short essay on 1984

A Summary and Analysis of George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four

By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)

George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four , completed in 1948 and published a year later, is a classic example of dystopian fiction. Indeed, it’s surely the most famous dystopian novel in the world, even if its ideas are known by far more people than have actually read it. (According to at least one survey , Nineteen Eighty-Four is the book people most often claim to have read when they haven’t.)

Like many novels that are more known about than are carefully read and analysed, Nineteen Eighty-Four is actually a more complex work than the label ‘nightmare dystopian vision’ can convey. Before we offer an analysis of the novel’s themes and origins, let’s briefly recap the plot.

Nineteen Eighty-Four : plot summary

In the year 1984, Britain has been renamed Airstrip One and is a province of Oceania, a vast totalitarian superstate ruled by ‘the Party’, whose politics are described as Ingsoc (‘English Socialism’). Big Brother is the leader of the Party, which keeps its citizens in a perpetual state of fear and submission through a variety of means.

Surveillance is a key part of the novel’s world, with hidden microphones (which are found in the countryside as well as urban areas, and can identify not only what is said but also who says it) and two-way telescreen monitors being used to root out any dissidents, who disappear from society with all trace of their existence wiped out.

They become, in the language of Newspeak (the language used by people in the novel), ‘unpersons’. People are short of food, perpetually on the brink of starvation, and going about in fear for their lives.

The novel’s setting is London, where Trafalgar Square has been renamed Victory Square and the statue of Horatio Nelson atop Nelson’s Column has been replaced by one of Big Brother. Through such touches, Orwell defamiliarises the London of the 1940s which the original readers would have recognised, showing how the London they know might be transformed under a totalitarian regime.

The novel’s protagonist is Winston Smith, who works at the Ministry of Truth, rewriting historical records so they are consistent with the state’s latest version of history. However, even though his day job involves doing the work of the Party, Winston longs to escape the oppressive control of the Party, hoping for a rebellion.

Winston meets the owner of an antique shop named Mr Charrington, from whom he buys a diary in which he can record his true feelings towards the Party. Believing the working-class ‘proles’ are the key to a revolution, Winston visits them, but is disappointed to find them wholly lacking in any political understanding.

Meanwhile, hearing of the existence of an underground resistance movement known as the Brotherhood – which has been formed by the rival of Big Brother, a man named Emmanuel Goldstein – Winston suspects that O’Brien, who also works with him, is involved with this resistance.

At lunch with another colleague, named Syme, Winston learns that the English language is being rewritten as Newspeak so as to control and influence people’s thought, the idea being that if the word for an idea doesn’t exist in the language, people will be unable to think about it.

Winston meets a woman named Julia who works for the Ministry of Truth, maintaining novel-writing machines, but believes she is a Party spy sent to watch him. But then Julia passes a clandestine love message to him and the two begin an affair – which is itself illicit since the Party decrees that sex is for reproduction alone, rather than pleasure.

We gradually learn more about Winston’s past, including his marriage to Katherine, from whom he is now separated. Syme, who had been working on Newspeak, disappears in mysterious circumstances: something Winston had predicted.

O’Brien invites Winston to his flat, declaring himself – as Winston had also predicted – a member of the Brotherhood, the resistance against the Party. He gives Winston a copy of the book written by Goldstein, the leader of the Brotherhood.

When Oceania’s enemy changes during the ritual Hate Week, Winston is tasked with making further historical revisions to old newspapers and documents to reflect this change.

Meanwhile, Winston and Julia secretly read Goldstein’s book, which explains how the Party maintains its totalitarian power. As Winston had suspected, the secret to overthrowing the Party lies in the vast mass of the population known as the ‘proles’ (derived from ‘proletarian’, Marx’s term for the working classes). It argues that the Party can be overthrown if proles rise up against it.

But shortly after this, Winston and Julia are arrested, having been shopped to the authorities by Mr Charrington (whose flat above his shop they had been using for their illicit meetings). It turns out that both he and O’Brien work for the Thought Police, on behalf of the Party.

At the Ministry of Love, O’Brien tells Winston that Goldstein’s book was actually written by him and other Party members, and that the Brotherhood may not even exist. Winston endures torture and starvation in an attempt to grind him down so he will accept Big Brother.

In Room 101, a room in which a prisoner is exposed to their greatest fear, Winston is placed in front of a wire cage containing rats, which he fears above all else. Winston betrays Julia, wishing she could take his place and endure this suffering instead.

His reprogramming complete, Winston is allowed to go free, but he is essentially living under a death sentence: he knows that one day he will be summoned by the authorities and shot for his former treachery.

He meets Julia one day, and learns that she was subjected to torture at the Ministry of Love as well. They have both betrayed each other, and part ways. The novel ends with Winston accepting, after all, that the Party has won and that ‘he loved Big Brother.’

Nineteen Eighty-Four : analysis

Nineteen Eighty-Four is probably the most famous novel about totalitarianism, and about the dangers of allowing a one-party state where democracy, freedom of movement, freedom of speech, and even freedom of thought are all outlawed. The novel is often analysed as a warning about the dangers of allowing a creeping totalitarianism into Britain, after the horrors of such regimes in the Soviet Union, Nazi Germany, and elsewhere had been witnessed.

Because of this quality of the book, it is often called ‘prophetic’ and a ‘nightmare vision of the future’, among other things.

However, books set in the future are rarely simply about the future. They are not mere speculation, but are grounded in the circumstances in which they were written.

Indeed, we might go so far as to say that most dystopian novels, whilst nominally set in an imagined future, are really using their future setting to reflect on what are already firmly established social or political ideas. In the case of Orwell and Nineteen Eighty-Four , this means the novel reflects the London of the 1940s.

By the time he came to write the novel, Orwell already had a long-standing interest in using his writing to highlight the horrors of totalitarianism around the world, especially following his experience fighting in the Spanish Civil War in the 1930s. As Orwell put it in his essay ‘ Why I Write ’, all of his serious work written since 1936 was written ‘ against totalitarianism and for democratic socialism’.

In his analysis of Nineteen Eighty-Four in his study of Orwell, George Orwell (Reader’s Guides) , Jeffrey Meyers argues convincingly that, rather than being a nightmare vision of the future, a prophetic or speculative work, Orwell’s novel is actually a ‘realistic synthesis and rearrangement of familiar materials’ – indeed, as much of Orwell’s best work is.

His talent lay not in original imaginative thinking but in clear-headed critical analysis of things as they are: his essays are a prime example of this. Nineteen Eighty-Four is, in Meyer’s words, ‘realistic rather than fantastic’.

Indeed, Orwell himself stated that although the novel was ‘in a sense a fantasy’, it is written in the form of the naturalistic novel, with its themes and ideas having been already ‘partly realised in Communism and fascism’. Orwell’s intention, as stated by Orwell himself, was to take the totalitarian ideas that had ‘taken root’ in the minds of intellectuals all over Europe, and draw them out ‘to their logical consequences’.

Like much classic speculative fiction – the novels and stories of J. G. Ballard offer another example – the futuristic vision of the author is more a reflection of contemporary anxieties and concerns. Meyers goes so far as to argue that Nineteen Eighty-Four is actually the political regimes of Nazi Germany and Stalinist Russia ‘transposed’ into London of the early 1940s, during the Second World War.

Certainly, many of the most famous features of Nineteen Eighty-Four were suggested to Orwell by his time working at the BBC in London in the first half of the 1940s: it is well-known that the Ministry of Truth was based on the bureaucratic BBC with its propaganda department, while the infamous Room 101 was supposedly named after a room of that number in the BBC building, in which Orwell had to endure tedious meetings.

The technology of the novel, too, was familiar by the 1940s, involving little innovation or leaps of imagination from Orwell (‘telescreens’ being a natural extension of the television set: BBC TV had been established in 1936, although the Second World War pushed back its development somewhat).

Orwell learned much about the workings of Stalinism from reading Trotsky’s The Revolution Betrayed (1937), written by one of the leading figures in the Russian Revolution of 1917 who saw Stalinist Russia as the antithesis of what Trotsky, Lenin, and those early revolutionaries had been striving to achieve. (This would also be important for Orwell’s Animal Farm , of course.)

And indeed, many of the details surrounding censorship – the rewriting of history, the suppression of dissident literature, the control of the language people use to express themselves and even to think in – were also derived from Orwell’s reading of life in Soviet Russia. Surveillance was also a key element of the Stalinist regime, as in other Communist countries in Europe.

The moustachioed figure of Big Brother in Nineteen Eighty-Four recalls nobody so much as Josef Stalin himself. Not only the ideas of ‘thought crime’ and ‘thought police’, but even the terms themselves, predate Orwell’s use of them: they were first recorded in a 1934 book about Japan.

One of the key questions Winston asks himself in Nineteen Eighty-Four is what the Party is trying to achieve. O’Brien’s answer is simple: the maintaining of power for its own sake. Many human beings want to control other human beings, and they can persuade a worrying number of people to go along with their plans and even actively support them.

Despite the fact that they are starving and living a miserable life, many of the people in Airstrip One love Big Brother, viewing him not as a tyrannical dictator but as their ‘Saviour’ (as one woman calls him). Again, this detail was taken from accounts of Stalin, who was revered by many Russians even though they were often living a wretched life under his rule.

