Book Review of 1984 Essay

He was a member of outer party, who has better life than the proles according to the government. Winston did not believe in the party, the Big Brother. He remained the memory before the Revolution, some fragmented memory about a better life than he was experiencing. He held a belief in abiding faith, contrary to the faked fact that he produced for the sake of work. Through the process that how the party reintegrated Winston, we saw the party controlled the society, using what they learned from the history to improve the method of doing a brainwashing. Julia is the second main character. She is Winston’s love, a beautiful young woman. Julia was born after the Revolution. She knew a little about the past through her grandfather, who disappeared when she was eight. She was zealous in the activities that government promotes, like Junior Anti-Sex League, Two Minutes’ Hate and community center. However, she is a girl who does not care about what the life will be tomorrow. She used her body to exchange for inner party’s good. Everything she did for the government was a mask, to distract attentions from sexually promiscuous rebel. She was sex criminal. After she fell in love with Winston, she believed that ‘It’s the one thing they can’t do. They can make you say anything — ANYTHING— but they can’t make you believe it. They can’t get inside you. ’ However, she was also tortured to be perfect and even suffered more than Winston. ‘Her face was sallower, and there was a long scar, partly hidden by the hair, across her forehead and temple’. The third main character is O’Brien, a member of Brotherhood, which is leaded by Goldstein, the target of Two Minutes’ Hate. But O’Brien was actually a member of inner party, a zealous supporter of the Party, a thought police, a spy. He made Winston believed in him that he opposed that Party and pretended to be a member of Brotherhood. With the help of Mr. Charrington, Winston was caught by Thought Police, as well as Julia. O’Brien engaged in most part of reintegration of Winston. He was the first one who inspires Winston to oppose the Party, by a sentence, ‘We shall meet in the place where there is no darkness,’ O’Brien had said to him. And then he leaded him to believe in the existence of Brotherhood, finally to the love of Big Brother, the death. The story started from Winston Smith, a member of outer party. Winston lived in a dark age, though others may deny it. There are three biggest powers in the world: the Eurasian, Oceania and Eastasia. Winston was in Oceania, under the control of the new party—INGSOC, English Socialism. The official language is New Speak, contrary to the Old Speak. It is used to limit and finally eliminate all modes of thought, therefore nobody would rebel, even just a second’s thought. There are three classes: the Inner Party, the Outer Party and the Proles. Telescreens and microphones are everywhere, monitoring every act of the citizens. There are four ministries, the Ministry of Love, the Ministry of Plenty, the Ministry of Peace and the Ministry of Truth. Each of the ministries is working on the things that are contrary to its name. Winston worked in the Ministry of Truth, where all the documents should be rewritten in order to support the eternal positive of the Party. It is a department that holds the output of Medias, books, news and podcast, falsification was made to the history and facts, which promote the Party doctrine. Winston never believed in the Party. He lived with a mask, controlling every movement, every word that he gave out. However, accidentally he fell in love with a young woman, Julia. They had sex, enjoying the food that Julia brought from the Inner Party, and talked about their doubts on the Party, sharing pieces of memory before the Revolution. They decided to join the Brotherhood, to fight against the Party. They could do everything, except stop loving each other. O’Brien, as a member of Brotherhood, received them and gave them the book, The Theory and Practice of Oligarchical Collectivism, written by Emmanuel Goldstein. However, when Winston and Julia were still reading the book in Mr. Charrington’s shop, they were caught by though police. The Brotherhood was a trap. O’Brien was actually an Inner Party member. Winston suffered for a long period of reintegration, and finally built up his loyal love to Big Brother, before his death. The mainline is easy to summarize, however the idea that the story wants to tell is difficult. In the book, the politics have been gone to the worst part. Those covers, like â€Å"to help the poor†, â€Å"for the sake of freedom and equality†, or â€Å"to release the proles and reform the society†, are abandoned. The aim of the Party is so direct, that is even adverse, to attain the pure power, nothing else but only the power. The method they used was successful. Language is the access to mind. It is clever to not only limit people to express their opinion but also change their tools, the language itself, by reducing the amount of words and meanings it can represent. It can stop the rebel from the beginning point. â€Å"A thought diverging from the principles of Ingsoc — should be literally unthinkable. † This aim is attainable as long as the Party could replace the Old Speak entirely. The new generation would know nothing about the Old Speak and have no ways to understand the past since those past were record in the Old Speak and possibly had been rewritten totally by Ministry of True. They are as ignorance as animals, who have no past and even no inherit genes. In order to let people have no spare time to think about the meaning of their lives, to explore the things that the Party does not tell, they have war continuously. This could help to avoid rebellion. â€Å"War is peace. † It also keeps the life standard just right above the poverty line. People have to work hard, though the government has always claimed that they have made progress on production, they still do not have enough to eat or enough fuels to make them warm. The life was terrible that everyone works like animal, do what orders, and no more think. But it was a blast of strong power, to have so much unconscious workforce. â€Å"Ignorance is strength. † To explain the last part of the Party’s practice, â€Å"Slavery is freedom. † it relates to the concept of individual and group. As an individual, you are slaved, but groups of slaved have the strength to achieve power and freedom. One should escape from its own identity, and to be slaved, to be remixed into a group, which finally reaches the ultimate freedom. The story has been making a big background in the Chapter 1. After Winston met Julia, the plot has been speeded up. I think the most special point of this book is that he put the climax as the end. â€Å"He loved Big Brother. † The final turning point, and then everything become silent. Actually it just looks like George Orwell him self’s life, ended at the climax. The book reveals several methods of safeguarding the pure power. They came from George Orwell’s real life. George Orwell had been policing in Burma, and then experienced bottom level life in Paris and London. Then he and his family experience the civil war in Spanish and after that was World War Two. These experiences gave George Orwell the elements needed for this book. The poor life standard, the deep hate to those powerful and rich people, the cruelty of war and all of them made up the main background of 1984. George Orwell was a really sensitive writer, who made words to represents more than it should be. His novel was not long and you seldom see some extremely difficult sentence, but you still cannot get its idea only after one-time read. It takes time to catch the main part. Meticulous as him, the principle of New Speak was also provided at the end, to illustrate how this power weapon works. I would definitely recommend my friends to read this book, since it shows how bad the politics, the government might be, and what they would do to maintain their position. I have heard about a comment, which said that you can find many books to help you know the true face of the politics, say that is 5percent, however 1984 could provide you 100percent of that. Reference: http://ebooks. adelaide. edu. au/o/orwell/george/o79n/contents. html