1984 - Book Review

Orwell, George. 1984 New York: Signet Classic, 1949. 245 pages.

“It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen.”

I cannot emphasize how much I loved that sentence, which happened to be the first sentence of the amazing story, 1984. I like the fact that it takes a while to comprehend, as you think to yourself, “Clocks strike thirteen?” Well, after a moment of thought I realized that the community in which the story takes place tells time in what we call “Military Time,” which is basically going by hours of the day (since there are 24 hours in a day, when the clocks strike 24 it is what we would call midnight).

This is an amazing book because of its strength! After finishing the book, I sort of felt the urge to shout with anger. This book is strong because of reality. It is straightforward in a way that I have not seen in any other book. The way that there is happiness, understanding, fear, depression, and then down right rage as you go through this book. I felt every one of those feelings while reading George Orwell’s 1984, and it is definitely worth it.

The main character in this book is named Winston Smith. This person is one of the few characters in this book that I see to have a soul of any kind (for most of the story, at least). As the story goes on, Winston tells the reader about his opinion for everything that goes on in his life, and in others’ lives.

Winston works at the Ministry of Truth, rewriting certain articles to make things predicted by the Party that were false look true. He would get an article that needed rewriting, he would rewrite the article to make the Party look correct, then he would put the rewritten article into a pneumatic tube, and put the old article into a memory hole. Memory holes were slots in the wall that take things, bring them down into the unknown, and destroy them.

If Winston were to live in today’s world, he would definitely be one of the people I looked up to as a roll model. He seems like a left-wing (meaning liberal) person who would join lots of organizations doing good things, such as Greenpeace. I think that if he was better at public speaking. (Sadly, he never had a chance to do any sort of public speaking in the story. He seemed like the kind of person that would not be likely to speak publicly unless he had a lot of people defending him, like when he chose to join The Brotherhood instead of trying to create an organization himself.) He definitely would have been a good leader in today’s world. He has all the ideas needed in order to make a difference, and the only thing that would be holding him back would be his shyness.

As I said earlier, he is definitely a liberal compared to other people in this story. Sadly, liberals are way outnumbered by conservatives, and do not stand a chance. That is basically the whole statement of the whole book: The conservatives won. There is no hope. It is over. I do not like to think of it this way, but in this story (hopefully JUST in this story) the conservatives have won, and the liberals do not stand a chance.

As Winston goes through the story, he meets this girl named Julia, who he finds out to be his lover. The only thing that Winston has to live for is Julia. He has a job at the Ministry of Truth. His only duty was to re-write different things to make the Party (the Party was basically the government in charge of Oceania, which was the country where Winston lived in.) look good. Other than his job, Julia, walking, writing in his diary, and sleeping, Winston had absolutely nothing to do. He really did not have anything entertaining to do besides Julia. She was the only joy in his life.

As the story goes on, Winston is unhappy with the results of which the Party makes of everything. You could be put in jail for “Thought Crime,” which is thinking something bad. You are always being watched by telescreens, which are basically boxes on a wall where they can see you and hear you, while you can listen to music and announcements from the telescreen. You are never safe. Winston was against it, and after he met up with Julia he found out she was against it too.

Winston was walking one day when Julia passed him a note and walked on by. The note read, “I love you.” Since this was technically illegal, he could tell that Julia was on his side. He and Julia got together and were a couple in secrecy. O’Brien was a worker that Winston saw a lot. Winston mistook O’Brien to be against the Party, and after Winston basically told O’Brien everything, he was arrested. O’Brien took the liberty of punishing Winston himself.

While this was happening, they were trying to brainwash Winston to believe in the Party, and to believe in Big Brother (Big Brother was the leader of the