Another key theme of Orwell’s novel is the relationship between language and thought. In our era of fake news and corrupt media, this has only become even more pronounced: if you lie to a population and confuse them enough, you can control them. O’Brien introduces Winston to the work of the traitor to the Party, Emmanuel Goldstein, only to tell him later that Goldstein may not exist and his book was actually written by the Party.

Is this the lie, or was the book the lie? One of the most famous lines from the novel is Winston’s note to himself in his diary: ‘Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else follows.’

But later, O’Brien will force Winston to ‘admit’ that two plus two can make five. Orwell tells us, ‘The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears.’

Or as Voltaire once wrote, ‘Truly, whoever is able to make you absurd is able to make you unjust.’ Forcing somebody to utter blatant falsehoods is a powerful psychological tool for totalitarian regimes because through doing so, they have chipped away at your moral and intellectual integrity.

4 thoughts on “A Summary and Analysis of George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four”

1984 is a novel which is great in spite of itself and has been lionised for the wrong reasons. The title of the novel is a simple anagram of 1948, the date when the novel was written, and was driven by Orwell’s paranoia about the 1945 Labour government in UK. Orwell, a public school man, had built a reputation for hiself in the nineteen thirties as a socialist writer, and had fought for socialism in the Spanish civil war. The Road To Wigan Pier is an excellent polemic attacking the way the UK government was handling the mass unemployment of the time, reducing workers to a state of near starvation. In Homage To Catalonia, Orwell describes his experiences fighting with a small Marxist militia against Franco’s fascists. It was in Spain that Orwell developed his lifelong hatred of Stalinism, observing that the Communist contingents were more interested in suppressing other left-wing factions than in defeating Franco. The 1945 Labour government ws Britain’s first democratically elected socialist governement. It successfully established the welfare state and the National Health Service in a country almost bankrupted by the war, and despite the fact that Truman in USA was demanding the punctual repayment of wartime loans. Instead of rejoicing, Orwell, by now terminally ill from tuberculosis, saw the necessary continuation of wartime austerity and rationing as a deliberate and unnecessary imposition. Consequently, the book is often used as propaganda against socialism. The virtues of the book are the warnings about the dangers of giving the state too much power, in the form of electronic surveillance, ehanced police powers, intrusive laws, and the insidious use of political propaganda to warp peoples’ thinking. All of this has come to pass in the West as well as the East, but because of the overtly anticommunist spin to Orwell’s novel, most people fail to get its important message..

As with other work here, another good review. I’m also fascinated that Orwell located the government as prime problem, whereas Huxley located the people as prime problem, two sides of the same coin.

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George Orwell

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Welcome to the LitCharts study guide on George Orwell's 1984 . Created by the original team behind SparkNotes, LitCharts are the world's best literature guides.

1984: Introduction

1984: plot summary, 1984: detailed summary & analysis, 1984: themes, 1984: quotes, 1984: characters, 1984: symbols, 1984: theme wheel, brief biography of george orwell.

Historical Context of 1984

Other books related to 1984.

• Full Title: Nineteen Eighty-Four: A Novel
• When Written: 1945-49; outline written 1943
• Where Written: Jura, Scotland
• When Published: June 1949
• Literary Period: Late Modernism
• Genre: Novel / Satire / Parable
• Setting: London in the year 1984
• Climax: Winston is tortured in Room 101
• Antagonist: O'Brien
• Point of View: Third-Person Limited

Extra Credit for 1984

Outspoken Anti-Communist. Orwell didn't just write literature that condemned the Communist state of the USSR. He did everything he could, from writing editorials to compiling lists of men he knew were Soviet spies, to combat the willful blindness of many intellectuals in the West to USSR atrocities.

Working Title. Orwell's working title for the novel was The Last Man in Europe .

by George Orwell

• 1984 Summary

The novel's protagonist, Winston Smith , is a citizen of Oceania, one of the world's three superstates (along with Eurasia and Eastasia). It is the year 1984, and Winston lives in Airstrip One, which used to be known as Great Britain. Winston is a member of the Party, which rules Oceania under the principles of Ingsoc (English Socialism). Oceania is an oligarchy, under hierarchical rule. The Party consists of Inner Party members, who are the ruling elite, and regular Party members, who are citizens of Oceania. Outside of the Party are the proles, non-Party members and simple people who live in poverty and are free from Party regulations. The Party's leader is Big Brother , and there are massive images of his kind visage, complete with dark hair and a substantial mustache, displayed throughout London, some accompanied by the words "Big Brother is Watching You." The Party's three slogans are: "War is Peace," "Freedom is Slavery," and "Ignorance is Strength."

Winston lost his parents and little sister during the Revolutionary period that destroyed capitalism and instituted Ingsoc in Oceania. He was placed in a Party orphanage and integrated into the Party system. Now he works in the Records Department of the Ministry of Truth, which handles all Party publications and propaganda, altering previously published Party publications to ensure that the Party's version of the Past is never questioned. Such alterations often remove a person from history, or make previously flawed predictions accurate. The other three ministries are the Ministry of Love, which handles all Party prisoners, the Ministry of Peace, which handles war, and the Ministry of Plenty, which manages the production of Party goods, including Victory cigarettes, Victory gin, and Victory coffee, all of which are of extremely poor quality.

Winston has never quite accepted the principles of Ingsoc and the Party. He believes in an unalterable past, and finds Party politics reprehensible. Winston wishes for privacy, intimacy, freedom and love, but cannot express any of this in the open for fear of death. Such thoughts constitute "throughtcrimes," which are highly punishable offenses resulting in arrest, imprisonment, torture, and often death.

When the book opens, Winston is at home during his lunch break. He has returned to his apartment in the Victory Mansions, a dilapidated Party housing building, to write in a diary, a relic of the past he obtained from an old junk shop. Winston's apartment is meager, and like every other Party member's home, contains a telescreen. The telescreen transmits Party information and propaganda, and also allows the Thought Police to watch and listen to Party members at all times. In Oceania, there is no such thing as privacy. Winston is fortunate to have a small nook in his apartment out of the view of the telescreen, and it is in this nook that he begins to write in his diary, despite his overwhelming fear of being caught. Undoubtedly, Winston will eventually be caught, imprisoned, and tortured by the Thought Police. For now, however, he chooses to forge ahead with his rebellion.

Winston writes of various memories, all related to the Party and his life. Many include violent imagery, which is quite common in the age of Oceania, and reveal anti-Party feelings. Winston clearly does not subscribe to Party doctrine. Winston is briefly interrupted at one point by a knock on his door. At first he panics, thinking he has already been caught, but it is only his neighbor, Mrs. Parsons , who needs help unclogging her sink. Winston obliges, and interacts briefly with Mrs. Parsons' two hellish children who are members of the Spies and Youth League, and clearly powerfully indoctrinated in the ways of the Party. Winston predicts that eventually these children will turn their loyal, simple, innocent parents into the Thought Police. Such tragedies, it seems, are quite common.

Winston returns to his diary, and in one of his reveries reflecting on the past and his memories and dreams, finds himself writing "DOWN WITH BIG BROTHER" in large letters over and over on the page. Eventually, time runs out and Winston must return to work, which he enjoys. Once Winston found a newspaper clipping among his daily assignments that proved the innocence of three men: Jones, Aaronson, and Rutherford. In examining the clipping, he knew it meant the Party was wrong, and that he had real evidence of an accurate version of the past. Rather than risk discovery, however, he destroyed the clipping, placing it in a memory hole that sucked it into the building's internal furnaces.

At the Ministry of Truth Winston is surrounded by loyal Party members, and is always on guard to prevent his true feelings from being perceived by others. At work, Winston sits through the daily Two Minutes Hate, which rails against Oceania's enemy, Eurasia, and the supposed leader of the opposition movement, Emmanuel Goldstein. The propaganda is powerful, and the people around him begin shouting at the screen. Of course, Winston must join in to avoid suspicion.

Finding himself increasingly curious about the past, Winston wanders the streets, among the proles. He believes that if there is hope for a successful rebellion, it lies in the proles. Winston meets an old man in a prole pub and questions him about life before the Revolution. To his frustration, the man focuses on his own personal memories rather than on the generalities and conceptual differences Winston is interested in. Winston returns to the junk shop where he bought his diary and purchases a glass paperweight with a piece of coral inside. The proprietor, a kind old man named Mr. Charrington , shows him a room above the shop and Winston thinks about what it might be like to rent it out and live among old things, free from the constant presence of the telescreen.

At work and on his walk, Winston sees a dark-haired girl who is seemingly a violently loyal Party member and apparently has taken notice of him. He fears she is a member of the Thought Police. One day, at the Ministry of Truth, the girl slips him a note after falling down in the hallway, requiring Winston's assistance. The note says "I love you." Winston is astounded, but extremely excited by the possibility of a love affair. The affair must be secret, as the Party is entirely against any sort of sexual pleasure. In fact, sexual repression is a tenet of Ingsoc. The Party must approve every marriage, and it is unacceptable for a man and a woman to express any physical attraction for one another. All energy must be devoted to the Party. Winston was once in such a marriage. His wife Katharine was a frigid, mindless woman who was extremely loyal to the Party, but thought sex was a vile activity. However, she regularly scheduled times for her and Winston to make love, calling it her "duty to the Party." She had been taught from childhood that she must bear children.

