Nineteen Eighty-Four (1984)

Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four, published in 1949, presents a highly structured and restrictive society in which war, oppression, and surveillance are common- place. The world is uncomfortable and ambiguous in its truth, run by a dominating totalitarian regime. This is established largely due to Orwell’s socio-historical context, with many aggressive regimes around the world. Orwell’s aim as an author was to satirise his perceived reality and demonstrate a confronting but im- minent reality. However, this universe is divided into three political super-states who are constantly at war: Oceania, Eastasia, and Eurasia.

The main plot follows the life of Winston Smith, a 39 year old man working a government job in a dilapidated shell of London town, known as Airstrip One, in Oceania. His existence is relatively insignificant, as are the lives of everyone outside of the “Inner Party.” Every aspect of his life is controlled: his thoughts, actions, and beliefs, both public and private. This is carried out through extensive forms of surveillance, such as telescreens, microphones, and cameras planted around the city. Thought Police are another measure to restrict the range and freedoms of opinions, as is the creation of Newspeak. Regular demonstrations of “hate” toward the opposing super-state are also required of everyone in Oceania. These methods are epitomised by “Big Brother” – the government’s figurehead that aims to instill fear, uneasiness, and the overwhelming necessity to conform to the Party’s ideals.

Amongst his menial daily tasks, Winston begins to write in a diary about how he hates his life and the circumstances under which he is forced to live. This act allows him to think for himself and imagine what life could be like outside of his dreary reality, and as such is forbidden. However, the illegality of his actions does not deter Winston from carrying out his small, internal rebellion.

Winston’s occupation involves rewriting history, basically. It is his job to search the archives and amend any “mistakes” in predictions about weather or projec- tions of the economy, amongst other things. This means that the government is always correct, retroactively. This helps to control the collective identity of 

civilians within Oceania, because it can also be used for larger scale lies – who’s winning the war, who the war is against, and even the people’s very existence. It is through this job that he meets O’Brien and Julia – two characters who are integral to Winston’s character development. O’Brien is an Inner Party member and should be someone that Winston is fearful of due to his social status and influence. However, Winston thinks that O’Brien is more intelligent, and yearns to make a connection with this man because he believes O’Brien would understand Winston’s qualms with his current state of existence. On the other hand, Julia is a young, attractive woman who works in the same building as Winston.

Things pick up when Julia slips Winston an unsolicited secret note that says “I love you.” It catches Winston off-guard, but nevertheless he is smitten. He and Julia are faced with the difficult task of trying to meet in public. According to the laws of Oceania, their demonstration of an emotional connection is punishable by torture and death. Despite this, they begin a sexual relationship, and privately defy the government’s orders. They traverse the countryside in their love affair, making them dangerously happy. Winston finally feels as though he has found someone who hates and wishes to defy the Party as much as he does. This inspires him to take further action and transform his private affairs into a public rebellion. O’Brien invites Winston to his home, Winston taking this as a subtle invitation into the underground rebellion against the government, run by Emmanuel Goldstein.

From this meeting, Winston is under the impression that O’Brien is part of the rebellion, even though he is a member of the Inner Party. Alongside Winston, we read The Theory and Practice of Oligarchical Collectivism by Goldstein, based on the global phenomenon of hidden truth and oppression through surveillance. He is blown away by the revelations from the book, but before he can share or implement his knowledge, the Thought Police catch him and Julia and take them away to the Ministry of Love for some intense torture treatment. O’Brien was actually the one who turned them into the Thought Police, having only pretended to be a part of the “imaginary” secret rebellion.

Within this ministry, Winston is tortured to the extent that his humanity is taken from him. They break his bones and teeth, and use electroshock and starvation methods, all in an attempt to coerce any information that he has about the uprising and about Julia. It also acts as a government power exercise; they simply want to break the mental capacity of their citizens, so that they can tell them anything that they want, and the civilians will actually believe it, even if it’s something as obviously wrong as “2 + 2 = 5”. Winston is finally taken into Room 101, designed to confront him with his greatest fears and strip his identity. His head is almost placed in a cage with rats, but he tells them to do it to Julia instead. Thus, the government took his last shred of integrity and forced him to betray the one person that he loved most.

Once he is released from the Ministry, Winston is but a shell of his former self. He and Julia pass each other in their new lives, but do not acknowledge the other’s existence – just how the Party wants it. He no longer imagines a new life free of restrictions. Instead, he sits in the bar and just accepts his contrived reality. His soul is broken and he accepts this life that is everything he once hated. His depressing character trajectory and the hopelessness of the novel is poignantly encapsulated in the final line of the novel: “He loved Big Brother.”