This Summer, we review...
Nineteen Eighty-Four
The ignorant would say George Orwell’s 1984 is nothing but totalitarian paranoia. Unfortunately
we can actually see sugges ons of the society depicted in 1984 in various dictatorships around
the globe. Most notably North Korea where it is heinous to think the supreme leader is not so
great. Whatever your opinion of 1984 it is undeniably a very important novel and inspired a
great many people.
The year is 1984 and Winston Smith is one of the few sane people alive. The society he lives in is
false. Facts become ?c on. People are erased from existence. And if the party Ingsoc, which
controls everything and everyone, says two plus two makes ?ve then two plus two makes ?ve.
Big Brother is the omnipotent leader of the party, he can do no wrong, he can never die and he is
watching you. Winston Smith thinks himself the only person who can see through the party’s lies
un l he meets Julia. He then commits the ul mate atrocity and falls in love.
Orwell wrote 1984 in 1949 when nuclear weapons were the most feared about issue and Joseph
Stalin was leader of the Soviet Union. A lot of the elements in 1984 are clearly inspired from the
me in which it was wri en. Big Brother is almost a mirror image of Stalin right down to his
physical descrip on. A person becoming an “unperson” is also something not so distant from
what happened to certain individuals within Stalin’s Russia. 1984 has even become rather
relevant in 21st century Britain. Today, everyone is on camera every day. Granted we are not
monitored by everything we say and not scru nized by every emo on we may convey, but it is
s ll an eerie thought.
1984 is superbly wri en and fashions some truly disturbing imagery and ideas. The two main
characters in Winston and Julia are tragic as they wage a war on rules and oppression. Big
Brother is never physically confronted in the book, nor can the reader or our heroes truly know
he exists. But a dark presence is de?nitely felt. And that dark presence makes him one of the
most horrifying antagonists in ?c on.
While not par cularly chirpy, 1984 is an essen al read and George Orwell is an essen al author.
“WAR IS PEACE
FREEDOM IS SLAVERY
IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH”
By Joshua Locke