With a great deal of effort to remain undetected, the girl finally tells Winston where and how they can meet. On a Sunday afternoon, he travels into the country, as per Julia 's instructions, to meet her in a secluded clearing in a wooded area. Finally, they can speak. Winston learns that her name is Julia, they discuss their beliefs regarding the Party, and they begin their love affair. At one point, Winston notices that the secluded spot she has led them to exactly matches a place he constantly sees in his dreams that he has termed the Golden Country.

Winston and Julia, who has a knack for finding abandoned locales and for obtaining black market goods such as real coffee, bread and sugar, continue to meet in secret. They are limited to interacting only in public places and having only the most minimal conversations, but the two discover a mutual hatred of the Party and eventually fall in love. Winston believes that it is possible to overthrow the Party, while Julia is satisfied simply living a double life. On the surface, she is loyal to the extreme, a member of the Junior Anti-Sex League, a volunteer in many Party activities, and a vocal participant in loyalty-testing events such as the Two Minutes Hate. On the inside, she thinks of it all as a game. She hates the Party and all it stands for, but knows she can do nothing to change it.

Eventually Winston rents the room above Mr. Charrington's flat. Winston and Julia meet often in the room, which is simply furnished, with an old twelve-hour clock (the Party uses twenty-four hour time), and a picture of an old London church, St. Clement's Dane. Mr. Charrington taught him the first lines of an old poem about the church, "Oranges and lemons say the bells of St. Clement's," and Julia knows a few more lines that her grandfather taught her when she was very small. Outside their window, a middle-aged prole woman is constantly hanging her wash and singing simple prole songs, many of which have been created by machines in the Ministry of Truth specifically for the proles.

Another Party member suddenly takes on an important role in Winston's life. Winston has always noticed O'Brien at the Ministry of Truth. He seems to be an intelligent man, and Winston believes in his heart that O'Brien feels the same way he does about the Party. Once, during the Two Minutes Hate, the two men locked eyes and Winston felt sure of O'Brien's thoughts. In a dream, Winston once heard someone tell him, "We will meet in the place where there is no darkness," and he believes the voice to have been O'Brien's. For Winston, O'Brien represents the possibility of an underground movement. Perhaps the Brotherhood, led my Emmanuel Goldstein, is real.

O'Brien approaches Winston at work under the pretense of discussing the Tenth Edition of the Newspeak Dictionary (Newspeak is the official language of Oceania, and its goal is to reduce and simplify vocabulary). O'Brien gives Winston his home address, supposedly so he can come pick up an advance copy of the new book. Winston takes the slip of paper with amazement. He knows that O'Brien has approached him because he is part of the underground movement. His true path towards rebellion has begun.

After some time, Winston and Julia visit O'Brien, an Inner Party member who has a lush apartment, a servant, and the freedom to turn off his telescreen. Winston renounces the Party and discusses his belief in the Brotherhood. O'Brien welcomes Winston and Julia into the Brotherhood and tells them that they must be willing to do anything to work towards its cause. They agree, but say that they will not do anything that would prevent them from seeing each other ever again. O'Brien tells Winston that he will give him a copy of Goldstein's book, and outlines a complicated version of events that will lead toward the exchange. Winston leaves after a final toast with O'Brien, in which Winston finishes O'Brien's statement, saying that they "will meet in the place with no darkness."

During Hate Week, the Party's enemy becomes Eastasia rather than Eurasia, and Winston must spend a great deal of time at work, sometimes even staying overnight, to "correct" all Party publications previously referring to war with Eurasia. The Party is at war with Eastasia, and has always been at war with Eastasia. In the midst of Hate Week, a man brings Winston a brief case, suggests that he dropped it, and leaves. The book is inside. When he has finally completed the Hate Week corrections, Winston escapes to Mr. Charrington's apartment and begins to read. Julia arrives, and he reads aloud to her about the history of Oceania, capitalism versus totalitarianism, and the main goals of the Party. Most of this information Winston already knows, but he finds it helpful to read it in the detailed, clear words of Emmanuel Goldstein.

Winston and Julia eventually fall asleep. The wake hours later, and go to stand at the window. Winston repeats his oft-stated phrase, "We are the dead." Suddenly, a voice coming from the wall echoes him, "You are the dead." There is a telescreen hidden behind the picture of St. Clement's Dane. They are caught. The Thought Police storm the room. Mr. Charrington walks in, and it becomes clear that he is a member of the Thought Police. He has been disguised as a kind old man, but is far younger than Winston imagined, with different hair and eyes. Winston and Julia are arrested, separated, and brought to the Ministry of Love.

While in a holding cell, Winston sees men from the Ministry of Truth come and go. Each has been arrested for thoughtcrime. Parsons arrives, and it turns out that his daughter turned him in, claiming to have heard him say "Down with Big Brother" in his sleep. Winston's prediction, it appears, was sadly accurate. In his holding cell, Winston sees a great deal of violence, and notices guards constantly referring to "Room 101," a phrase that seems to instill great fear in some of the prisoners.

Eventually, O'Brien arrives. It becomes clear that he was never part of the underground movement, but actually works in the Ministry of Love. Winston's entire interaction with O'Brien was a ruse. Winston is removed from the holding cell, and his torture begins. At first the torture is extremely violent, and he is forced to admit to a litany of crimes he did not commit, including murder and espionage. Eventually, the torture becomes less violent and O'Brien takes over. He begins to break Winston's spirit, telling him that his memory is flawed and that he is insane. Winston's discussions with O'Brien dwell on the nature of the past and reality, and reveal much about the Party's approach to those concepts. The Party, O'Brien explains with a lunatic intensity, seeks absolute power, for power's own sake. This is why it will always be successful, is always right, and will ultimately control the entire world. Winston cannot argue; every time he does, he is faced with obstinate logical fallacies, a completely different system of reasoning that runs counter to all reason. Winston believes in a past that never existed, and is hounded by false memories. To be cured, Winston must overcome his own insanity and win the war against his own mind.

Little by little, O'Brien shows Winston, with the use of electric shock machines, beatings and starvation, the way of the Party. He forces Winston to accept that if the Party says so, two plus two equals five. Winston had once written in his diary that freedom meant being able to say that two plus two is four. His final attempt to argue with O'Brien ends in O'Brien showing Winston himself in the mirror. Winston is beyond horrified to see that he has turned into a sickly, disgusting sack of bones, beaten into a new face. Broken to the core, Winston finally submits to his re-education. He is no longer beaten, is fed at regular intervals, is allowed to sleep (though the lights, of course, never go out), and begins to regain his health. Although seemingly making progress in accepting the reality of the Party, Winston is still holding onto the last remaining kernel of himself and his humanity: his love for Julia. This comes out when, in the midst of a dream, Winston cries aloud, "Julia! Julia! Julia, my love! Julia!"

O'Brien's last efforts with Winston are focused on forcing him to betray Julia. He takes Winston to Room 101, containing the worst thing in the world, which is different for everyone. For Winston, "the worst thing in the world" is a rat. Winston is tied to a chair, and O'Brien begins to attach a mask/cage contraption containing huge, hungry, carnivorous rats to his face. Winston feels a desperate, deep, panicked fear. He cannot take it, and finally screams for O'Brien to put someone else in his place - anyone, even Julia. O'Brien has succeeded.

Winston, a damaged, changed, empty shell of a man, is released into the world. In his new life, he sees Julia once, by chance, but they are no longer in love. Each betrayed the other, and prison changed them powerfully. There is no hope for their relationship. Winston obtains a somewhat trivial, meaningless job that pays surprisingly well. He spends his time at the Chestnut Tree Cafe drinking Victory Gin and playing chess. His life is buried in gin. In the final pages of the novel, we find Winston in his regular seat at the cafe, drinking gin, playing chess, and waiting for a report from the front in Central Africa, where Eurasia (Oceania was always at war with Eurasia) has invaded. He is excited about the report, because with this invasion, Eurasia might actually be able to break Oceania's line of defense and put the entire nation at risk for takeover. A Eurasian success in Central Africa might mean the end of the Party. Before the report comes, Winston suddenly recalls a very happy day in his childhood spent playing board games with his mother and little sister. He pushes it out of his mind, realizing it is a false memory and resolving to allow fewer of those to creep up on him. Eventually, the report reveals that Oceania has succeeded in repelling the Eurasian advance. There is jubilation on the telescreen and in the streets. Staring into the eyes of a poster of Big Brother, Winston realizes that he knew this news would come. With tears dripping down his face, Winston realizes he has finally completed the rehabilitation he started in the Ministry of Love. He loves Big Brother.

1984 Questions and Answers

The Question and Answer section for 1984 is a great resource to ask questions, find answers, and discuss the novel.

Describe O’Briens apartment and lifestyle. How do they differ from Winston’s?

From the text:

It was only on very rare occasions that one saw inside the dwelling-places of the Inner Party, or even penetrated into the quarter of the town where they lived. The whole atmosphere of the huge block of flats, the richness and...

What was the result of Washington exam

Sorry, I'm not sure what you are asking here.

how is one put into the inner or outer party in the book 1984

The Outer Party is a huge government bureaucracy. They hold positions of trust but are largely responsible for keeping the totalitarian structure of Big Brother functional. The Outer Party numbers around 18 to 19 percent of the population and the...

Study Guide for 1984

1984 study guide contains a biography of George Orwell, literature essays, quiz questions, major themes, characters, and a full summary and analysis.

