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Summary of 1984
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1984

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In 1984, Winston Smith lives in London which is part of the
country Oceania. The world is divided into three countries
that include the entire globe: Oceania, Eurasia, and Eastasia.
Oceania, and both of the others, is a totalitarian society led
by Big Brother, which censors everyone’s behavior, even their
thoughts. Winston is disgusted with his oppressed life and
secretly longs to join the fabled Brotherhood, a supposed
group of underground rebels intent on overthrowing the
government. Winston meets Julia and they secretly fall in love
and have an affair, something which is considered a crime. One
day, while walking home, Winston encounters O'Brien, an inner
party member, who gives Winston his address. Winston had
exchanged glances with O'Brien before and had dreams about him
giving him the impression that O'Brien was a member of the
Brotherhood. Since Julia hated the party as much as Winston
did, they went to O'Brien’s house together where they were
introduced into the Brotherhood. O'Brien is actually a
faithful member of the Inner-Party and this is actually a trap
for Winston, a trap that O'Brien has been cleverly setting for
seven years. Winston and Julia are sent to the Ministry of
Love which is a sort of rehabilitation center for criminals
accused of thoughtcrime. There, Winston was separated from
Julia, and tortured until his beliefs coincided with those of
the Party. Winston denounces everything he believed him, even
his love for Julia, and was released back into the public
where he wastes his days at the Chestnut Tree drinking gin.

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1984

User Comments and
Reviews:

T

Double edged sword

January 14th, 2003

Rating: 7.2667

1984 is a
must-read. The belief that we have complete freedom
and privacy in this country is a dangerous fallacy. I
apologize if this posting digresses from the original
point of this board but it seems a good place to do
so. As alluded to in 1984, such a place as Oceania
would not be possible without technology or, at the
very least, would be much more difficult to establish.
While I understand and embrace technology, I feel that
most people have very little understanding or respect
for it. How many people really contemplate what
actually happens when they send an email, talk on a
cell phone, purchase online via credit card, etc, etc.
The same technologies that grant one more freedom have
the same capacity to harm and to enslave if not
respected. Like many, I used to think 1984 was simply
a great work of fiction with little chance of actually
becoming a reality. The frightening truth is that to a
large extent, it already has. The terabytes of
information compiled on every citizen already exist.
All that is required is the motive to abuse it, as
surely it has been for those individuals that have
"popped up" on their radar screen as meriting
surveillance. For those that haven't already
familiarized themselves with it, look up the "Homeland
Security Act" recently passed by congress. On the
surface, it's a great idea for protecting the country
from terrorism after 9/11. In reality, it gives the
government carte blanche to acquire and use
information on ANY citizen at ANY time and for ANY
reason without anyone's knowledge or consent. The ends
don't justify the means if, in the process of
defending our "beacon for freedom", that beacon is
threatened. Also look up "TIA" (total information
awareness). 1984 might have been prophetic afterall.

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DC
Whitehall

1984 Poem

April 15th, 2003

Rating: 6.7250

By DC
Whitehall

Nineteeneightyfear.

The party
knows everything
And now I’m awful at math
And
I stare in awe at a faceless king
While I suffer
his Loving wrath.
I live in squalidly flawless
Oceania
And know of thinking, an outlawed antique

Swimming lost in a sea of voiceless mania
I
fear the future of what will be Newspeak.
I am
denied expression of individuality
I am denied
free thought
I am denied illicit sexuality
For
which all, I am caught.
In Emmanuel Goldstein's
book I find comfort
But know that such is only
ephemeral
For it is rebellious thoughts
I
support Knowing all hope is surely decimal.
In
fair Julia I found thoughts not harbored
And love
for her found me stronger still
In her a trust in a
fighting comrade was sheltered
Not to mention an
unlawful thrill.
But fate tears the tether that
binds humans together
And in O’Brien I discovered
a coarse façade
In him I finally saw the hater,
the butcher
For which he is denied the kingdom of
God.
Hated technology
When in this course of
human events
For which government owes an
apology
We the people, hold our privacy as evident.

