Nineteen Eighty-Four - Jack Kemp

Nineteen Eighty-Four

George Orwell

Orwell, George. Nineteen Eighty Four. St Ives: Penguin Books, 2003. Print.

                Nineteen Eighty-Four is a book in which hidden messages and meanings reside in abundance, a book which provokes the mind to its threshold, a book which is trying to reflect how society really is, or was, and a book which makes you think again about life. Nineteen Eighty-Four depicts how life in a free country, like England, would be under

totalitarian rule. George Orwell lived his life among socialists and democrats, he received his ideas of totalitarianism from World War 2 parties such as the German Nazi party, and the Russian Communists, communism is a form of totalitarianism. He deemed that if either Russia or Germany won World War 2, and took over the world, or parts of it, then this is what life would be like. We can compare Oceania in the book to the communists of Russia. In the book, the world has been divvied between three super-powers, the Eurasia, Eastasia, and Oceania, all of which control one section of the world. Oceania controls Oceania, the United Kingdom and other places all over the war, this is where the main character, Winston Smith lives. The London portrayed in the book is a very dreary place; there is never enough foodstuff, never enough necessary clothing, life is boring. However, the worst part of living in Oceania is wherever you go, whatever you do, the ‘Big Brother’ is watching you. The ‘Big Brother’ is the prodigious leader of ‘the party’, which dominatingly rules over every citizen living in Oceania. The ‘Big Brother’ controls everybody’s feelings, actions, and even thoughts; anybody who acts, feels or even thinks against the party ultimately disappears from all record, ceases to exist. Orwell based his characters on the experiences of his life, and as Oceania can be compared to the communists of the Soviet Union, the ‘Big Brother’ is no doubt Stalin’s counterpart, and not only because of the moustache. Winston Smith works as an outer member of the party, his job is to alter history, to change the information in books, newspapers, and etcetera, to make it appear as if the party is always correct. If the party had imparted that the amount of boots produced would rise by 60,000, and the real amount of boots produced had been 10,000, it would be Winston’s job to change all written material to make the party’s estimation sound correct. The novel starts when Winston buys a journal, an illegal thing for a party member; the party reckoned that rebellious thoughts could be written down on a journal, so they banned them. Winston buys the journal as he despises the party and all its propaganda, and decides that he needs to write down all his criminal thoughts. Winston is only able to do so as the Telescreen, placed in his house, sits at an awkward angle. Telescreens are televisions with cameras on them; the party has placed them in every room in, every house, and in every street, everything you do is watched. That is why it is very fortunate that his telescreen does not have a full view of his house, allowing him to write. Winston works at the Ministry of Truth, among many co-workers, many with the same job as him. One day, he notices a beautiful girl looking at him, Winston fears that she is part of the notorious thought-police, who constantly seek out and kill rebels in society. He fears that she knows about his feelings and will turn him in. The same day, he discerns a man named O’Brien, who he thinks may have the same feelings as him about society. He determines to meet O’Brien, and in his head, he starts to fantasise about joining the ‘brotherhood’, an underground society discretely trying to overthrow the party. Winston continues to live his dreary existence of writing in his journal, working, and hating the party, the ‘Big Brother’ and Julia. This all changes one day when Julia slips him a note during work, the note read,

‘I love you.’

