The Author: George Orwell

"It was curious to think that the sky was the same for everybody, in Eurasia or Eastasia as well as here. And the people under the sky were also very much the same—everywhere, all over the world, hundreds or thousands of millions of people just like this, people ignorant of one another's existence, held apart by walls of hatred and lies, and yet almost exactly the same—people who had never learned to think but were storing up in their hearts and bellies and muscles the power that would one day overturn the world."
- George Orwell

George Orwell, the pen name of Eric Arthur Blair, was born in Motihari, India in 1903. In 1904, Orwell moved with his mother and sister to England, where he attended Eton. He published his first writings when he was in college, but most of them were unsuccessful.

Orwell went to Burma in 1922 to serve in the Indian Imperial Police as an assistant superintendent. Then he returned to Europe and lived as a tramp and beggar, working low paid jobs in England and France for a year. He even tried to get himself arrested as a drunk to have some knowledge about life in prison.
During his life time, he wrote many well-known novels such as Animal Farm and 1984. He later died from tuberculosis in London University Hospital on January 21, 1950, soon after the publication of 1984.

Beautiful, Disturbing, or Memorable Settings

The Room 101 is the most disturbing setting described in 1984.
"Everyone knows it. The thing that is in Room 101 is the worst thing in the world," says O'Brien.

Room 101 is a torture chamber in the Ministry of Love in which a prisoner is subjected to his or her own worst nightmare or greatest fear. The nightmare—and therefore the threatened punishment—of Winston is to be attacked by rats.

Before the prisoners are summoned to that notorious room, they stay in a cell where they should not move one bit; they are constantly viewed by the telescreens, which are on the every side of the walls. Even if they move their hands slightly, a loud voice comes out from the telescreen, commanding them to spot their movements.

Everyone in the Room starves. No food is given, but constant beatings and tortures are always waiting for the prisoners. It is the place where "there is neither darkness nor light." People wait unconsciously for their death to come in the near future. They are hopeless, just hopeless.

I thought how miserable it would be to live in a place where I cannot do, eat, and say whatever I want and am inspected by a person whom I have never met. I am so proud of Winston who managed to survive from this intolerable situation.

Significat Passage

『 She always contradicted him when he said anything of this kind. She would not accept is as a law of nature that the individual is always defeated. In a way she realized that she herself was doomed, that sooner or later the Thought Police would catch her and kill her, but with another part of her mind she believed that it was somehow possible to construct a secret world in which you could live as you chose. All you needed was luck and cunning and boldness. She did not understand that there was no such thing as happiness, that the only victory lay in the far future, long after you were dead, that from the moment of declaring war on the Party it was better to think of yourself as a corpse.

"We're the dead," he said.
"We're not dead yet," said Julia prosaically.
"Not physically. Six months, a year - five years, conceivably. I am afraid of death. You are young, so presumably you're more afraid of it than I am. Obviously we shall put it off as long as we can. But it makes very little difference. So long as human beings stay human, death and life are the same thing."

"Oh, rubbish! Which would you sooner sleep with, me or a skeleton? Don't you enjoy being alive? Don't you like feeling: This is me, this is my hand, this is my leg, I'm real, I'm solid, I'm alive! Don't you like this?" 』 (p.135~136)

This passage is significant to me because it tells us how we can choose whether to be optimistic or pessimistic in our lives. While Winston is preoccupied by his shadowed future and thinks it is not worth to live knowing that he must die at some point in his life, Julia wants to enjoy everything to the fullest while she is still alive.

Like Julia, I enjoy every second of my life, and therefore I do my best in whatever I do. Sometimes I do not realize how thankful it is to be alive at this moment. There are millions of people who are suffering from war, starvation, oppression, and separation from their family, and here I am, comfortably sitting on my chair with no such worries.

I have been optimistic most of the time throughout my life so far. When some things turn out to be unsuccessful, I do not let myself down but move on to my new opportunities because I am not concerned of the
result of my accomplishments, but the process of them.
As Julia is not afraid of her future happenings, I will always be optimistic no matter how harsh my situation will be in the future.

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I would like to share another passage with you guys.

"Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past."

