1984

After reading Animal Farm, I won’t hesitate if anyone calls me the fan of George Orwell. I had read this novel some years ago and i was impressed...mmm... i must say very impressed and now i just completed his most famous novel 1984 and i am very very very impressed with his style of writing. May be we can say the metaphorical representation of reality. As i have seen him, he has always been a sort of anti-communist who doesn’t believe the notion of utopia i.e. a classless society. For him, the very nature of human beings is a power seeking nature which of course can’t create a classless society. Communism doesn’t wipes the class but creates larger void among them. I think he believes that the hierarchical nature of the society cannot be wiped out but the gap between them can lessen. I think in this novel also somewhere it has been mentioned that the society has always been divided into 3 classes which includes higher, middle and the lower class. The higher class is the most powerful one which tries to rule the society through their own rules. Their nature is to keep the power intact. The middle class however has the dream of being in the higher class and by some chance, the middle classes even get their dream fulfilled as they are clever. However, the most victimised class are the lower class people. They do not care about what the hell is happening all around them. They are concentrated upon their daily needs. The one thing that is different in their lives is that the rulers change from time to time.

The novel centres around a person named Winston and the country Oceania where he lives. The system is a totalitarian system and very autocratic one. You cannot have your own life. Everything is controlled by the party and everything is for the party. Everywhere there is telescreen, in everyone’s room, in everyone’s house and there is micro-phone attached everywhere. One thing is that you cannot go and do anything against the party but even more interesting thing is that you cannot even think against the party. There are thought police mobilised everywhere who read your mind. Once they catch you, you disappear. Many people disappear in that way as if they had never existed before. The history is re-written every time. The people even don’t have idea what is going on. The party says 2+2=5 and the people agree without any sort of argument. Today you argue and the next day you are gone.

The people constantly re-write the history. Every second the history changes according to the will of the party. Winston also works in one of those departments where the history has to be rewritten everytime. It has been said that the life before Revolution was a complete mess. The people have higher standard of living now. However, no one has evidence. Winston doesn’t have any belief in this but he has no evidence either.

The another most important thing is that the party doesn’t allow sex but the people have to create children as the duty towards the party as nothing else. The people are being without feeling and without emotion. Winston was also a married man but his marriage was a disaster to him. However, later on he was proposed by a girl, really a courageous lady. She was very active and she was also against the parties like him. The interesting thing was that they had to make secret plans to meet because their affair could be a death note to both of them. They had to worry all the time from the tele-screens and the micro-phones. They hated to meet and make love like this but they had no choice.

There was a rumour that there is an under-ground party named Brotherhood who are secretly pn their mission to wipe this system. Julia thought these all the things just as a non-sense and nothing else, but Winston was pretty sure on this regard. The party used to celebrate “Hate Week” in order to cheer up Big Brother and to arouse hate towards Goldsmith who was said to have deceived the party. The posters of Big Brother was hanged everywhere, anywhere you go and whatever you do. But no one had seen him anytime. But it felt as if he was omnipotent and was watching everytime everyone. At that time, Winston happened to encounter with an eye for a fraction of second. They eyes seemed to tell him that he is on a mission and he is against the system as himself and he is welcoming him to the gang. Winston was ipressed with him and he suddenly wanted to work under him.

Winston had rented a room for himself and Julia in Mr. Charrington cottage. There was no telescreen in that room and it became their meeting point and they could ealily make love in that place with no intervention at all. All of a sudden, one day, Winston and Julia went to O’Brein’s home and they had no idea why they had been there and on what basis they know that he is the person they were thinking of. However, O’Brien made them feel comfortable and made them ralise that they had come to the right place. Now they were also the member of the party. O’Brien said that he will give him the book and the book was delivered soon. The party’s doctrine was “Freedom is Slavery”, “Ignorance is Truth” and “ War is Peace”. The book described many things. The autocracy of the party, about why they were waging war and many more things.

One day, when Julia and Winston were together, they heard something in the upstairs and they found that a telescreen was attached in the room. But the shocking even for them was that mr. Charrington in himself was the thought Police. Now Winston was kept in the room where he was not served food at all. No one was allowed to move. Many prisoners used to come and go.

The most surprising moment for me was the entry of O’Brien as the though police. The system was very efficient in controlling their enemies. They didn’t jsut used to kill them but used to control their thoughts first and then only used to kill them. There was the process following learning, understading and acceptance. In the first process the people learn the tings, then they understand what is going around them and finally they accept. The last process may take time ranging from few months to many years. As soon as they accept, they are killed. Winston went through a long process of pain and suffering. But still till the last moment, he was happy that he has at least not betrayed Julia till the last hour. However, knowing this, the people over there even ruined his last self respect. It was the idea of controlling thoughts. The people of Oceania were not known of the past and anything around them. So they had nothing to do comparison with. Party used to control the thoughts of people as well. Winston was happy that at least his instincts are not statistical and it cannot be controlled. However, at last everything was controlled; hisi thoughts and the processes and he became the parrot of the party.

Now he was completely shattered and then he was allowed to grow strong. He had only the skeleton system left. And then he grew his muscles and cheeks and grew really strong. But still he had not completed the phase of acceptance and he was not sure when he will be killed, may be a month or a year or years from now.
I could not express many things that are in the novel. So, its always better to read the original paper. However, the world it described was frustrating. Power makes a person crazy and makes him go to any extent for this. This novel makes anyone realise the importance of freedom.