwell manages to show his readers the desperation a person has for emotions, more specifically, love. Winston has no one that he likes let alone love, for in this society, the Party reduces human interaction to meaningless small talks at best.
Furthermore, Orwell capitalizes on what happens to a person who has no one and is alone. Winston bottles everything up since there is no one to talk with- and while not directly, him being alone with his thoughts is one of the reasons why he has dark fantasies about Julia (like raping/killing her).
On another note, the totalitarian society that Orwell illustrates is so deep rooted that realism cannot but prevail. Despite Winston’s willingness to go against the Party and its values, 1984 is far from fictional love stories like The Hunger Games where the rebellion and the lovely couples come out victorious.
No, 1984 shows that once taken root, it becomes impossible to get rid of a totalitarian government. It shows the reality of a world where WWII was won by the Nazi Germans.
Similarly, Orwell shows how communism may sound like a solution to our problems, but in reality, because man tends to be corrupt the more power he has, communism never works in action.
As his novel Animal Farm depicted, those who start a revolution are the most likely to be prone to the same problems they revolutionized against.
Important Quotes
- “Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past.” If, as a society, we aren’t aware of history being changed, it gives the people in authority the chance to control everything that comes after that. Similarly, those that have control over the present, have the power to alter the past.
- “Until they become conscious they will never rebel, and until after they have rebelled they cannot become conscious.” While this could count as a paradox, this quote enjoins us to be politically active and be part of the decision-making process. The people being “they” in this quote, it’s crucial for us to be conscience when it comes to the political decisions our nations make. The colonists back in the day knew they were not being represented and they did something about it- this directly resulted in the America that we know today. Similarly, to be able to revolt, we must be conscious in all our senses.
3. “Reality exists in the human mind, and nowhere else.” One of the big questions that 1984 made its audience think about is whether reality is subjective or objective. If in reality something happened, but everyone in the world believes it didn’t happen, what does that say about the event? If no one remembers it, does it still exist? The book says that if enough humans agree on something, that becomes the reality despite not being true.
4. “Nothing was your own except the few cubic centimeters inside your skull.” While most thoughts get shared out loud or on paper, some thoughts are just for you hence they never get mentioned out loud even if that’s the only thing one can think about. That is a fact and that is something Orwell capitalized on throughout his novel. He made it abundantly clear that, quote literally, the only thing we are entitled to as human beings, is the few cubic centimeters in our skulls.
Conclusion
Overall, 1984 is a masterpiece that everyone must read at least once in their lifetime. From the thematic to the symbols, this book takes you on a journey through the reality of communism.
Even in the age of modernization, we must be critical of political matters and be involved in the very thing that has the potential of changing our lives in minutes.