• Character List

Essays for 1984

1984 essays are academic essays for citation. These papers were written primarily by students and provide critical analysis of 1984 by George Orwell.

• The Reflection of George Orwell
• Totalitarian Collectivism in 1984, or, Big Brother Loves You
• Sex as Rebellion
• Class Ties: The Dealings of Human Nature Depicted through Social Classes in 1984
• 1984: The Ultimate Parody of the Utopian World

Lesson Plan for 1984

• About the Author
• Study Objectives
• Common Core Standards
• Introduction to 1984
• Relationship to Other Books
• Bringing in Technology
• Notes to the Teacher
• Related Links
• 1984 Bibliography

Wikipedia Entries for 1984

• Introduction
• Writing and publication

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Read our complete notes on the novel “1984” by George Orwell. Our notes cover 1984 summary, characters, themes, and analysis.

Introduction

Nineteen Eighty-four is written by George Orwell. It was published in 1949 as 1984. The novel is a tale to warn the people against the backdrops of the totalitarian government. It was published by Secker and Warburg on 8th June 1949.

Yearning for the opportunity of freedom, a humble, Outer Circle administrator of the Ministry of Truth, Winston Smith, musters up the boldness to record his implicit wants in his little mysterious diary, in itself an unlawful demonstration. Serving quietly at the delight of the dismal, dictatorial hyper-province of Oceania, Smith acknowledges the INGSOC`s incomparable pioneer Big Brother who keeps a close eye on him.

The totalitarian government tightens its hold on its subject. Smith comes across Julia who is also a rebel and a dangerous affair starts. There’s no turning around. This couple has to pay at some point for their relationship. The waters of rebellions also start to boil and in the midst of the storm Smith changes his loyalty and turn into a supporter of the Party.

Historical Context of 1984

Orwell believed in socialism, the immediate consequence of his administration as a militiaman on the side of Republicans against Francisco Franco in the Spanish Civil War. Francisco was a Fascist. Upon his arrival in England, he became a member of the British Independent Labor Party and started to compose against the Nazi system and Stalinism.

Orwell was affected by rebels of Soviet socialism and by the Marxist compositions of Leon Trotsky, which modeled the ousted socialist progressive and model for Emmanuel Goldstein in Nineteen Eighty-Four. In 1946 Orwell stated that each line of genuine work that he has composed since 1936 has been composed, legitimately or in an indirect way, against despotism and for popularity based communism.

Inspiration for the Book

Before writing this novel, Orwell was inspired and impacted by the authoritarian systems of Stalin`s Soviet Union and Hitler’s Nazi Germany. The two systems celebrated their separate chiefs as gods. They also required to destroy the independence so as to advance the needs of the Party over the lives of individuals, requested supreme steadfastness from their residents, and turned to savagery at whatever point unfaithfulness was suspected.

In addition, the two systems reliably slandered their adversaries; similarly, as the Party and Big Brother do in 1984, through the Hate Week, Two Minutes Hate, and everyday propaganda through telescreens. Other similarities incorporate the Thought Police as a rehash of the Gestapo, NKVD which organized fear, and the Spies and Youth League as a reexamination of the Hitler Youth and the Little Octoberists, which inculcated youngsters to the Party and urged them to report dishonesty in subjects.

The Setting of the Novel

The action of this novel happens in London at some undefined time in the future. Although the city is mentioned, the version of the city presented is totally fictionalized. In this novel, London is the center of Airstrip One, which is part of the state of Oceania.

Oceania is among the three powers of this world, it consists of the Americas, Australasia, the Atlantic islands, British Isles and parts of Africa. The other is Eastasia consisting of Japan, China, Tibet and Mongolia. The third one is Eastasia that includes Northern Europe and Asiatic regions. The title shows that the novel is set in 1984.

London is partitioned in three particular social gatherings. The Inner Party lives in relative luxury with workers and access to extravagance products. The Outer Party, of which Winston is a part, lives in distinct, flimsy conditions with next to no influence over their own property. The most reduced social gathering is called the proles that live in ghettos where the Party doesn’t endeavor to apply a lot of control.

1984 Summary

It is the year 1984, Winston Smith who is the citizen of Oceania is living in Airstrip one also called Great Britain. Smith is a follower of a party. Winston has returned home during lunch-break. His apartment is located in Victory Mansion, the Party housing building. He has returned to his apartment because he wants to write his diary. The apartment is very small. It has a telescreen. This telecasts the propaganda and information of the Party. He lives in a place which has no privacy because big brother is watching all the people.

The party is ruling Oceania. This party follows a basic principle of English Socialism which is called Ignsoc. Oceania is governed under the rule of hierarchy and is a state of oligarchy. The party is led by Big Brother. The party has members who are divided into two different categories; at the first, there are ruling elites of the party, then comes to the members of the party, they are called regular members because they are the residents of Oceania. 

The people who are very poor are not taken into the party and they live in their poverty. They are not bound by the regulations of the party. The city of London has various types of images and pictures of Big Brother displayed on the walls. The walls are inscribed with Big Brother is watching you. The Party has three slogans that say “war is peace,” “Freedom is slavery,” and Ignorance is strength.”

Winston loses his parents and sister in the period of revolution that ruined capitalism and established Ingsoc principles in Oceania. He grows in the orphanage of the Party. He is then selected into the Party. He serves the Party by working in the Record Department in the Ministry of Truth. This department is working on the propaganda of the Party. It also changes the old records so that the Party could not be questioned.

There are three more Ministries as well. One is the Ministry of Love; it deals with the prisoners of the Party. The second is the Ministry of Peace and it deals with wars. The third is the Ministry of Plenty and it deals with the goods of the Party.

Winston does not like the system of the Party and thinks that the system of the Party must be changed. The dilemma is that he cannot talk about it openly because there is a fear of death. He knows that this is a serious crime and the penalty is torture and death.

Winston writes a number of notes in his diary. He expresses all his anti-feelings about the party. He knows that this could have severe repercussions but he gives vent to his feelings in the diary. He is writing in a diary when someone knocks at his door. He gets frightened with the thought that he has been caught but it is his neighbor Mrs. Parsons. She needs some help and Winston happily helps her. She has two children and they are working for the Spies and Youth league of the Party.

Winston returns to write his diary but he is getting late and has to reach in time for his work. While working, he finds a newspaper clip that proves the innocence of the young men. When he examines the clip, he finds that the party is wrong in this case. This means that he has got the true evidence about the wrongdoings of the party. He then destroys the clip and stuck it in the internal furnace of the building.

Winston is always surrounded by members who are loyal to the Party and he keeps watch so that he could not be perceived by the others for his anti-feelings against the Party. Winston is supposed to observe two minutes of hate daily for the enemy of Oceania, Eurasia. This hate is also against the opposition leader Emmanuel Goldstein. On the screen, the propaganda is very powerful and Winston has to join his members in that.

Winston gets curious to know the facts of the past and he roams around in the streets. He goes to the locality of Prole. He thinks the rebellion can only come from these proles and without them there cannot be any hope of rebellion.  In one of the prole pubs, Winston goes to an old man and enquires about life prior to Revolution. But the conversation with the old man frustrates him because the old man narrates his personal memories rather than the facts of the Revolution.

Winston ends his conversation with the old man and returns to the shop where he has bought a personal diary. The owner of the shop is Mr. Charrington and he is a very kind man. The owner of the shop talks to him about the room which is above his shop and Winston considers it to be rented that could give him an escape from being constantly watched by the Telescreen.

When he is working in his department and then during his walk, he notices a girl who seems to be the loyal member of the Party is observing Winston. Winston gets frightened because he thinks that the girl might be a Thought Police. After a few days, the girl slips a note to Winston which states that she needs the help of Winston. The note also has written that the girl loves him and this excites Winston. He thinks that is to be kept secret because the Party does not allow any sort of conjugal pleasure.

The Party approves the liking of a person to another person but it must be a marriage and there is an approval which is required from the Party.

The Party wants a full devotion of energies for the Party. Winston has remained in one such marriage. Katharine remained his wife. She remains very loyal to the Party. She has to make schedules and Winston is supposed to go on time for sexual pleasure. She knows that it is a duty to the Party to bear children.

Winston tries very hard to keep his new affair secretive. One day. The girl tells him the place and time of their first meeting. The girl’s name is Julia. She tells him that they are going to meet in a country area where there are dense woods. They meet there, know about their ideas regarding the Party and then start their love affair. Winston looks around the place and realizes that it is the same place he has been dreaming. He calls this place the Golden Country in his dreams.

Winston and Julia continue to meet in such secretive places. The two fall in love with each other because they both have a higher degree of hate for the Party. But because they are constantly watching, they get little time to talk and communicate. They usually meet in public places and they have formal talks there.

Winston thinks that the rebellion is possible which will end the rule of the party. Julia, on the other hand, is happy with the life she is having because she knows that death is always around the corner due to the strict system of the Party. She feigns to be very loyal to the Party. She is a member of a league that advocates Anti-sex agendas. She is also a volunteer to the Party in various activities. But in heart, she hates the party and she knows that the Party is playing with their lives like a game. She also knows that she cannot change the system and rule of the Party.

After some time, Winston talks to Mr. Charrington and rents his room above the shop. The room is simply furnished. The Party asks the citizens to have a twenty-four hour time clock but Winston puts a clock that has hours. This shows his resentment towards the Party. In this new room, he often meets Julia.