This is the Party slogan of 1984 and is an important example of the Party's technique of using false history to break down the psychological independence of its members. The Party creates a past that was a time of misery and slavery from which it claims to have liberated the human race, thus compelling people to work toward the Party's goals. Every individual is forbidden from keeping mementos of his or her own pasts, such as photographs and documents. As a result, the citizens have a very short, fuzzy memory, and are willing to believe anything that the Party tells them. Because the Party's version of the past is what people believe, that past has become the truth, though it has no basis in real events.

I do not agree with this Party slogan because I believe only God can control the past and the future. We, humans, can only live in them. Thinking that we can control our own history is selfish and daring because God is the One who leads our lives.

Cimax

The climax of 1984 is when Winston is tortured by O'Brien in Room 101.
Expecting starvation and endless beating, Winston wishes to commit suicide.

A guard smashes Winston's elbow, and Winston thinks that no one can become a hero in the face of physical pain because it is too much to endure. When O'Brien tortures Winston, he tells him that Winston's crime was refusing to accept the Party's control of history and his memory. As O'Brien increases the pain, Winston agrees to accept anything O'Brien wants him to believe is true. He begins to love O'Brien because O'Brien occasionally stops the pain.

As I was reading the chapters which described the process of torturing Winston, I felt I was the one who was being tortured. I did not want to read further because everything was too gory and harsh to think about. I felt so sorry for Winston and wished if I could save him from his miserable situation. I cheered for him to not give up his philosophy and identity; however, it turned out that he was completely brainwashed and that he loved Big Brother at the end.

Nevertheless, I do not blame him for giving up because I can not imagine how hard it is to stand the severe physical pain Winston has gone through.

Main Characters

1. Winston Smith



Winston Smith is the protagonist of 1984. He is one of the most special characters in the novel because he is extraordinarily pensive, meticulous, and curious about every small detail that is going on in his life. He is desperate to understand why and how the Party exercises such absolute power. He also hates the Party passionately and wants to test the limits of its power by commiting innumerable crimes throughout the novel, such as writing “DOWN WITH BIG BROTHER” in his diary and having an illegal love affair with Julia, her girlfriend.

Winston knows that all the risks he is taking will increase his chances of being caught by the Party; however, because he believes that he will be caught no matter what he does, he convinces himself that he must continue to rebel. He continuously gives himself false hope for the future.

I liked Winston before he was tortured because he did not give up going against the horrible society though he almost knew how he will end up in the future. However, I was extremely disappointed when he betrayed Julia and admitted that everything O'Brien, one of the secret Thought Police, said about the Big Brother's society was "true," even though it was blatantly deceitful and contradictory. (For example, after he is brainwashed by O'Brien, Winston agrees that 2+2=5).


2. Julia

Julia is Winston’s lover and is the only person whom Winston fully trusts and shares secrets with. She is a pragmatic, pleasure-seeking woman who generally is content with her life. Julia is a total contrast with Winston except for her sexual desire. Unlike Winston, she is willing to accept the overnight changes in the history made by the Big Brother and doesn't think them as a big deal. If Big Brother says black is white, or two and two make five, no problem.

I don't really like Julia because she does not love someone with all her heart, having love affairs with various men. Moreover, she later betrays Winston when she gets tortured despite the fact that she has told Winston that she will NEVER betray him.


3. Big Brother



Big Brother is not a real person; however, he is omnipresent and omnipotent in Winston's society. He represents dictators, such as Joseph Stalin and Adolph Hitler, and is a mysterious, powerful, but deceiving figure. Winston is fascinated by Big Brother and is drawn to him in some of the same ways that he is drawn to O'Brien, developing a love-and-hate response to both of them which leads to Winston's downfall.

I hate Big Brother because he has created a extreme dystopia where everyone suffers from oppression, secret police, regulation and restriction of free discussions and criticisms, and so on. He wants the absolute power of the society and is illogical in many ways because he always hides his mistakes and wants to control the past and the future of his people.


4. O'Brien



O'Brien is a powerful member of the Inner Party who tricks Winston into believing that he is a member of the revolutionary group called the Brotherhood. We cannot be sure whether the Brotherhood actually exists because its explanation is left obsure. I believe it is simply a Party invention that is used to trap rebellions like Winston. Later, though, he appears at Winston’s jail cell to abuse and brainwash him in the name of the Party.

