Book review: 1984
Rating: 3.5/5 stars “WAR IS PEACE FREEDOM IS SLAVERY IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH” (Orwell). Synopsis: 1984 is about a futuristic novel by George Orwell that depicts a world where humans live in a repressive regime. The book follows Winston Smith, who works for the government as a writer who destroys the past and instead writes propaganda that benefits the government instead. Can Winston rebel and defeat the Big Brother (the government)? Background: George Orwell had a complicated life. He was born in India to an upper middle class with a limited amount of money. Orwell went to school with a partial scholarship and noticed how the school treated the richer students better than the poorer ones. He grew up lonely and to cope with this, he took interest in writing to convey his feelings: "I had the lonely child's habit of making up stories and holding conversations with imaginary persons, and I think from the very start my literary ambitions were mixed up with the feeling of being isolated and undervalued". Winston Smith was a reflection of himself, plagued with his internal dilemmas. Winston was claimed to be a lonely boy himself just like Orwell: “He was a lonely ghost uttering a truth that nobody would ever hear” (Orwell). Winston was also a part of the middle class (in the book this class is called the Outer Party), just like Orwell. With this social class, Winston faced problems of getting treated very differently than the other classes. The government feared that the middle class was one step away from rebelling, so they treated the middle class differently. This experience is similar to the one Orwell faced when his school treated the rich kids better than the poor. While writing this book, he reflected on all the pain he ever felt in his lifetime and used it to create a world where freedom is repressed. In his lifetime, he went through three wars, one of which was the Spanish Civil war. During the war, Russia had released propaganda about Spain, trying to undermine the people’s revolution against the government. This serves as Orwell’s main inspiration in the creation of the oppressive government. In the book, the government tries to hide the past and create propaganda that benefits them and at the same time, they are using this propaganda to keep an uprising from happening. Orwell’s firsthand experiences with political corruptness allowed him to reflect on his past to write about 1984’s futuristic world. The government’s motto is: “‘Who controls the past,’ ran the Party slogan, ‘controls the future’” (Orwell). The government manipulates history by erasing the past and creating propaganda that benefits them. This is similar to what Orwell experienced firsthand through the Spanish civil war. The psychological subtext behind the futuristic world resides in Orwell’s experiences throughout his life with government propaganda and wars. What I didn’t like: Considering what a classic this book is considered, I was surprised at the lack of character development. Well, I guess I can cut Orwell some slack since he was practically near death while writing this book.
I actually really liked this book and would have given it a higher rating if the main character had more depth. Other than that, this book was great!
Overall, 1984 by George Orwell is a really interesting, eye opening read. What makes this book even more disturbing is the idea that this book was inspired by real life incidents of Orwell’s life (Read paragraph above on background). It certainly makes this book unforgettable! Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else follows (Orwell).
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
BOOK REVIEWS
I love to read! Below are reviews for books I've been reading lately! Archives
September 2021
Categories |