 The room has an image of St. Clements Dane which was an old Church of London. The owner of the shop teaches him a few lines of the poem written about church and Julia knows a few more lines of the poem. The window which opens to the outside shows that on the opposite side a prole woman is always having a wash and she sings the prole songs. These songs are composed in the Ministry of Truth by machines.

Outside their window, a middle-aged prole woman is constantly changing her wash and singing simple prole songs, many of which have been created by machines in the Ministry of Truth specifically for the proles.

Afterwards, another member of the Party comes into the life of Winston with an important role. He is O`Brien.  Winston has observed working in the Ministry of Truth. He is an intelligent man with good wisdom. Winston thinks O’Brien shares the same feelings of hatred for the Party as Winston has.

One day, during the break of two minutes of hate, Winston observes his eyes and reads them carefully that affirms the anti-Party feelings of O’Brien. Winston has heard a voice in his dream telling him that he is going to meet him in a place where there is light and he believes that the voice is of O`Brien. Winston also looks at him from the perspective that he could help him in the underground movement of rebellion.

The Party has launched a dictionary for Oceania and the language of Oceania is Newspeak. One day, O’Brien comes to Winston to discuss something about the edition of the Dictionary. Winston is given an address which is of the house of O`Brien. It is given to him so that he can come to his home and take the new book in advance. Winston takes the paper with amazing secrecy. He believes that O`Brien has come to him because he might be working underground against the Party. Winston thinks that the rebellion is on its way against the Party.

O`Brien is a member of the Inner party and he has been given a very comfortable apartment, and servant. He has also been facilitated in a way that he can turn off the telescreen whenever he wants to. Winston, O`Brien and Julia start meeting in secrecy. In one of the similar meetings, Winston tells them that he is going to renounce the Party. He starts his faith in the Brotherhood that is working against the Party. O`Brien welcomes Julia and Winston into the brotherhood. He also tells them that they must be ready to do any task to work against the Party. Both of them agree that they are ready but they tell O`Brien that they want to see each other because they love each other.

O`Brien then tells them that he is going to give a book of Goldstein to Winston and then they will chalk out the activities for the proceedings. Soon the meeting ends and they vow to meet in a place where there is no darkness.

A week of Hate comes and the enemy of the Party changes from Eurasia to Eastasia. Winston is supposed to work a lot in the weekdays because the previous publications of the Ministry were favoring the war against Eurasia but now they are to publicly make the things announced that they are to go on war with Eastasia. This implies that they are to make the people believe that the Party is at war with Eastasia and it has been continued for many years.

This week, a man brings Winston a briefcase that contains the book which O`Brien promised him. Winston soon finishes his work for the Party and goes to the rented apartment of Mr. Charrington to read the book. Julia comes to the apartment, too. Winston reads the book aloud that has the history of Oceania. It also details the ideas of Capitalism against Totalitarianism and the purpose and motto of the Party. The book is actually the articulation of Emmanuel Goldstein. Winston knows many of the facts of the book.

After reading many parts of the book, both of them get to sleep. After waking up, they look at the window outside. He sees outside and hears an echo that comes from a telescreen hidden behind the image of the church. The echo tells him that he is dead. It means that he is badly caught by the Party. Suddenly, Thought Police enter the room. Mr. Charrington enters the room with Thought Police and it becomes very clear that he is working for Thought Police. They get arrested. They are then separately dragged to the Ministry of Love.

In the cell, Winston sees a lot of people who have been brought for Thought Crimes. He sees a person who has read some verses to his daughter against the Big Brother. In the cell, Winston observes that there is a room which the prisoners are constantly afraid of. The room is referred to as Room 101.

One day O’Brien arrives and Winston gets to know that he has been arrested through O’Brien because O`Brien serves the Ministry of Love. Soon, the torture of Winston starts. The torture at the start is very brutal and he is made to confess many of the crimes that Winston is not even aware of. These crimes include murders as well. Slowly the brutality decreases and O`Brien comes to torture Winston.  He tells Winston that his memory is damaged, that is why he is thinking of rebellion and this has made him insane.

O`Brien tells Winston that the purpose of the Party is to seek absolute power. It can do anything for power. This is the reason that this world is controlled by the party and it has the power to exercise the power. Winston stops arguing with O`Brien because he knows that he would not be believed. Winston thinks that the past has never existed and everything is false. However, in order to be released from this torture, Winston needs to fight against his own insane mind.

Winston in the prison gets to experience severe beatings and machine shocks. He is also starved in prison. He gets to know that this is actually the way of the Party to make the prisoners feel these tortures. O`Brien tells Winston that he needs to believe everything that the Party tells him so whether it is right or wrong. He does not have the option to argue with the principles of the Party.

Winston tries to argue but he sees himself in the mirror and is afraid to see because he has turned into a skeleton. He is just a bone and nothing else. He thinks that this might turn into his death.  So he agrees to be re-educated by the Party. When he agrees, he is given good food and proper sleep. He is not tortured afterwards. Slowly, he regains his health.

Winston starts accepting all the principles of the Party. He makes progress in making his understanding clear about the party. But he still remembers Julia and his love for her. One day, while he is asleep, he dreams and in the dream, he starts calling Julia, Julia…..

The last attempt at O’Brien is to force Winston to cheat Julia. Winston is taken in Room 101.  In this room, Winston experiences one of the worst things in this world. Winston also says that the worst things vary from individual to individual. The worst thing for Winston is rats. He is tied with a chair.  O`Brien attaches a cage to the mask of Winston that has a huge rat. This not only threatens but endangers Winston. The fear is to an extreme level and Winston shouts that O’Brien could put Julia in his place to stop his sufferings. This implies that O`Brien has got successful because he has made Winston betray Julia.

Winston is released into this world but he is a broken man with no ideas and feelings. He then meets Julia but there is no love in between them and they feel estranged. The tortures of the prison have changed both of them. They feel that there is a hope of love between them.

After coming into the normal world, Winston gets a new job and is paid well for the job. He starts spending his time playing chess. In the final part of the novel, Winston is shown to be waiting for a report which would state the invasion of Eurasia by Oceania. Winston is happy because he thinks that Eurasia might break the defense of Oceania. This might give Eurasia the opportunity to take over and end the strict regime of the Party. This would result in better lives for the people. The success of Eurasia would mean that the regime of the Party has ended.

Before the report gets published, Winston is very happy and Winston reminiscence a day from his childhood he played chess with his family. The report is published and it states that Oceania has got successful. The advances of Eurasia have been stopped and they are made to go back. The jubilation and the celebrations are televised on the telescreen and there are celebrations in the streets as well. Winston in the street sees a big poster of Big Brother and he realizes that he has not changed in the re-education of Big Brother. He now loves Big Brother and is very much feeling loyalty for the Big Brother because Big brother is watching him.

Themes in 1984 by Orwell

The dangers of totalitarianism.

1984 is a political novel composed to caution the audience of the risks of authoritarian government. Orwell had a good idea of the totalitarian governments in Russian and Spain. He also knew that to sustain it for a longer period of time these governments could go to any extent of horror and terror for control. Thus he composed this novel to warn the people of this horror of authoritarian governments.

In 1949, the Cold War had not yet arisen.  Numerous American people favored socialism, and the diplomatic conditions between communist and democratic states were uncertain. The Soviet Union was regularly depicted as an extraordinary good experiment by the press of America. Orwell was upset by the savageries and persecutions he saw in states governed by Communism and appears to have been worried by technology in empowering abusive governments to control their residents.

In 1984, Orwell depicts a society governed by an authoritarian government with a supreme force. The title of the novel is intended to demonstrate that this novel portrays opportunities for the future. Orwell states If tyranny of totalitarian governments were not contradicted then the world in the novel could turn into a reality in just thirty-five years.

Orwell depicts a state wherein the government screens and controls each part of human life to the degree that in any event, having an unfaithful idea is illegal. As the novel advances, the defiant Winston Smith embarks to challenge the constraints of the Party’s capacity, just to find its capacity to control and oppress its subjects. The readers comprehend through Winston’s eyes that The Party utilizes various procedures to control its residents, every one of which is its very own significant topic in the novel.

Psychological Manipulation

The Party blasts its subjects with mental upgrades intended to overpower the brain’s ability for autonomous ideas. The telescreen in each resident’s room shoots a steady stream of promulgation intended to cause the disappointments and weaknesses of the Party to seem victorious. The telescreens monitor conduct like wherever they go, residents are persistently reminded, particularly by ways like “BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING YOU,” that the specialists are investigating them.

The Party disregards family structure by drafting kids into an association known as the Junior Spies, which indoctrinates and urges them to keep an eye on their folks and report any occasion of unfaithfulness to the Party.

The Party powers people to stifle their sexual wants. The Party at that point channels individuals’ repressed disappointment and feeling into extraordinary, brutal showcases of disdain against the Party’s political foes. A considerable lot of these adversaries have been created by the Party explicitly for this reason.

Resistance and Revolution

In 1984, Winston investigated unsafe and critical demonstrations of obstruction against the Party. In Book One: Chapter VII, Winston sees that rebellion implies a look at without flinching, an articulation of the voice; and no more, an infrequent murmured word. Winston develops these minor uprisings by submitting individual demonstrations of rebellion, for example, keeping a diary and purchasing a paperweight. In the long run, he heightens his defiance through his sexual affair with Julia.