Doublethink is a crime
That we do not
commit
While they drink souls and wine
It is
incarceration we unknowingly permit.
I frequent
the Ministry of Truth
Hence I know very well the
worth of letters
I change freely the verity of
records
As I breed premature alzheimers.
While
we should be endowed some rights
I ponder over what
is life and liberty
As I stay up lawlessly writing
cold nights
What is happiness in this political
purgatory.
Now I’d sell all my pity for a bit of
gin
Since to me it is this drink They assign
And
I’d drink to my worries all over again
And trade
all my glory for a spot of wine.
But choices are a
luxury I now not know
Since dreaded three words
heard
And before this of course I knew the
throe
Since notions of secrecy were at best absurd.

I was immersed in a corrupt celestial light
I
had anticipated something less dire
I wrote same
four words a score that night
And I am here for my
mind’s desire.
Love is lost so closely far
away
So I helplessly scream out her name
In a
passionate fit of agony, my sanity did stray
Yet
being locked here I must abstain.
Obscured months
pass like hours and my mind breaks
As my Brother
has found out my worst fear
My spirit is broken, my
body aches
And I wish it upon my dear.
I become
aware under the Chestnut Tree Café
Where the
dismissd go to think
Calmly I enjoy my victory gin
today
Not finding it a misnamed drink.
I feel
happy and I feel safe
With powerful eyes draping
over me
As I recall less happy days as a waif
I
accept my brother now, expectedly.
If I read the
words now I would agree
As inversely years ago I
wouldn’t
Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori
(1)
But since I don’t read, both couldn’t.

Don’t think, the year is now 2084
I find myself
staring up upon the Lewdies’ feet
And even these
find no happiness anymore
So seeking serenity I
found my better retreat.

(1):It is sweet and
glorious to die for one's country(Horace)

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Sleeve98

...Puh-leeze!...

February 28th, 2003

Rating: 6.6782

"Oh, this is a
GREAT novel," "how prophetic," "THEY didn't want you
to read it," etc., ad nauseum...

1984 IS a
great book. It IS prophetic.

But it's a car
alarm.

Considering the current social climate,
one can't help but make that comparison.

Sure
the car alarm is a nifty thing, but who's paying
attention to it?

Exactly no
one.

Homeland Security, with its Total
Information Awareness database, the Digital Millennium
Copyright Act, which forbids treating with your own
property as you wish, government-approved spying on
consumers by corporations - foreign AND abroad - the
GPS-capable black boxes installed in all new
automobiles . . .

These things are happening
because YOU are letting them. Those who would presume
to select our leaders for us would spew its propaganda
that gets more and more outrageous every day - and the
public nods obediently, "habilitates" its thought
processes and shakes its fists at those who "hate
freedom."

Don't crow on about the impact this
book has had - judging by the complete capitulation of
the lemming-like mob mentality, it has failed its
mission to motivate. The eternal price of freedom is
vigilance, and those who unquestioningly swallow the
Party's line, despite their perceived cleverness in
finding a relation to Big Brother within our
government, have fallen asleep on the job.

Shut
up and go DO something - A N Y T H I N G but nothing.

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Dave

the scariest truth

August 21st, 2002

Rating: 6.6066

We need to
read, and educate ourselves, and our future, with the
broadest range of literary works, such as this, which
encourage both the thought into possibility, and the
exploration into the current reality of which we did,
do, and likely will live in. How easy would it be, if
it were so black and white as Orwell makes his 1984
appear to be. How easy would it be to accept if we
were told that we were being watched by this devices
line of sight, and listening devices were placed
everywhere. How obvious would it be if we were to be
blatantly subjected to forced indoctrination in the
harshest of manors. How easy would it be to sell
freedom and responsibility for comfort when we were
told we were doing that.
But Big Brother doesn't
make himself so obvious to our society. Big Brother is
smarter, sneakier, and more invasive than that. We are
not told today where we are watched, yet still can be
watched in 3D with camera's smaller than the head of a
pin. And we can be heard by invisable lasers pointed
at a solid from a mile or more away. We can be tracked
from space with satellites with a reported resolution
of less than one foot (we can see tire tracks in the
mud with hi-res black and white sat photos). Under the
affects of local anesthesia and GPS transponder with
biometric and biological recording capabilities can be
implanted without our knowledge, say, in the base of
your skull, where it would not be noticed, in under a
minute.

