1984: A Review 16 Years in the Making

Never knew Big Brother had such piercing blue eyes.

Whenever someone says "1984", the very mention of that year brings to mind myriad of images of an overbearing government, a desolate future, and "Big Brother is watching you." No two people will read this book and come up with the same interpretation of it. I first read 1984 by George Orwell, I was 16-17 years old and I had to read it for A.P. English (Advanced Placement for those who aren't familiar with that term). At that time in my life, my adolescent brain couldn't wrap itself around the idea of a totalitarianistic government, a dystopian society where every aspect of one's life is controlled by a governmental party and the basic freedoms we take for granted are all but a blurry dream. At 16 or 17 years old, I had no personal reference to begin to compare and understand what that would mean to a society as a whole, what the lack of personal freedoms would mean to the individual, what such total control over the masses does to the people at a visceral level. Since then, I remembered Newspeak (doubleplusgood!), Big Brother, and that marriage/sex was highly regulated by the government. 

I had read Animal Farm (Orwell) a few years ago and I was finally able to grasp the political and sociological themes of his work. I was able to draw comparisons between the events on that poor farm and with what was happening (to a much lesser extent) in our own society. I felt then that I could possibly attempt to re-read 1984 since my brain had matured to the point of being able to fathom such heavy material. All I had to do was wait for the right moment. Flash forward 15-16 years and 1984 is chosen by my book club for the month of June. Most of the members of the club haven't read it or if they did, were like me and couldn't really remember much about it from when they had read it. So we went and tackled one of literature's heavy weights. 

As stated before, 1984 is set in a future where the world is divided into three main world powers, Eastasia, Eurasia, and Oceania. Oceania is where Big Brother rules and the government, known as The Party. Everything in a person's life is controlled by the Party: clothes, food, entertainment, recreational time, who one can marry, sex (is only for children, not for pleasure). Below the Party members are the common people, or proles; the 85% of the population who are dumbed down and kept complacent with gambling, alcohol, and sex. The Party is working on keeping all citizens dumb by feeding them over-hyped propaganda and fear of their enemies. 

The main character is Winston Smith, a disenfranchised member of The Party who works in the Ministry of Truth. In the Ministry of Truth, Winston's job is to go back through the archives of history and rewrite it to match the current events of the Party. If Big Brother had said that there'd be more food four years ago, but now it's been four years and there is actually less food, Winston's job is to go back into all the newspapers, magazines, films, photos, audio files, etc., and find all mention of that prediction and change it to say that Big Brother had said that there'd be less food. The past is constantly being changed as the present unfolds. With each edit, Winston grows disillusioned about his role within the Party. He breaks a rule for Party members and buys a journal from a black market store and starts to write down true thoughts about his life and what he thinks about the Party. His first act of thoughtcrime that would slowly open the door to others. Soon he finds himself in a forbidden relationship with a young woman named Julia, who wants to rebel against the Party but for more personal pleasure reasons than political ones. His vague discontent with his life steadily solidifies into something more. Winston goes on a journey that takes him to the threshold of going against the Party and Big Brother himself.

This is a deceptive book, it's not all that thick but boy is it heavy. Political genres tend to be. It really boils down to in the face of such corruption, can one person really make a difference? How does one fight for personal freedom and expression in the middle of complete oppression? Winston yearns for a whole systemic upheaval, a rebellion to surge up from the crushed masses; Julia, on the other hand, doesn't believe that one person can't change anything and only small freedoms can be stolen back from the Party. In the long run, especially with an Orwellian novel, there's only one outcome and it won't be pretty. Reading this book now, being older and knowing more about the world and how things work (or appear to work), 1984 begs to ask the reader "What would you risk, what would you be willing to do to regain your freedoms as a person? Are you just going to worry about your little personal bubble or are you concerned with the greater picture?"

Of course, we don't face the level of evil and powerlessness that Winston and Julia faced, but in our present times, we do face some elements of freedoms being taken: TSA pat downs at the airport, Patriot Act agents scanning phone calls and emails for potential threats, possible drones roaming the skies, government secrets of less than favorable acts that are only revealed when someone leaks them onto the internet... the list goes on. Much like the Party members and the proles, many of America's citizens barely know what's going on in the hallowed halls of capitol buildings and Senate/House/Oval chambers, but as long as their personal freedoms aren't being impeded they don't really care and prefer to play ignorant. They are the Julias of the modern world. 

Again, a lot of political comparisons can be drawn between Orwell's work and our current political theater. Which is probably way his works are still being used in high school English classes to this day. And of course, depending on your point of view politically or otherwise, you may take away something different from 1984 and/or Animal Farm. I for one am not terribly up to date on politics, on either side of the aisle. I try to gather as much information as I can and try to make as informed opinion as I can, given the spin of events and from differing news channels and media outlets, and the slant given to a five second sound bite taken out of context. The media only tells you what they want you to know... and that sounds eerily familiar. 

On my scale of 1 (literary hari kari) to 10 (literary orgasmic bliss), I give this book a 7.5. It's a thinker book with a doozy of an ending, but still very important and topical today as ever. I recommend you take another round at the book if you'd read it years ago, and certainly pick it up if you've never cracked the spine. And while you're at it, pick up Animal Farm; you won't regret it.