The relationship is a twofold resistance, as it incorporates the thoughtcrime of want. Winston doesn’t accept his activities or the activities of others  because this will prompt the obliteration of the Party inside his lifetime. However, before he is arrested by the Thought Police he holds out the expectation that later on somebody will have the option to glance back at Winston’s time from a world that is free.

Winston’s trust in real unrest against the Party lies with the socially marginalized of the city- proles. He sees that the proles have a prominent population than the Party and that the proles have the solidarity to complete an upheaval if they would ever arrange themselves. The issue is that the proles have been dependent on poverty for such a long time that they can’t see beyond the objective of endurance.

The very idea of attempting to construct a superior world is a lot for them to think about. These perceptions are set against the setting of the Party’s own way of life as the result of transformation. As indicated by Winston, the Party is made during the mid-1960s in a revolution that toppled the social order of Britain. The Party guarantees that the Revolution has not yet finished and that it will be satisfied once they have unlimited authority.

Independence and Identity

Controlling history is one of the essential devices for controlling the masses by the Party. The Party controls autonomy and personality. For instance, the essential qualities of setting up one’s character are inaccessible to Winston and different residents of Oceania. Winston doesn’t have a clue about his age. He is not aware about his marital bond. He has no information about the life of his mother. None of his memories of childhood are dependable, in light of the fact that he has no photographs or reports to assist him with arranging genuine recollections from envisioned ones.

Rather than being interesting people with explicit, distinguishing subtleties, each individual from the Outer Party is indistinguishable. All the members of the Party wear a similar dress, smoke similar cigarettes, drink similar gin, etc. In that capacity, shaping a feeling of individual character isn’t just mentally testing, yet strategically troublesome.

Wealth vs. Poverty

The culture of Oceania presents a reasonable division in everyday environments. The little Inner Party lives richly, with hirelings and comfort and furnished apartments. The Party individuals live in apartments with a single room without any comforts and low-quality food. The proles live in outright destitution. The gorge distance between poor people and rich people in the novel is striking and is generally recognizable during Winston’s entering into prole society. The living buildings of the proles are rotting, and the city of London is full of ruins. While the Inner Party solaces itself with extravagance, the residents of Oceania are made to suffer.

Orwell presents this division to show how authoritarian social orders advance the wealth of the ruling party while diminishing the personal satisfaction for every single citizen. These governments frequently express their desires for building up an equivalent society when as a general rule the division between their day to day environments and those of the residents is huge. Winston watches out toward the city and sees  London dying. O’Brien watches out on the city of London and sees a general public caught in a solitary minute in time, characterized and constrained by the Party.

  Technology

Technology and innovation is a critical apparatus that the Party uses to keep up command over its residents. Without telescreens, the Thought Police might not have been so powerful, there would have not been beneficial aspects of Propaganda. The consistent supervision of the telescreen viably detains residents of Oceania in their day to day lives which implies that they are constantly under perception.

  Different territories of technological advancement are strikingly stale. For instance, the printing machines in the Ministry of Truth are still very essential, and each state keeps on building similar bombs that were utilized a long time ago. Logical advancement has ended, aside from where it serves the Party’s objectives, for example, in new strategies for mental control. In the realm of Oceania, there is nothing as progress for progress; there is just force for power. At the point when mechanical improvements serve this force, they are energized. At the point when they don’t, they are halted.

The Party is energized by loyalty, and in this manner requests that its residents bolster all moves it makes in seeking to make Oceania great. For the Party, steadfastness implies tolerating beyond a shadow of a doubt or faltering. Incidentally, when Winston vows his devotion to the Brotherhood, he consents to acknowledge the objectives and prerequisites of the Brotherhood beyond a shadow of a doubt or delay.

Winston consents to do anything the Brotherhood demands, regardless of whether that implies killing honest people. Nonetheless, Winston is faithful to Julia, and won’t be isolated from her till eternity. This unwaveringly split of loyalty is the thing that isolates Winston from the other Party individuals. Party individuals are faithful to the Big Brother, The Party and Oceania. Individual connections are of no significance.

While in the Ministry of Love, O’Brien notices this shortcoming in Winston’s psyche and adequately expels it. Through excruciating physical torment, O’Brien first instructs Winston that the Party’s point of view is the exact viewpoint. Next, by undermining him with meat-eating rodents, O’Brien breaks Winston’s dependability to Julia. In the last scene of the novel, Winston at long last comes to cherish Big Brother, and his change from split loyalties to a more noteworthy single dependability to the Party is finished.

1984 Characters Analysis

Winston smith.

Winston lives in London and he serves the Party. He is an intellectual with a thin and fragile personality.  He is thirty-nine years old. He does not like the system of totalitarianism imposed by the Party. He dreams of gathering a rebellion against the Party to achieve freedom but he fails in the end.

Orwell’s main objective in 1984 is to exhibit the unnerving prospects of tyranny. The reader encounters the dark world that Orwell imagines through the eyes of Winston. His own inclination to oppose the smothering of his distinction, and his scholarly capacity to reason about his obstruction, empowers the peruser to watch and comprehend the brutal mistreatment that Big Brother, the Party and the Thought Police establish. Winston is incredibly meditative and inquisitive, to see how and why the Party imposes its force in Oceania. Winston’s reflections allow Orwell to investigate the novel’s significant subjects, including language as brain control, mental and physical terrorizing and control, and the significance of information on the past.

Apart from his thoughtful nature, Winston’s main attributes are his rebelliousness and his fatalism. Winston hates the Party and wants to test the limits of its power. He commits innumerable crimes throughout the novel. He develops an illicit relationship with Julia. He goes against the Big Brother. The effort Winston puts into his attempt to achieve freedom and independence ultimately underscores the Party’s devastating power. By the end of the novel, Winston’s rebellion is revealed as playing into O’Brien’s campaign of physical and psychological torture, transforming Winston into a loyal subject of Big Brother.

One purpose behind Winston’s disobedience, and inevitable destruction, is his feeling of submission to the inevitable by believing the Party will get and rebuff him. When he states “DOWN WITH BIG BROTHER” in his personal diary, Winston is certain that the Thought Police will rapidly catch him for carrying out a ThoughtCrime. Feeling that he is vulnerable to his fate, Winston permits himself to face pointless challenges, for example, confiding in O’Brien and leasing the room over Mr. Charrington’s shop. He realizes that these dangers will expand his odds of being arrested by the Party. He even confesses this to O’Brien while in jail. But since he accepts that he will be arrested regardless of his actions, he persuades himself that he should keep on rebelling. Winston lives in a world in which real confidence is difficult, he gives himself false expectations, completely mindful that he is doing as such.

Julia is the lover of Winston in this novel. She is a dark-haired girl. She works in the Fiction Department of the Ministry of Truth. Julia likes intimate relations. She has many affairs with the Party members. She is an optimistic lady. She does not like the authority of the party. Her rebellion against the Party is not ideological but personal.

Julia is a person whom Winston believes that she loathes the Party and wishes to oppose it as like Winston. Though Winston is eager, fatalistic, and worried about social issues, Julia is logical, sensual, and by and large lives in moments to enjoy life. Winston aches to join the Brotherhood and read Emmanuel Goldstein’s dynamic statement while Julia is increasingly worried about sensual relationships and making pragmatic arrangements to abstain from getting captured by the Party. Winston considers his relation with Julia to be a transitory, and due to his fatalistic disposition he is unable to envision his relationship with Julia as long-lasting. Julia adjusts herself to pick types of little scope resistance against the Party. She confesses  having illicit relationships with different members of the Party. She has no expectation of ending her pleasure chasing, or of being arrested. Julia is a striking complexity to Winston: aside from their common sexual wants and contempt for the Party, a large portion of their qualities are unique, if not conflicting.

O`Brien is a mysterious character in this novel. He works for the Party and is a member of the Inner Party. He traps Winston and then tortures him so that he can become loyal to the party.

One of the most intriguing parts of 1984 is the way wherein Orwell covers the depiction of a totalitarian world in a cryptic atmosphere. While Orwell provides the reader a chance to investigate the individual existence of Winston Smith, the readers look at Party life from the perspective of Winston. Therefore, a significant number of the Party’s internal activities stay unexplained, as do its birthplaces, and the characters and inspirations of its pioneers. 

This feeling of riddle is brought together in the character of O’Brien, an amazing individual from the Inner Party who stunts Winston into accepting that he is an individual from the progressive gathering called the Brotherhood. O’Brien accepts Winston into the Brotherhood. Afterward, however, he shows up at Winston’s prison cell to manhandle and indoctrinate him for the sake of the Party. During the procedure of this discipline, O’Brien concedes that he presented himself to be associated with the Brotherhood only to trap Winston in a demonstration of open unfaithfulness to the Party.

This disclosure brings up a bigger number of issues about O’Brien rather than giving answers. Instead of creating as a character all through the novel, O’Brien really appears to be an undeveloped character of the novel. When Winston inquires as to whether he has also been caught by the Party, he replies that they caught him a long time ago. This answer implies that he might have remained a rebel. One can likewise contend that O’Brien claims to identify with Winston just to pick up his trust. Likewise, one can’t be certain whether the Brotherhood really exists, or it is basically a Party creation used to trap the unfaithful and give the remainder of the masses a shared adversary. The book doesn’t address these inquiries, yet rather leaves O’Brien as a shadowy, emblematic riddle on the edges of the much progressively darker Inner Party.

