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THE AUTHOR
George Orwell - his real name was Eric Arthur Blair - was born in 1903 in India, moved to England in 1907 and entered the college at Eton ten years later, where he contributed to college magazines. From 1922 to 1927, he served with the Indian Imperial Police in Burma, which inspired his first novel, \"Burmese Days\". Several years in Paris and London followed, when he lived on casual la-bours (\"Down and out in Paris and London\", 1933).
In 1936, Orwell fought in the Spanish Civil War for the Republi-cans (\"Hommage to Catalonia\"), where he was wounded. During WW II he served in the Home Guard and worked for the BBC. As a literary editor he contributed political and literary commentary to several newspapers such as \"Tribune\" and \"The Observer\".
With his satirical allegory \"Animal Farm\" of 1945 which was directed against dictatorship and the novel \"Nineteen eighty-four\" (published in 1949), he reached worldwide fame.
Suffering from tuberculosis, George Orwell died in 1950 at the age of 46.
THE MAIN CHARACTERS
(a) WINSTON SMITH - an average, intelligent man, a minor employee
in the ministry of truth. His job is to falsify back issues of
the Times in order to keep them in line with the present
policy in Oceania. History has become a plaything of the Party
- objective truth no longer exists.
(b) JULIA - a beautiful young mechanic in the Fiction Department
of the Ministry of Truth, only apparently an enthusiastic
member of the Junior Anti-Sex League and a good Party member.
(c) O\'BRIEN - an ugly, highly intelligent member of the Inner
Party and supposed to be an opponent of the Big Brother.
(d) BIG BROTHER - the all-seing, omnipotent ruler of Oceania
whose heavy, moustachioed face glares from every billboard.
Noone has ever seen him, but in the torture rooms and dungeons
of the Ministry of Love, his power is made clear to anyone
defying the state.
(e) EMMANUEL GOLDSTEIN - the mythical arch-enemy of Oceania, an
alleged counter-revolutionary and scapegoat for all the
military, social and economic failures of the Party,object of
every Two Minutes Hate.
(f) MR. CHARRINGTON - pretending to be a harmless old proprietor
of a junk shop, but in fact a powerful member of the Thought Police.
OUTLINE OF CONTENTS
The story is set in the London of 1984. The entire world is divided in three states, who constantly have wars against each other: Oceania (Britain and America),Eurasia and Eastasia.
Oceania is a completely toalitarian police state ruled by the godlike Big Brother and adhering to the principles of INGSOC (English Socialism).
The majority of its population are called Proles; they are considered too stupid to matter. They have to live in poverty, but are not constantly supervised by two-way telescreens like all the members of the Outer Party. Each suspicious act can lead to being vaporised: one\'s life and everything that remembers of one is destroyed.
Winston\'s room is so peculiarly shaped that he can hide in a corner. He starts a secret diary, which is strictly forbidden, and writes in it \"Down with the Big Brother\" several times, which would be reason enough to kill him. During a Two Minutes Hate Winston sees Julia. He first believes her to be a member of the Thought Police, but she secretly slips him a note saying \"I love you.\" They arrange a rendezvous in the country where she tells him she is only seemingly a loyal Party member for her own security; in fact she hates it.
The two become lovers and rent a room upstairs from Mr. Charring-ton\'s shop, preserved as it was before the Ingsoc revolution and without a telescreen.
Winston and Julia feel there must be other people who think like them. Winston believes O\'Brien, a powerful member of the Inner Party,to be one of them. They go to his luxurious appartment where he tells them that there is a counter-revolutionary conspiracy. Though his warning, they join it and take Goldstein\'s book with them.
Relaxing after Hate Week in their room, they are arrested and have to realize that there was a hidden telescreen in the room and that Mr. Charrington is a member of the Thought police.
Winston is hustled in the Ministry of Love, where he is tortured for days until he no longer knows who or where he is. Afterwards he is subjected to weeks of \"sessions\" with O\'Brien who gives him electric shocks and keeps him barely alive so he can confess the error of his rebellion. O\'Brien is not yet content and tortures Winston until he realizes deep in his soul that BB is all-good, that individuals have no right to private ideas, and that if the Party says that 2+2=5, that is correct. He himself has written Goldstein\'s book as a trap. Even Winston\'s love for Julia is destroyed.