And these are only the beginning of the
things which Big Brother tells us. We neither chose
our presidential candidates, nor who selects them, nor
even chose them directly. We're merely given one more
choice than Iraq, or any monarchy or single ruler
government, solely to indicate to another what choice
we would prefer made, without the choice to reject the
options and find another.

How far has Big
Brother gone, where is Big Brother headed, and what
does Big Brother really know? Who can verify what our
'free press' reports? Who checks and rechecks where
the information the media reports to us? What
plausible lies are we constantly fed until they become
fact, and get changed slowly a bit more? Supposedly
their's a law that states subliminal advertising may
not be used, but how is this checked, and to whom does
it apply?

1984 is a work of fiction, created in
one man's mind, describing a fear of what could
become. By no means does a mere novel have to become
fact. But the science fiction of today is what drives
us to create that science fact of tomorrow. For
anybody who doesn't believe that some men are
intelligent enough to see the patterns of the future,
I invite you to read some of Joules Vernes novels',
and see what technologies he foresaw. . . .

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Liz

reality

February 4th, 2003

Rating: 6.5263

As time has
passed 1984 is becoming more of reality. You should
learn from reading books and that is exactly what
Orwell wants you to do from his. He is a smart man who
has predicted things that were not heard of in 1949
(when the book was written). Live, learn and act as a
team upon the things that diminish our freedom. So you
better start thinking now.

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Doug

language and 1984

July 26th, 2003

Rating: 6.5000

Reflect on the
degradation of language in 1984; here is Orwells
greatest warning to the free world.
Unless words
have specific, precise identifiable and common
meanings how is it possible to conceive of ideas such
as freedom, oppression, resistance and the like. If it
is no longer possible to formulate abstract ideas and
communicate them then action and creativity are no
longer posible and control is absolute and
complete.
"Syme bit off another fragment of the
dark-coloured bread, chewed it briefly, and went on:
'Don't you see that the whole aim of Newspeak is to
narrow the range of thought? In the end we shall make
thoughtcrime , literally impossible, because there
will be no words in which to express it. Every concept
that can ever be needed, will be expressed by exactly
one word, with its meaning rigidly defined and all its
subsidiary meanings rubbed out and forgotten. Already,
in the Eleventh Edition, we're not far from that
point. But the process will still be continuing long
after you and I are dead. Every year fewer and fewer
words, and the range of consciousness always a little
smaller. Even now, of course, there's no reason or
excuse for committing thoughtcrime. It's merely a
question of self-discipline,reality-control. But in
the end there won't be any need even for that. The
Revolution will be complete when the language is
perfect. Newspeak is Ingsoc and Ingsoc is Newspeak, ,
he added with a sort of mystical satisfaction. ' Has
it ever occurred to you, Winston, that by the year
2050, at the very latest, not a single human being
will be alive who could understand such a conversation
as we are having now?"
Look at the vocabulary of
the average adolescent, the script of the avarage
movie or the corruption of language by commentators
and newsreader on the idiot box; we are half way there
already and don't even see it.
Buy a dictionary and
good books and read, read, read, and you will be able
to say with C.S.Lewis," The scholar has lived in many
times and is therefore in some degree immune from the
great cataract of nonsense that pours from the press
and microphones of his own age"

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Siddhartha
Shrivastava

No Subject

February 4th, 2003

Rating: 6.4954

I finished
reading 1984 last night & am thinking of it since
then. I went thru all the comments above but none of
them was able to come near what I felt after reading
it.
There has been a lot of words written above to
find out present day telescreens, oceania & Big
Brother. But when I finished the novel last nite it
was none of these things which occupied my mind. Only
thing that occupied my mind was those haunting last
lines.The irony contained in them.
"But it was all
right, everything was all right, the struggle was
finished. He had won the victory over himself. He
loved Big Brother. "

The struggle was finished
, yes the struggle was finished,the struggle of a man
to stand up for his beliefs 'cozhe believed in their
righteousness.
He had won the victory over himself.
It is this use of word 'won' & 'victory' to
represent loss & surrender, irony contained in
them,the utter hopelessness coined in those cheerful
words which haunted me all through the day.

