Nineteen Eighty-Four

1984 by Orwell isn't your typical feel-good, hopeful sci-fi novel. It is a dystopian, cautionary tale, that sadly has even more relevance now in 2018 than when it was first published, and this thought is scary.

Its main protagonist is Winston Smith. He works for the Ministry of Truth, London, chief city of Airstrip one, Oceania. During the 1960's, the world had gone through revolutions, and now it is divided into 3 super-continents, at constant war with one another. Every person is monitored and listened to by the over-powerful Big Brother, when every act and even its mere thought are crimes, punished in the most horrible, brual and sadisitic ways imaginable.

The novel portrays a totalitarian future (for the author), where every person and every thing in the world is monitored, catalogued, created, and un-created in a tyranical regime enslaving everyone. Language is re-shaped, history is written and re-written over and over again, to suit the regime's needs of the moment.

The doom and gloom only grows over time, it never relinquishes its grip. The novel progresses from point to point in time, starting in April 1984, and the ultimate, tragic, doom ending sends chils to the spine.

I found the novel interesting in its construction in three parts, mirroring the 3 social strata and the three super-continents. Oceania's future London comprises, however, 4 ministeries, each with a name that has the exact opposite meaning of the its term, and this is explained not only in the novel part, but in the fictonal essay that ends it - the one discussing Newspeak VS Old Speak (aka English).

Winston Smith isn't exactly a typical hero either. He may be questioning the validity of the society he exists in, and may have started his own rebellion, but he's also a very flawed man.

Here comes four trigger warnings about content :

The main character wishes to rape a woman, and this is mentioned in two instances. I think Orwell included this, as in this dystopian world, human relationships are tenuous and sexuality has been reduced to that of procreation, and where all other forms are crimes. Nonetheless, this inclusion does pause for a cringe. The regime wishes to enslave people, and its war atrocities include many vile acts. There are 3-4 chapters with torture scenes, and also, during these, and other passages in the novel, include emetophobic triggers. Hence, at times, 1984 was a tough read, and I had to slow down my pace. In the end, this is a must-read - or re-read, if, like me, you had read it as a young boy and forgot most of it by now.

The contributions of this book are far too grand for me to go into all details here. To make it short, I believe that Orwell provided a fitting explanation of how individual thought is suppressed under totalitarian regimes. The principles of doublethink are also used in democratic states whenever it is politically necessary to hold two conflicting opinions. I even claim that it is a politician's most essential skill to perform this mental gymnastics convincingly.

However, this propaganda does not necesarrily manage to convince everybody. Regardless of the political system, it seems that generally, the people under its influence tend to root for it. But also regardless of the system, the capacity for subversive ideas can never be eliminated. Whether this capacity is actually of any use, though, depends on the system. The dystopian world of 1984 deals with subversive thoughts in such an efficient way, that revolutionary spirit is crushed before it even started to materialize.