This completely changes Winston’s opinion of her, and all hatred towards her turns to liquid and sinks down the drain. He now discovers the he too loves her, he realised that he hated her, as he knew he would never be able to have sex with her. Julia too was against the party; however, she participated in things such as the Anti-Sex league to make the thought-police believe that she was an orthodox party member. Winston and Julia eventually find a way to meet in secret, and a chapter of the book is dedicated just to describe their lovemaking. After Julia and Winston return from their expedition, O’Brien invites Winston to his house. An inner party member inviting an outer party member to his house is an atypical thing, especially as the party has banned close friends, all emotion is supposed to be saved for the party. Winston sees his invitation as the perfect time to get involved with the ‘brotherhood’. He is correct, and O’Brien invites both Winston and Julia into the mysterious ‘brotherhood’. Winston and Julia are now rebels in society, and are constantly evading the iron fist of the party. Winston continues to work as an alterer [new word] of history, and now has taken to walking home via the slums of London, the proletarian areas. Proletarians or proles are the lowest class in the society and live without the prying eyes of the party, and they live in the dirtiest part of London. Proles have their own society, just without any government, as the party still occasionally blasts them with propaganda that would make you sick. Winston is attracted to particular shop, which is located within the proletarian areas. This shop is an antiques shop, owned by a friendly old man by the name of Mr. Charrington. The shop has a room above it, which Winston and Julia rent to be able to live together, banned is love, like all other relationships. If any telescreen were to see them, it would be torture and them death for both of them.  During this time, O’Brien supplies the couple with the book. The book is an equivalent to the bible for all ‘brotherhood’ members; it supplies readers with reasons why society is as it is today. The infamous Goldstein has written the book. Goldstein is the centre of hatred for all citizens of the party, he is the leader of the ‘brotherhood’ and the party has turned everybody against him, however this is not plausible to Winston. During the two minutes hate, which is performed every day, Goldstein’s face always takes centre-stage, making him the most hated person in Oceania. This proves how people can be manipulated by simple propaganda. Goldstein also represents somebody in the real world, this time it is Leon Trotsky. Trotsky was the founder and leader of the Red Army until Stalin came to power, when Stalin came to power, Trotsky was forced into exile. However, he continued to write against Stalin, and subsequently turned many people against him. The book represents Trotsky’s work against Stalin, Goldstein writing against the ‘Big Brother’. However, Goldstein’s fate may be different to the one of Trotsky; an assassin working on the orders of Stalin assassinated Trotsky, the assassin killed him with an ice pick. Nobody knows what has happened to Goldstein. Winston reads the first three chapters of the book, but as he continues, the thought-police break through the walls of the small room and capture Winston and Julia. Mr. Charrington stands in the doorway and Winston realises that for the first time he is actually looking at a real member of the thought-police. Winston is riven from Julia, and is taken to a cell in the Ministry of Love. This is where the book takes a dark turn, exploring how manipulative one can be to both the mind and the body. In the Ministry of Love, he discovers that O’Brien too is a member of the thought-police; O’Brien tortures Winston repeatedly. After a period of months, Winston is send to the final leg of his torture, room 101. Room 101 is a place in which your worst fear is placed in front of you, throughout the book Winston has recurring nightmares about rats. O’Brien knows this and Winston’s nightmare might be coming true. What did Julia see in room 101? What would you see? What happens to them both, nobody but the reader of Nineteen Eighty-Four would know…

                Nineteen Eighty-Four is a book which can be called science fiction, and realistic fiction at the same time. This is for multiple reasons, some obvious, some not. Firstly, this novel is science fiction as the technology used throughout the novel, such as the telescreen. The telescreen is a big television placed at the centre of everybody’s home; Winston describes the telescreen on page three of the book, “The voice came from an oblong metal plaque like a dulled mirror which formed part of the surface of the right-hand wall.” The telescreen constantly watches all of your movements and if it feels that, you are not doing a sufficient job, it will shout at you, “6079 Smith W! Uncover your face. No faces covered in the cells.” This happened of page two hundred and forty-six. I do not see this happening in the close future; therefore, the book contains science fiction. The book is also realistic fiction for the same reasons it is science fiction. Although I do not feel that we live in a dystopian world, as Winston does, I could compare some aspects of life now to his life. This makes it realistic fiction, a specific example of Winston having a life comparable to ours comes on page three, “Winston, who was thirty-nine and had a varicose ulcer above his right ankle, went slowly, resting several times on the way.” This proves that Winston Smith has an ordinary life as he has a varicose ulcer. If this book were very far in the future, I think that cures for ulcers like that would have been long found. Winston smith also lives in a small flat, living in a flat is something that the majority of people in the world do today, and that fact that Winston has to take the stairs, as the lift doesn’t work also proves that Winston lives a life similar the life of a typical thirty-nine year old. Having a life similar to people today makes the book a realistic fiction one.

                Winston Smith is the main character in Nineteen Eighty-Four, and he not only develops in the book, but he completely changes.  At the beginning of the book, Winston has nobody in his life; he has nothing except for memories of the long-gone past. Winston has no friends who he really can connect to; he is all by himself. He once had an affair with a woman, but she felt no love for him, she had no connection with him. Winston just used her as a sex object, all beauty no brain nor emotion, she was the typical, orthodox party member. This all changes by the end of the book, Winston finds the perfect woman he has always been dreaming about, wanting. He finds this woman in Julia; they share numerous things, including their hatred of the ‘Big Brother’, hatred for the party, and love for each other. Julia can feel real compassion, like Winston. However, this only lasts until they both enter room 101, when they are both faced with their worst fears. In room 101 Winton’s head is place in a mask connected to a cage filled with hungry rats, O’Brien threatens to release the rats and allow them to eat his face, however on page three hundred he breaks, “Do it to Julia! Do it to Julia! Not me! Julia! I do not care what you do to her. Tear her face off, strip her to the bones. Not me! Julia!” By the end of the book Winston is a fragmented man, like the others, he can only have love of the ‘Big Brother’. The last words of the novel are, “He loved the Big Brother.” Therefore, Winston’s life was a hill, at the beginning he had nobody, loved nobody, and lived an uneventful life. During the middle of the book, Winston loved Julia, and his life was full of adventure. By the end of the book, he has been tortured to the breaking point; he loves nobody bar the ‘Big Brother’. Winston has gone from unorthodox, to orthodox.

