Nineteen Eighty-Four

George Orwell



Eric Arthur Blair (George Orwell) is mostly known for his more renown novels, such as
animal farm and 1984, which has proven to a be a profoundly meaningful work and
continues to be one of the worlds most widely read and quoted novels into the twenty-
first century.
According to Orwell the experience of undergoing poverty when he worked at the
Indian Imperial Police increased his natural hatred of authority, and gave him some
understanding of the nature of imperialism.
He stated that he Spanish war turned the scale, and explained that: Every line of
serious work that I have written since 1936 has been written, directly or indirectly,
against totalitarianism and for democratic socialism, as I understand it.
The novel was written in 1948 depicting the society 36 years after (simply the reversal
of the digits of the year it was written). You can clearly observe how Orwell criticizes the
totalitarianism system in his novel, which was, contextually considered a possible future
outcome. It is widely considered, that in particular Orwell intends to pass judgement on
the USSR, and some still see it as anti-Catholic with Big Brother replacing God and
church.
The novel narrates a terrifying account of Wilson a middle aged member of the outer
party (equivalent to what we consider middle class) that decides to rebel against the
imposing totalitarian system that is Big Brother, who, based on lies and constant
manipulation of the truth aims to diminish intelligence of the general public, by
minimizing the English language and all capacity of rationale thought, therefore, making
the possibility of a revolution unattainable. There are posters with cameras everywhere
so as to control your every move and expression. Oceania (one of the three great
continents) is in constant war so as to maintain a feeling of insecurity.
The multinational series big brother is based on the theory in the novel of being
constantly watched, and there have also been several other references to room 101
(where you are tortured with your worst fear).
I would definitely recommend the novel to anyone minimally interested in politics and
the ways of the human mind.





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