Big Brother

Big Brother is the leader of Oceania, the pioneer of the Party, a cultivated war legend, an ace innovator and scholar. He is the first instigator of the insurgency that brings the Party to control Oceania. The Party utilizes the picture of Big Brother to ingrain a feeling of devotion and dread in the people. The picture shows up on currency, on telescreens, and on the banners which are spread all around the city with the trademark that Big Brother is watching you. The novel shows that a great part of Big Brother’s temperament is unclear and liable to change. Indeed, an aspect of Winston’s responsibilities is to take out old articles and alter the statements of Big Brother that are stated to coordinate what he states in the on-going present.

 Although he controls the whole of Oceania yet he never appears in the novel. Winston never gets an opportunity to communicate with Big Brother in any capacity. The concern of Big Brother is to keep the individuals living in a condition of dread, and the way that nobody appears to have ever observed him makes him considerably successful as a pioneer. The text of the book recommends that Big Brother either doesn’t exist or has never existed as a real individual. When Winston is arrested and put in the Ministry of Love, he has a discussion with O’Brien about Big Brother. Winston inquires whether Big Brother exists; he is given an answer that he does exist. When Winston inquires whether Big Brother will see death, O’Brien says that Big Brother cannot die.

 Mr. Charrington

Mr. Charrington owns a second-hand shop. His shop is located in the prole area. He is 60 years old. He has dark white hair. Winston believes that he might have been a musician or writer in his youth. He provides a number of crimes that can lead to rebellion against the party because the Party has not been good. He sells a notebook to Winston that becomes his personal diary. He also rents his room above his shop to Winston where Winston and Julia secretly meet. He is sympathetic towards Winston in the start and indirectly encourages him for rebellion but in the end, he becomes the source through which Winston gets arrested because Mr. Charrington is a member of Thought Police.

1984 Literary Analysis

Does the novel end on a note of pessimism or optimism?

Winston is broken down badly by the rats in room 101.  In order to get released from the torture he offers Julia for torture. Winston gets released in the last part of the novel.  Readers are informed that Winston lives a life of simplicity.  One day, he encounters Julia and they both confess that both of them offered to be released from the torture and the lover could be replaced.   This means that now they do not feel any sort of love for each other. In the actions of the novel, Winston experiences a picture of Big Brother and encounters a feeling of triumph since he presently cherishes Big Brother. Winston’s acknowledgment of Party rule denotes the end is in the direction he has been on since the opening of the novel. Regardless of Winston’s different types of dismissal and obstruction toward the Party, he had consistently been sensible about how his decisions would unavoidably prompt his capture, torment, and possible death.

Despite the fact that Winston’s destiny is troubled and the closure of the book may appear to be skeptical, the end of the novel can be pursued as hope for trust. The Party needed to go to extraordinary measures to break Winston, utilizing a whole cast of characters and deploying incalculable hours following Winston and later investigating him. 

The measure of exertion the Party places into separating only one individual would not be conceivable for a huge scope: there are lesser numbers of Party individuals and an excessive number of individuals for them to screen. In the event that the Party needs to consume an indistinguishable measure of assets on each dissident from it spent on Winston, it will always be unable to totally get rid of dispute among the individuals. 

For each nonconformist like Winston who gets captured and broken by the Party, another might not be detected. Were the Party ready to create a proficient method to extract the conflict, instead of taking out protesters individually, at that point the end of the book would be really sad. However, the way that Winston has the option to oppose as long as he does, and that it takes the Party such unprecedented endeavors to cut him down, shields the novel from being totally miserable.

What do Big Brother and Goldstein depict?

Emmanuel Goldstein and Big Brother are the pioneers of the restricting powers in Oceania. Big Brother rules Oceania while Goldstein leads the adversaries of Big Brother and has formed the Brotherhood. Orwell doesn’t clarify whether they really exist or not and this makes them quite similar.

O’Brien discloses to Winston Smith that Big Brother may or may not exist. Big Brother exists as the exemplification of the Party. However, he might not die forever. O’Brien won’t reveal to Winston whether Big Brother and Goldstein exist, yet all things considered, both are just the propaganda of the Party. For example the way that O’Brien confesses  having composed Goldstein’s book is a sign of this.

Big Brother is another name for control in Oceania because it is a name of trust, security, and fondness. The Party, or, Big Brother, is not like Stalin or Hitler. Orwell gives Emmanuel Goldstein a Jewish name that is reminiscent of the force structure in World War II. Important is that Emmanuel actually signifies God.

It has no effect in Winston’s life whether these two powers exist. Winston’s destiny is fixed, similar to the destiny of the general public in which he lives, paying little heed to their reality. Goldstein and Big Brother exist in the minds of the people, and that is the main thing that is an issue for Winston. Orwell proposes for these portray Totalitarian force structures because they are both the equivalent. O’Brien, in his manifestation as a Brotherhood chief, inquires as to whether they are happy to carry out outrage against the Party, huge numbers of which are the same that the Party submits against its subjects. Orwell portrays that Political radicalism isn’t certain under any name.

Interpreting the language: Newspeak:

Orwell was certain that the language`s decline is because of economic and political factors. Despite the fact that he had no strong evidence, he assumed that the dialects of nations under autocracies. For  example, the Soviet Union or Germany had decayed under their individual systems. Orwell writes in one of his articles that when the general environment is awful, language must endure. He adds whenever thought taints language, language can likewise degenerate ideas. Here is the very idea of driving the development of Newspeak.

To show this thought that language can degenerate ideas and that authoritarian framework use language to confine thoughts. Orwell made Newspeak that served as the official language for Oceania. In that language, a word like freedom did not exist.

In his Appendix, Orwell clarifies the grammatical game plan and the historical background of the Newspeak. A language that is alive like English has the capacity of different articulation tends to pick up words and in this manner widen the mindfulness and information of its speakers. Newspeak loses words, by evacuating words that can be used for rebellion and can give a thought to resistance. Thus, for instance, on the grounds that great presumes something contrary to awful, so awful is pointless. 

Correspondingly, all degrees of goodness can be communicated basically by adding standard prefixes and postfixes to this one root word: ungood (awful) and plusgood (generally excellent) and doubleplusgood (magnificent). In this manner, Newspeak takes out unnecessary words, yet it encourages a narrowing of thought and being aware. The thought behind Newspeak is that, as language must turn out to be less expressive, the brain is all the more handily controlled. Through making Newspeak, Orwell cautions the reader that a legislature that makes the language and commands how it is utilized can control the brains of its residents.

  History can be re-written:

In 1984, the possibility that history is variable or alterable is highlighted.  The fact is that whatever the Party considers it to be right, is made the basis of the standards of things to come in the future. Some German Fascist leaders flaunted that when people lie frequently enough, others will acknowledge it as truth. The Stalinists consummated this business as usual by re-composing individuals and occasions all through history or misshaping verifiable realities to suit the Party’s motivations. The party slogan in 1984 is that whoever has control over the past has control over the future and whoever has control of the present has control of the past.

Winston Smith’s situation in the Ministry of Truth is that of making the past events unrecognizable to any individual with an exact memory so every fraud becomes a notable reality. In a moment, Oceania is and consistently has been engaged in war with one adversary, the following moment it is and has consistently been engaged in war with another, and the individuals of Oceania acknowledge the data as obvious. It is an embellishment of wonder that Orwell saw it while writing the novel way before 1984 and detailed with genuine lucidity in 1984: People promptly accept what they can accept easily.

This book differentiated between truth and Facts and afterward investigates the social-political-moral good subtleties of the underhanded control of realities so as to control people and social orders for political benefits. Orwell was worried that the idea of truth was becoming dim in the world. In the field of human intercourse of which governmental issues is a section, what is accepted is significantly more impressive than what is real. In the event that the pioneers of countries are the individuals directing the what, when, where, how and who of history, there can be little inquiry that lies discover their way into the books of history, that those falsehoods are instructed to students, and that they in the end become authentic actuality.

This worry is very clear in 1984. During Orwell’s time as an opposition warrior in Spain, he encountered this revamping of history directly. He saw that news stories were frequently erroneous. There were regular reports of fights where no battling had happened or no report at all of the fights where many men had faced deaths. Orwell yielded that quite a bit of history was falsehoods, and he was baffled by the way that he accepted that history could be precisely composed.

This re-writing of occasions isn’t saved for the governments of totalitarianism. Indeed, candidates for governments like the President, recollect things in an unexpected way. It seems as though an occasion can be removed from history as if people do not recall it. At all levels, vague or uncertain language is utilized to shade or change genuine occasions to support candidates or belief systems. With each period, our sages are disavowed, and history books revamped. As the way of life and the philosophy change, it changes history. Here and there these mutilations are honest and harmless contrasts of point of view; different occasions, they are fatal perilous.

Propaganda and Fear are used to Control the Subjects:

In “1984”, untruths, fantasies and wrong data control the thinking and perceptions of the residents. The Party deploys Propaganda as a weapon to control its subjects. Propaganda increases the confidence of residents in the party and makes them feel that whatever the party advises them to do is in every case right. There are for the most part two sorts of propaganda, one changes truth, known as doublethink, and another makes dread. 