The interesting part of O'Brien is that when Winston asks O’Brien if he too has been captured by the Party, O’Brien replies, “They got me long ago,” which tells us vaguely that he himself was once rebellious against the Party. I dislike O'Brien because he is the one who has carefully deceived Winston to be trapped by the Big Brother's philosophy.

Current Situations Relating to the Novel

Even though the totalitarian government does not exist in these days, there is a similar government right beside where we live - North Korea. It is still in the communist state and has many same aspects of the environment which 1984 illlustrates. In North Korea, no one is allowed to criticize the government, believe in God, and have one's own privacy.

The totaliatrian government has begun in the 20th century, which includes the communist regimes of the Soviet Union and Cuba, as well as the totalitarianism of Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy. These countries have had the absolute control and power of their time.

Despite the brutality and lack of freedom, a totalitarian government often receives overwhelming support for its ideas and goals at the beginning. It tends to be very popular due to the government's promises of an ideal society. It also requires a charismatic leader and modern developments in communication to spread its message. In order for a totalitarian state to be built, the leader must have a will to transform the society into his version of "utopia".

In 1984, most of the Party members support their government because the Big Brother, the unknownly-present dictator of the society, deceives his supporters by making them think that they are living in a utopia, though they are actually living in a dystopia. The Big Brother uses telescreens to monitor every aspect of its member's daily lives and to share its ideals and fake "achievements" to everyone. For example, even when the citizens are forced to live with less food, they are told that they are being given more than ever; the strange thing is that they believe it!

Moreover, by using civilian spies, the government creates so much distrust for each other amongst its citizens. Those who disagree with the dictator are killed. The dictator may change the laws at any time to facilitate the achievement of his goals. This powerful instrument is used to exert control over the lifestyles of the citizens. The government also censors the media and commands all means of communication.

Just like this, the society portrayed in 1984 uses secret police or spies to secretly monitor everyone's private thoughts and behavior. The interesting fact is that everyone can be a spy in Winston's world. Children are effectively converted into spies and trained to watch the actions of their parents with extreme suspicion. For example, the fear Mrs. Parsons shows for her children foreshadows Winston’s encounter in jail with her husband, who is turned in to the Party for committing thoughtcrime by his own child.

Everyone who disagrees with the Big Brother's way of leading the government is unexpectedly killed or tortured! The Party controls every source of information, managing and rewriting all newspapers and histories for its own benefit. It does not allow individuals to keep records of their past, such as photographs or documents, because it wants to control the past and the future.

How horrible it is! =(

Major Theme

The Dark Sides of Totalitarianism

→ Totalitarian regime is based on the political power by means of secret police, propaganda disseminated through the state-controlled mass media, personality cults, regulation and restriction of free discussion and criticism, single party states, the use of mass surveillance (monitoring of behavior), and widespread use of terror tactics.

1984 is a political novel written with the purpose of warning readers totalitarian government. Orwell was deeply disturbed by the widespread cruelties and oppressions he observed in communist countries, and seems to have been particularly concerned by the role of technology in enabling oppressive governments to monitor and control their citizens.

In 1984, Orwell portrays the perfect totalitarian society, the most extreme imagination of a modern-day government with absolute power. Orwell portrays a state in which government monitors and controls every aspect of human life to the extent that even having a disloyal thought is against the law.

Technology

→ By using telescreens and hidden microphones across the city, the Party monitors its members almost all of the time. Additionally, the Party employs complicated mechanisms to control economic production and sources of information, and fearsome machinery to torture upon its "enemies". 1984 reveals that technology, which is generally perceived as beneficial, can also facilitate the evil.

This is important for teenagers living in 2008 because many of them think that the development and impact of technology are always favorable. However, according to 1984, too-advanced technology can control humans, even their minds. It can also manipulate us psycologically as the telescreens in 1984 monitors people's behavior—everywhere they go, citizens are continuously reminded, especially by the omnipresent signs reading “BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING YOU,” that the authorities are always scrutinizing them.