The
most dreadful aspect of oceania was not scores of
rocket bomb falling or the continuous war or the
poverty or the mutability of past, What scared me most
was impossibility of calling, what Orwell called, 2+ 2
= 4.
The final surrender of Winston in believing 2
+2 =5 is what made me dread the Oceania & then
dawned upon me the realization that in various walks
of life almost all of us chose to believe in 2 +2 = 5
rather than confronting our private "Room
101".

So for me 1984 represents the inner fears
& private guilt of betraying our beloveds, our
ideals , our principles & our beliefs in the face
of adversity.

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Dan

1984 vs. 2003

February 4th, 2003

Rating: 6.4333

Many below have
commented on this classic's relevance today, comparing
the society Orwell invented in the 1940s with
contemporary society. Clearly mass control is an issue
today, with globalisation fast gathering momentum. I
would note now how we are by no means living in
Orwell's nightmarish society, but nevertheless fall
victim to mass politics on a daily basis mainly
through media manipulation, which we have seen a great
deal of since 9/11. Note for example how we are being
led into yet another unnecessary war in the Middle
East (remembering the artificially puppeteered wars in
'1984'), breaking numerous international laws and
treaties (thus making the coming war illegal -
remember the absence of any real laws aimed at
protecting the public in '1984'), and against the
polled dissent of 70% of the American public (thus
making the coming war undemocratic to boot). In other
words, our personal power against these mass
institutions and operations is increasingly squashed
by imperialistic assertion of US/globalised power in
the world, in some ways like Winston Smith's little
rebellion is squashed.

But dissent is squashed
in a sophisticated manner, exactly as in 1984 when
O'Brien turns out to be a covert operative posing as a
rebel. To begin with, we think we have freedom of
speech and objectivity in the press and in the street.
In the street we certainly do have the former, but it
is clear that the media is far from objective and much
is filtered and manipulated (observe how we have given
up so many hard-won rights since 9/11, in
ex-legislation which was meant to protect us; as well
as many billions of dollars towards useless and
harmful military operations for years to come, on
account of national outrage as channelled and focused
in the media onto the 'war against terrorism'). Thus
our rights and freedoms are being eroded - but not
through any overt Big Brother mass control - rather,
through the wielding of big words in the media by the
president and others, to inspire in us the feelings
which will lead us to voluntarily agree to the plans
they had for us and our money all along. In this way
it looks like democracy and nobody complains, but how
similar is it to Big Brother's propaganda really? It
is just a little subtler.

Another similarity is
the Hate Room, where the general populace is given an
object for all its pent-up aggression and frustration.
Are Bin Laden, Saddam Hussein, and whoever else we are
served up on a plate to hate, just our national Hate
Room? How much control do we actually have over our
own emotions and where they are directed? To put it
another way, how much dignity have we lost? A
dignified populace at home with its own feelings and
in control of its own thoughts makes a society like
'1984', or 2003, impossible from the outset.

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viper850512

In response to Todd

December 15th, 2002

Rating: 5.8974

Todd wrote on
september 16th 2002:"The ending also, many have said
that it shouldn't have been like that, that it should
have a happy ending but we must all remember the
purpose of this book was to warn us all, Orwell is a
Genious in his own right."

I just want to point
out that the end of the book IS actually a happy
ending. No, seriously, if u read the ending carefully,
you will realise that Winston actually won. He "won
the war with himself. He loved Big
Brother."

