1984 Book Analysis.

Published in 1949, soon after World War II, George Orwell’s 1984, presents the idea of a dystopia, a society characterized by human misery and where the government has absolute control over the lives of the people. Orwell lived during a time when oppression and dictatorship reigned in Europe. When societies such as Stalin’s Soviet Union and Hitler’s Germany existed and threatened to expand towards other countries. Despising these governments, Orwell wrote this book in order to warn the readers about the catastrophic consequences that could occur if society were to follow the path that was taking at that time. By surrounding the readers in an atmosphere of hopelessness and misery, Orwell hoped to raise a flag in his readers’ minds, so that the future presented in his book could never happen. Throughout the book, Orwell also covers themes such as the control over the information and history, life and death, the meaning of sanity, and the definition of war.

One of the most terrifying ideas that 1984 presents is the grade of control that the Party has over society, which gets to a level that allows it to modify history to its likeness. The Party has a slogan that summarizes this concept perfectly, “Who controls the past, controls the future: who controls the present controls the past” (pg. 34). Orwell allows us to see this procedure in Winston’s job at Minitrue – The Ministry of Truth – where Winston modifies any document that is given to him in any form that the Party orders him to do so. The terrifying part of this is that any entity that is capable of bending and altering all information to its will is tracked to be untouchable, for it will always be correct; and therefore, it will remain unopposed.

During the second part of the book, Orwell shows us the relationship between Winston and Julia. Although their interactions are usually used to relate to some characteristic of the Party, we can often see the contrast that Orwell portraits between them. Winston is often shown as old while Julia looks always young. Winston’s form of rebellion against the Party is more psychological, constantly defying the basic ideas behind the Party’s actions, while Julia’s form of rebellion is more physical, constantly having sex whenever she can. Orwell utilizes this contrast in order to give thought to the idea of life and death. Winston more than once told Julia, “we are the dead” (pg. 135), meaning that it did not matter what happened since they have acted against the Party, they will soon be captured and executed. While Julia responded with, “this is me, this is my hand, this is my leg, I’m real, I’m solid, I am alive! Don’t you like this?” (pg. 136) Orwell makes use of this little exchange of works to make the reader contemplate about the unavoidable future death and the enjoyable and present life.

If I throw a pebble, is the pebble moving through the air because I threw it or because I think I threw it? And if I forgot that I threw that pebble, did I really throw it in the first place? Doublethink, or reality control, is one of the most important themes in 1984. It is “to hold simultaneously two opinions which cancelled out, knowing them to be contradictory and believing in both of them” (pg. 35). The incapability of doublethink is what separates Winston from the rest of society. This is what makes him “a lunatic, minority of one” (pg. 249). Orwell played with the idea of sanity by making Winston, a man who knows that two plus two does not equal five,  who was able to tell that their government changed allies and enemies as if they were socks, an insane person.  When O’Brien is torturing Winston, he tells him that “reality is in the human mind…not in the individual mind” (pg. 249). The main idea here is that reality is not external but rather internal, and that is not defined by what each person perceives but rather by what society perceives as a collective entity. If a dead body was to lie in the middle of the street, but every single person completely ignores it, then the corpse would not exist because nobody acknowledges it. Moreover, if someone were to notice that body, and tried to notify authorities, that person would become “a lunatic” (pg. 249), for he is seeing a corpse that does not exist.

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