After this great betrayal, Winston, now physically and mentally a shambles, is not considered worth vaporising and given a very minor job that leaves him plenty of time to sit alone in a cafe boozing cheap gin. One day, as he hears about a big victory in Africa, he, who once had been (miátrauisch), is cheering like all the other people.
Back in the Ministry of Love, he walks down the corridor with a soul white as snow and an armed guard at his back. As the long-hoped-for bullet enters his brain he feels that he has won the struggle over himself. He loves Big Brother.
THE MAIN THEMES
(a) Warning against totalitarian regimes
The gigantic country is ruled by only one party; no contradiction, no different thinking is tolerated. The entire history is in their hands; it can be changed, just the way the Party wants it. As all media are under control of the Party, noone can prove that history was different from what is said in the Times\' back issues, because the real old numbers are destroyed and workers like Winston re-write them.
(b) Methods of a totalitarian government
Everybody is kept under surveillance all the time (\"Big Brother is watching you\"), so that he has no possibility to do something forbidden. If anyone tries to go his own way, he is badly treated, tortured and vaporised. Enemies of the party are brainwashed until they are loyal with the government and no longer doubt about it.
(c) Manipulation of the people
*) The telescreens are two-way screens, that means they do not only watch their proorietors, but they also broadcast programmes of the Party around the clock. So the people are manipulated 24 hours a day.
*) Also, there are groups for children which resemble those of the totalitarian regimes of the past, for example the Hitlerjugend in Nazi Germany, where they learn to be good Party members.
In the sessions of Two Minute Hate, everyone has to shout words of rage and hatred against a screen showing the actual enemy of Oceania, and its mythical arch-enemy, Emmanuel Goldstein.
*) The magnetic eyes of Big Brother stare from every billboard and housewall.
*) Experts work on a new language called Newspeak, which should have superseeded Oldspeak (= Standard English) by the year of 2050. Its purpose is not only to provide a medium of expression for the world-view and mental habits proper to the devotees of Ingosc, but to make all other ways of thinking impossible. This is done partly by the invention of new words, but mainly by eliminating undesir-able words. Newspeak is designed to diminish the range of thought.
(d) Winston\'s rebellion
Winston is too intelligent to believe everything that the Party claims. He knows that they forge the whole history because it is his job to fake back numbers of the times. First he starts to rebel just with small \"delicts\" like hiding from the telescreen, walking through the Prole quarters, buying historical items, writing a diary and having a love affair. He would rather die than live on like this under Party rule and so he wants to make contact with other opponents of the regime, but he is arrested and tortured by the ones he trusted (Mr. Charrington and O\'Brien).
General Remarks
The novel is divided in three parts: the first shows Winston\'s life before he meets Julia. He feels alone and unhappy. The second part starts with Julia\'s brave act when she gives him the sheet and end with both of them being caught and arrested. The third and last part tells how Winston is tortured and, finally killed.
There is also an appendix about "Newspeak" where its function and its grammar is explained.
Quotations from the book
(a) It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were
striking thirteen. (p.1)
(b) His pen had slid voluptously over the smooth paper, printing
in large neat capitals-\"Down with big brother\"over and over
again, filling half a page. (p.20)
(c) \'If there is hope\', wrote Winston, \'it lies in the Proles.\'
(p.72)
(d) With the feeling that he was speaking to O\'Brien, and also
that he was setting forth an important axiom, he wrote:
\"Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four.
If that is granted, all else follows. (p.84)
(e) \"Who cares?\" she said impatiently. \"It\'s always one bloody war
after another, and one knows the news is lies anyway.\"
(p.161)
(f) \"We are the dead,\" he said.
\"We are the dead,\" echoed Julia dutifully.
\"You are the dead,\" said an iron voice behind them. (p.230)
(g) \"The party is not interested in the overt act: the thought is
all we care about. We do not merely destroy our enemies, we
change them.\" (p.265)
(h) And he was shouting frantically, over and over: \"Do it to
Julia! Do it to Julia! Not me! Julia! I don\'t care what you
do to her. Tear her face off, strip her to the bones.Not me!
Julia! Not me!\" (p.300)
(i) But it was all right, everything was all right, the struggle
was finished. He had won the victory over himself. He loved
Big Brother. (p.311)
PERSONAL OPINION
In my opinion the book gives one a good view of what it is like living in a totalitarian police state, being one of the govern-ment\'s opponents.
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