The key word here is "loved." Many
people don't realise it, but in Newspeak, love and
hate are the same thing (ie: The ministry of LOVE,
where they torture people). In essence, Winston won
the battle with himself because, despite his
horrendous torture, he still had anti-Big Brother
thoughts. The idea that "They can't get inside you"
had been proven true. Countless effort had been put
into trying to change the way Winston thought, and in
the end he still had control over his own
mind.

The "long-awaited bullet" was symbolic of
this. The relation between the actual bullet, which
Winston had originally longed for, and this new
symbolic bullet (the realisation that he could still
think what he wanted) was that they both could provide
relief to the tension building up within
himself.

In the end, the happy ending was
surely existent, even if it wasn't entirely obvious.
Winston had won. They had tortured him endlessly, but
he still hated big brother. The meaning of the smiles
on big brothers posters became clear. Big Brothers
smile was a false one, an entirely forced one. This
related because of the fact that that was what
everyone had to do. No matter what your thoughts, you
just had to pretend that they didn't exist, and put on
a smile.

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Megan

No Subject

July 27th, 2003

Rating: 5.6667

Orwell's
dipiction of post World War II Oceania is profound.
Though painful, 1984 is something that everyone should
read. It is something that will affect the way you
look at society and the way you live. Though I was
depressed for months after reading it, I think that it
is something that everyone should read, both as a
warning of a future without hope of compassion or
humanity and to experience Orwell's frank and chilling
diction.
He is truly a prophet.

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Freeman

China is like Oceania
without telescreens

July 1st, 2002

Rating: 5.6154

A chilling
fiction with a tragic ending, but in 1948 Orwell had
already foreseen that what a totalitarian could bring
to our society with the most damaging effect on
people's mind, and how personal freedom could be
striped away if we do not protect it for
ourselves.

The communist mainland China is
almost exactly like Oceania just no telescreens.
Nowadays the majority of people living in Chine have
become totally disinterested in politics, but merely
surviving.

As a Chinese who was born in China,
I wish more Chinese people could read books like 1984.
'If there is hope, it lies in the proles.'

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Christine

No Subject

May 31st, 2002

Rating: 5.5385

Those
reading this book might also like to check out Brave
New World by Aldous Huxley, Anthem by Ayn Rand,
and Farenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury. Each of these books
present societies that no sane person would willingly
choose to live in, but could happen without our being
aware of it. The protection of our individual freedom
should never be taken for granted.

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Ray

1984 / We

March 4th, 2003

Rating: 5.4872

WARNING THIS
MIGHT SHOCK YOU!

Not trying to be a smart
you-know-what, but "1984" is for the most part a copy
of a story first published in 1921. Seriously.
Not
only that, the original is hailed as "the best single
work of SF yet written" I would like to encourage
everybody to read this story, as it will only add to
the experience of reading "1984"

It is called
"We" (the english translation, in russian the title is
"My") and was written by Yevgeny Zamyatin.
The
author wrote the book in the time of, and in protest
against, the communist revolution led by Josef Stalin
and it's goal of a perfect, unified state. The impact
of telling the story on the radio was enough to have
Zamyatin exiled and the story suppressed. It was only
first published in Russia, and in russian, in 1988,
more than sixty years after it was written!
I know
of at least 3 different translations you can buy at
Amazon and have delivered within a week, so this is
not some dead story you can only import at a huge rate
or find in an obscure bookhouse. It cost me $
13...

The story is set in 2500 or there about
and tells the story of D-503, a spaceship designer,
one of the ten million Numbers living in OneState, and
his love affair with a woman, I-330, who wants to
start a revolution in OneState.
Their "Big Brother"
is called "The Benefactor" and he uses people to spy,
not telescreens. They have a huge glass wall around
their clean cities and they live by The Table wich
tells them when they have to do what and they are
almost happy. Almost...

The biggest differences
between "We" and "1984" are that Orwell was able to
turn the idea's and the main characters of the
original into something that was a distinct possible
future, and the fact that he turned "1984" into a
future that lacked the beauty, elegance and comfort
portraid in "We".
In short, Zamyatin created an
idea and Orwell put it in it's best setting.
In
addition to this I must say that no matter how much I
was disturbed by "1984" and it's dark, cruel world, it
is not as well written as "We"
The original is
better composed, the characters are more alive and the
language is at times pure poetry. It is not limited to
the themes in "1984"
but also handles themes
proposed in "Brave New World" by Aldeous Huxley. It
speaks of writing, love, art, economy and clear blue
skies as easily as it does of revolution, mathematics
and sharp white theeth.

