the reader to believe that these
alliances switch back and forth every few years. Indeed, there may in
fact not be any war at all but
instead just a large propagandist ploy to keep people occupied and to
give them someone to hate so
that they will not turn against The Party.
The book is an example of Totalitarianism at its finest. The government
controls every aspect of
people?s lives and the mere thought of freedom has completely been
erased from people?s minds.
The Party is then controlled by the secret ?Inner Party? that controls
the Party?s direction and
decisions.
The main character of the story is Winston Smith who uses the attic of
an old bookstore to keep a
diary in which he documents his anti-Party thoughts. He meets Julia in
the hallway of the Ministry and
they proceed to make love in the open and arrange many more such
meetings. After several of these
meetings, he trusts her and tells her about his feelings towards the
Party, they plan together and in the
end confide in the wrong person who reports them which results in
Winston being beaten until he
gives up and finally betrays Julia who had long since already betrayed
him.
This novel has a very strong message for those who care to read into it.
If society is not careful, it
could easily fall into a trap such as this. As fewer and fewer people
care about the state of the
Nation and about freedom, the world that Orwell wrote about becomes
closer and closer to reality.
If mankind does not take a stand for what it believes in then there are
those who will happily take
advantage of that fact and use it in their interest to create a society
like Orwell?s in which everything
is run by a select few people and everyone is so far gone that they
don?t believe there is any way
out.
For a book written in 1949, Orwell did a very good job of writing about
the future and about the
technologies that might be developed. Orwell wrote of ?Telescreens?
which would allow The Party
to keep track of everyone. Even the people of Orwell?s novel seem a lot
like the people of today in
that they do not care as much as they should and they fail to even
recognize what freedom is being
taken from them. However, it is possible to find differences in their
world from ours, namely in the
technological devices, while there are the Telescreens, the people still
fight with rockets and Tommy
guns and there are no cars or other vehicles for transportation
mentioned in the story.
This novel was really enjoyable because it is very thought provoking and
it really has the quality of
making oneself look at the world around him and think about just how
easy it would be for
something like this to happen. Many of the pieces are already in place
and others are not far away,
all it would take is one good leader and a strong push. This book should
be read by everyone to
make him or her aware of the future ahead of mankind if they are not
careful.
The novels which Orwell wrote will continue to inspire and spark debate
for years to come and
hopefully they will also serve as a constant reminder and warning of
what is to come if our society
continues its current trend of not caring. Orwell will forever be
remembered for his keen insight and
his great ability for thinking a situation all the way through and
predicting all possible outcomes.
Bibliography
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Caldo, Robert L., "George Orwell." Modern British Essayists, first
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1990
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