Ben Rose

B2
Annotated Bibliography
Quarter 4
Orwell, George. Nineteen Eighty-Four. Secker and Warburg, 1949. 667 Pages
This was a story I've heard lots of, and with its focus on a dystopian future possibly coming by our own
hand, I decided to finally check it out. It's a story about a socialist, dictator-led society with
increasingly poor communication within its citizens, practically constant surveillance of people's
internal thoughts, and the use of fear, rather than law, to serve justice. Very early on, the main
character, Winston Smith, starts writing a diary a forbidden act about the things going on in his life,
using a very crude form of English called Newspeak.
Achebe, Chinua. Things Fall Apart. Anchor Books, 1959. 209 Pages
What a mess. This is one story that is really hard to grasp because its vastly different culture makes it
difficult to know what's going on, and the main character, Okonkwo, is not one you would sympathize
with at all. The story takes place in the African Ibo tribe, where Okonkwo is famous for being the best
wrestler around, as well as having a massive anger and manliness complex. His father, Unoka, was not
a man of power or war, and was looked down on in his clan because of it. Because Unoka went into
massive debt and was seen as weak, even womanly (the biggest insult in this culture, worse than
dropping the F-bomb), Okonkwo wanted to be nothing like him and thus focused his entire life to
becoming the manliest, most powerful figure in the clan, possibly the entire tribe, often at the expense
of his friends and allies. As the story goes on, Okonkwo's legacy begins to fade before eventually
falling apart spectacularly, right as the white man (different from ordinary man in this culture, keep in
mind) start to show up and cause trouble.
Salinger, J.D. Franny and Zooey. Little, Brown, 1961. 201 Pages
This is another one my grandpa recommended to me. This is a story centered around Franny Glass, a
student in literature who finds that scholars are destroying it through over-complication and not putting
enough beauty into their works, and her brother Zooey, who wants to become an actor. Spiritualism and
family are commonly used in the story, and the characters, having started somewhat famous, go on to
eventually do what they wanted to do.