I love both these
stories and have read both books often and they can
live without doing injustice to each other, so please,
read and feel the original horror of distopia in "We"
by Yevgeny Zamyatin.

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Matt

Big Brother is out
there.

July 16th, 2002

Rating: 5.4444

Big Brother is
alive and well. He feeds off the fear of the foolish.
He offeres the fearfull protection, under his all
seeing eye. If we are ignorant enough to fall for the
seductive "Government Protection" we are no better
than the characters in Orwell's book. To quote
Benjamin Franklin

"They that can give up
essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety
deserve neither liberty or safty."
Intresting
enough Benjamin Franklin said this in 1759.

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Anonymous

1984

June 19th, 2002

Rating: 5.3934

Excellent book.
Was Orwell a prophet? No, Orwell knew "their" plan
what "they" were going to do to the masses, truth in a
novel. He warned, yet his books were "banned" for
decades. Now, too late, the books are school reading
material. The plan was subtle at first, then wickedly,
"in-your-face" bold, such as "Oceania, Eurasia,
Eastasia" now a reality as news and weather
commentators already use 2 of them, as well as "Big
Brother". It is no wonder it was schoolbook reading
material which was a bold mocking ("we got them now!")
venture, for students were/are already being
indoctrinated into socialism (Animal Farm) schools and
will not mind being led into communism which is subtle
in itself, and one finds themselves eventually not
able to express opinions or facts (because facts "are
relative" or "irrelevant", nor work for which they
went to school, nor do what they do according to their
individual talents, nor writing, reporting, but only
what "government" allows, nor think by one's own
conscience as taught traditionally, nor be creative;
but act according to "Big Brother" only and be as a
robot.
Now, we also have the endless ("Enduring")
"war" which also was in "1984". What is really
remarkable is that being Orwell spoke grammar the
correct way, yet wrote of "their" "newspeak", young
people today understand and use the
"newspeak".
O'Brian asked Winston to the effect,
"How do you control someone?" Winston answered, "You
make them suffer".
While mindful people in America
are oppressed and suffering the tyranny of "Big
Brother", they who already read Orwell's 1984 many
years ago while it was "banned" in public bookstores.
Why? Because it is truth in novel form. The mindless
are not troubled at all, for already "Big Brother" is
their friend and the endless "war" they cheer for that
was begun after 911 is their future as they've already
accept the lies, the propaganda. This is happening
over the world. If a nation does not comply with "Big
Brother", then they are targeted to be bombed into
submission.
Orwell's literary style holds the
attention and is a must-read. However, the only reason
students are able to read it now is because the plan
in "1984" is already set in the schools. Students are
now reading it as it has already been done. That is
how communism is; it is subtle.

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john

No Subject

August 17th, 2002

Rating: 5.3469

one of my
favourite books of all time. i wonder if people
realise how close we actually are(mobile phones
knowing where we are all the time, security cameras
following our every move,even computers telling us
where we logged on to and when). and then the
propaganda telling us of what will happen if we dont
toe the party line. it scares me to think of what will
happen when our children and grandchildren are around.
what is scarier is that politicial correctness is
partially responsible due to the fact that people are
now afraid to say or due certain things for fear that
they will upset people. im all for being kind but im
also for being yourself,something we are slowly but
surely losing. things have to change or we will be
looking at 1984 as a history reference.