                George Orwell uses many characterisation techniques to make his characters relatable, and real. Most authors use reflection as a characterisation technique, and George Orwell is no exception, Orwell uses reflection to develop Winston Smith in particular, and he uses it multiple times throughout the book. The first example of reflection becomes apparent on page five, where Winston reveals his thoughts about London, “This, he thought with a sort of vague distaste – this was London, chief city of Airstrip One, itself the third most populous of the provinces of Oceania.” In this sentence, we can clearly see Winston’s thoughts about his home, how he does not hate it, but he does not love it. Sentences like these create a picture of Winston in my mind; in my opinion, George Orwell uses characterisation techniques very effectively.

                Nineteen Eighty-Four takes place in a very dreary London, during the year 1984. England, known as Airstrip One in the book, is part of the Oceania Empire, and as Oceania is at war with either Eastasia or Eurasia, rockets constantly fly into the city and blast people to pieces. London is dilapidated, there is a food shortage, a lack of basic needs, and the city is run-down.  Houses are falling apart, and barren streets constantly reek of the stench of old food, and poo. On page five, Winston describes London, and compares it to the London he knew as a child, “Were there always these vistas of rotting nineteenth-century houses, their sides shored up with baulks of timber, their windows patched with cardboard and their roofs with corrugated iron, their crazy garden walls sagging in all directions? And the bombed sites where the plaster dust swirled in the air and the willowherb straggled over the heaps of rubble; and the places where the bombs had cleared a larger patch and there had sprung up sordid like colonies of wooden dwellings like chicken-houses?” However, above all the rubble, there rise four pyramid like government buildings, built out of concrete and glass; these buildings house the four ministries, which control England. On page six of the book, Winston describes the Ministry of Truth, “The Ministry of Truth – Minitrue, in Newspeak – was startlingly different from any other object in sight. It was an enormous pyramidal structure of glittering white concrete, soaring up, terrace after terrace, three hundred metres into the air.” I cannot possible imagine living in such a place! Nineteen Eighty-Four is set in 1984, during this time, a great continuation of World War 2 is happening, killing thousands of people per diem. The technology of the time was advanced to George Orwell, as the book was published in 1949, so the book is considered set in the future, although the year 1984 has long gone.

                This book is told via a narrator, through a third-person limited point-of-view. This is palpable as only the thoughts and feelings of the main character, Winston Smith, are visible to the reader; however, in this book nobody’s’ thoughts are private… The point-of-view of the book becomes evident at the very beginning of the book. Page 26 proves the point-of-view, “With those children, he thought, that wretched woman must lead a life of terror.” This helps develop the main character in various ways. Firstly, the point-of-view helps develop the character of Winston Smith as we can read and share his thoughts; this helps us know that he has rebellious thoughts, or that he has love for someone. Secondly, the third-person limited helps excite the plot, by not revealing the thoughts of others; this keeps the suspense in the book, and helps give the ending a twist.

                 Nineteen Eighty-Four is filled to the brim with themes. In my previous book reports, I have discovered a maximum of three themes in the book; however, in this novel, there are many more. The first theme of the book is capitalism. This theme is obvious, and shows in the average citizen of Airstrip One, when the party brainwashes the minds of simple people. For example, Goldstein is a man who rebels against the party, the party brainwashes the entire population, and makes them hate Goldstein. This happens during the party’s two minutes hate and such; it shows how capitalism can affect the individual. The second theme of the book is convention and rebellion, and is obvious as we can see Winston’s thoughts. Winston disagrees with all the party says, and he and Julia decide to rebel in their own way. An example is when Winston buys a diary, a very dangerous thing to do, “The thing he was about to do was to open a diary. This was not illegal (nothing was illegal, since there were no longer any laws), but if detected it was reasonably certain that it would be punished by death, or at least twenty-five years in a forced-labour camp.” Winston said this on page eight. Some other themes found in the book are injustice, manipulation, war, and will to survive, but I will not bore you with in depth explanations. Do you want to know more? Nineteen Eighty-Four is available on Kindle for £5.91.

                I really enjoyed reading this book and it haunted me with its dark twists and turns, this is an English classic, and I think that all teenagers should be required to read this book. George Orwell wrote this book for a clear reason; at the time it was published, the communists of Russia were expanding their territories rapidly, and many people accepted communism, despite the looming Cold War. He wrote this book to warn the west of the dangers of communism. I thoroughly enjoyed this book, its plot keeps you on the edge, and the characters are always developing, and you just never know what is round the corner. I would definitely recommend this book to a friend, as it is one of the world’s few must-read books; this book is just as fantastic as it is dark. If I were to be a person in the book, I would probably be a citizen against the party, but much too afraid to speak out. Out of ten, I would rate this book a nine.