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fake name

forest for the trees

August 17th, 2002

Rating: 5.3400

the old saying
the greatest trick the devil ever pulled off was
making us believe he doesnt exist is how one can read
this work and not realize it has become a reality. as
much as i would agree that china is a present day
oceania, this must be a present day euroasia. the
question i asked myself after reading orwell was what
is feedom? can one say the usa is a free nation as
orwell may well as defined the term, i think not. for
example, watch the nightly news broadcast from each of
the 'big three' and tell me where each is different
and willing to take on the most pressing issues of the
day? each has stories straight from the same
'cookie-cutter' mold and speaking of the same issues,
and it is due to the 'corporitazation' of america in
all its glory. state run televeision in the former
soviet union never had it so good, the people knew it
was a load of propaganda disguised as objecitve, the
state knew it was propaganda disguised as objective,
and any credibilty it may have had was corrupted by
that influence. the same is true today in this country
yet corruption is disguised as objectivity in all the
mass media outlets since they are all owned and
operated by conglomerates according to the bottom
line. why should NBC shed light on disney's
wrongdoings when ABC will shed light on GE's wrong
doings? this is long and most likely made no sense
since so few 'know' the facts operating in the world
today. my answer to the presiouly stated question is
we arent free when walmart and mcdonalds rule the
world, free to do as they wish with nothing more than
a smile from the politicians 'in charge'. we
collectively are winston at the end, ignorant, happily
accpeting the bullet and finally coming to love Big
Brother-what other choice to the sheep have?

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sara

telescreens

October 23rd, 2002

Rating: 5.3056

I notice a
great similarity of the telescreens controlling the
population of Oceana in the novel, and the way that
television controls the population of America, whether
we realize it or not. Every aspect of the media- the
news, the TV shows, and the advertisements have all
been carefully planned out to play on Americans in
just the righ manner so that those who produced the
media can intill in Americans the same values that
they have through a semi- hypnotic devise like the
television. It is amazing that even in Orwell's own
time, in 1948, when television was not found in every
household, that Orwell could make such an accurate
prediction of what has become part of his distopian
future.

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Alasdair

Spare me.

May 28th, 2002

Rating: 5.2604

Nineteen
Eighty-Four is one of my favourite books, and I'm
sorry, but I just find it laughable how magnificently
inept the above synopsis paragraph is - both in terms
of its content and grammar. Content first: A) It's
'O'Brien', not 'O'Brian'. B) Winston's encounter with
O'Brien takes place inside the Ministry of Truth, not
'while walking home'. C) You've massively
overemphasised the importance of the Brotherhood,
which barely features until Part II, section VIII -
and is essentially tangential in Part III. D) The
Ministry of Love is Oceania's law enforcement and
secret police organisation, not a 'rehabilitation
centre'. And to describe Part III as 'rehabilitation'
in any case completely misses the point since E)
Winston is not tortured so that his beliefs coincide
with that of the Party, he's tortured into accepting
that the Party creates and defines reality as it sees
fit (pardon the oversimplification). The distinction
is important. Somehow you've managed to summarise the
book without the slightest hint that this is one of
the most important and scathing political satires of
the 20th century. And as to grammar... Well, did it
occur to anyone that your third sentence states that
Big Brother rules over Eastasia and Eurasia as well as
Oceania? I think placing this book on line is a
wonderful idea - pity the presentation isn't
better.
PS: On a personal level, I disagree over
Quiller's comments on two (and it's only two) of
Winston's acquaintances also being gaoled in the
Ministry of Love. I don't find this comical, but
rather fits in both with what we know and what, under
O'Brien's didactic tutelage, we're about to discover
of the nature of Oceanic society.
Our
Response:If you wish to write a better summary
we'd gladly publish it, until then we can only publish
what we're given.

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Egginator

We too?

November 13th, 2002

Rating: 5.1463

Some say that
Orwell was writing about the governements of Hitler
and the Soviet Union. But in what ways was he writing
about his government? Does it apply to most
governments that exist today? It is arguable how much
we resemble Oceania, but clearly we have all of the
elements at play: propaganda (look at the
slogan-strewn backgrounds of any George W. Bush
Presidential address), thought police (e.g., FBI
investigations of "unpatriotic" art exhibits),
surveillance (cellphone monitoring, security cameras),
civilian spies (the whitehouse's plan to have citizens
spy on each other), etc.

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