“Doublespeak” can be seen much of the time in the realm of 1984. The slogan of the Party “War is Peace, Freedom is Slavery, Ignorance is Strength” is a genuine example. The possibility of the slogan is to persuade the residents that what they need is the thing that they already have. No one but war can make harmony and agreement, so harmony is no longer harmony, it turns into war. Any individual who is slaved and needs freedom, he already possesses Freedom.  One can reinforce himself by not knowing about things and being oblivious.

The motto changes truth and causes the residents to accept that anything they need other than what their administration needs can just make them despondent, along these lines, nobody will consider insubordination since they accept the Party’s method for overseeing is the best and just way. “Big Brother IS WATCHING YOU” is another center motto. It is almost everywhere in the state and for the most part, introduced underneath the image of Big Brother on a banner. It makes dread of wrecked protection among residents by alarming them that they are observed constantly. 

Simultaneously, the trademark focuses on Big Brother’s capacity to tell the residents that they are to be sure sheltered and protected. 

The Party utilizes this to cause them to accept that inside the Party nothing can turn out badly, and without Big Brother, they won’t have such lives. Everybody thinks he is protected in Oceania due to Big Brother.

Law for Control:

The law is another integral asset for administrators in the novel to curtail the freedom of the citizens. No gatherings, no dates, no adoration, no residents stroll on road after check-in time, laws are all around in Oceania. In spite of the fact that these are carefully executed, they can’t be called laws hypothetically on the grounds that they are not written in a framework. 

There is no composed law in the novel, there is nothing of the sort as constitution or court, and however, that is actually how dread is made, as residents are continually living in vulnerability. There is no law that characterizes Thoughtcrime. However, Winston could be captured whenever for perpetrating Thoughtcrime by even a little action proposing rebellion and his sensory system truly turns into his greatest adversary. Since there is no composed law, the Party can alter and adjust the laws unreservedly as it needs, residents can’t be sure whether they have carried out any wrongdoing, in this way nobody is sufficiently courageous to oppose the Party by any level, so dread is made. Likewise, “Newspeak” is another law that is upheld to set the control of the Party. 

People use language to communicate their thoughts, by reducing words and words for feelings, for example, “incredible”, “awesome” and “phenomenal” by a solitary word “good” and its relative degrees “plusgood” and “plusplusgood”. Bunches of contemplations are really constrained on the grounds that they can’t be shaped semantically in individuals’ brains. Residents at that point can’t have their own basic reasoning, and just do what they are advised to do; they work similarly as computers, which shockingly are operated on two words.

More From George Orwell

• Animal Farm
• Shooting an Elephant

Introduction of 1984

The novel , 1984, was published back in 1949 in June, is a dystopian fiction by George Orwell . It spellbound generations and it continues to do so since its first appearance. The novel was a myth breaker, but it also proved prophetic in giving out the truth and the predictions and forebodings of futuristic political instability, especially mass surveillance. The novel revolves around Winston Smith and his co-worker, Julia, who hated their Party. However, they could not leave it on account of constant surveillance of ‘Big Brother’. They even prove tools to surveil each other.

Summary of 1984

The novel starts in 1984 when the world, after having witnessed wars and revolutions, is finally having a break. There is peace in the three states, among which Oceania is one, where the Party is in the government. Its Ingsoc is being led by Big Brother, an elusive party demagogue, who is meant to watch everybody. This is the condition of Airstrip One, an Oceania province. To uproot dissidents, the Thought Police is active through Telescreens, removing dissidents from the scene.

Winston Smith, a middle-class worker of the Outer Party, is now living in the London urban center and doing a job in the Ministry of Truth. His job is to revise history to conform to Ingsoc’s demands. His task involves revising The Times, a magazine, and destroying its older versions. Interestingly, he harbors dreams of changing or opposing the rules of the Thought Party but also feels guilty of being a ‘thought-criminal’. He is aware that someday he is vulnerable to arrest. It happens that his meeting with Mr. Charrington, an antique connoisseur, leads him to write an anti-party and anti-Big Brother diary, saying that hopes lie with the public.

However, his disappointment reaches new heights when his visit to a prole transpires him about these crackpots . He talks to an old man, who seemed to be suffering from amnesia. As Julia is working with him on a novel, he suspects her for espionage against him. Even his boss, O’Brien, too, is a suspect of doing the same. However, he seems to be a formal member of the Brotherhood, the resistance movement against the Party organized by Emmanuel Goldstein, the opponent of Big Brother. When Smith talks to Syme, another worker, who is engaged in revising Newspeak, comes to know that he would disappear. He seems intelligent and has learned the prospect of revising a newspaper, whose objective, he states is to reduce the thinking capacity of human beings. Following this, he meets his neighbor, Parsons, from whom he learned about the Hate Week preparation.

Winston is immersed in these thoughts when Julia hands over to him a letter confessing her love for him. However, their love affair proves stifling, for intimacy minus descendants is merely an exercise they go through every day. He comes to know that Julia is also a secret opponent of the Party, though, she has no desire to put a political front against the Party, as she knows it is futile. After they believe that they may get caught for their love and meeting, they start dating in a room they rent above the shop of Mr. Charrington. During these love meetings, he also recalls his family and the disappearance of his siblings during the civil war. Although he is a married man having no love for his wife, Katharine, and he cannot divorce her. He knows that the Party does not approve of it. Soon he comes to know that Syme has also disappeared after which O’Brien visits him to invite him to his residence.

When Winston visits him, he is impressed by his luxurious flat but is stunned to know that O’Brien is an active dissident of the Party and the Brotherhood member. Finding no response, O’Brien, later, sends him Goldstein’s book to learn about oligarchical practices. When the Hate Week of the country arrives, suddenly Winston observes the change of enmity toward Eastasia from Eurasia after which the minister recalls him to make new changes in the historical records. Following this, Winston meets Julia and reads the book about how the Party keeps hold of the people, how it moves the people through sloganeering, and how it manages wars to make people stay busy. The main argument , however, lies in that it also seeks to overthrow the Party through proles, though, the book lacks the answer why.

As expected, soon Julia and Winston are arrested when Mr. Charrington is revealed to be an agent of the Thought Police. Although Winston comes into interaction with his other arrested colleagues, he soon meets O’Brien, who proves another agent of the department, having part of the operation to hook him in this supposed crime. During his imprisonment, he undergoes severe torture, starvation, and treatment that intends to indoctrinate him. During this new indoctrination, Winston learns from O’Brien that the Party demonstrates the authority to display their undeniable power . Though, Winston argues his case that he accepts everything but that the Party has not succeeded in coercing him to betray Julia to whom he is associated. He also thinks that he would emerge even after his execution that would be his moment of triumph against the Party.

Infuriated, O’Brien brings him to 101 room where indoctrination reaches its final stage of re-education. Here the prisoner is forced to confront his worst fear or paranoia. Winston soon sees facing a cage full of rats, a creature he is afraid of. He expresses his willingness after this punishment to betray Julia and work for the Party. However, when he comes face to face with Julia, he feels that she betrays the same feelings. On the other hand, Oceania’s victory against Eurasia is announced through media at which Winston echoes indoctrination in his slogan that he loves Big Brother.

Major Themes in 1984

• Totalitarianism: 1984 shows totalitarianism in its true shape and also warns the readers of its consequences of robbing human beings of the very emotions that make us. The curb on civil liberties and personal freedom are reflected through Julia and Winston’s love affair that, though they try their best, yet their consummation is the betrayal from both sides. Another feature of this totalitarianism prevalent in Oceania is the one-party system of the Party where all and diverse groups are involved in worshiping the elusive Big Brother. Everything can be compared to having a cult personality. Everybody proves an agent of the Party, spying on everybody else with no room for peaceful co-existence. The final slogan of Winston that he loves Big Brother is his frustration at having no freedom.
• Propaganda : The novel also shows the use of organized mass propaganda initiated by the Party through its Ministry of Truth where revision of history books and old magazines is underway. It is Winston’s and his friends’ responsibility to twist facts and create fictions to make the Party seem true. The public feeding system has a very strong establishment to continue with which the Party and Big Brother want to feed the public.
• Love/Sexuality: The loss of love and suppression of sensual desires is another thematic strand that runs throughout the novel. When Winston shows an inclination to befriend Julia, he also shows his neutral feelings toward his wife. On the other hand, Julia, too, does not show the same passion and soon forgets him when he is trapped in trouble. In fact, love and intimacy have undergone depersonalization through an excessive passion for “duty to the Party” which is a means to give birth to the party loyal workers rather than having it enjoyment of the conjugal life. Failure of Winston’s conjugal life with Katharine and unfortunate love for Julia points to this theme .
• Independence : The theme of personal freedom and independence is too obvious through the character of Winston who, though, works independently, does not feel that every other person could be the Party agent. Even O’Brien and Julia belong to the group who yearn for freedom. Though Winston considers O’Brien sympathetic to his ideas in the beginning.
• Identity: The novel shows that most of the characters have names but no identities. The most popular is Big Brother who has the power to know the ideas, thinking, and percepts of the subjects of Oceania. When Winston asks O’Brien that after all, he is a man during his torture, he responds to him with his own argument that he is the last one on this earth. It shows how totalitarian regimes rob a person of his identity and freedom to think.
• Political Loyalty : The surveillance of Big Brother is powerful, inescapable, and intrusive. When Winston starts thinking about rebellious ideas, everything starts working against him. When he comes to know that Mr. Charrington’s flat is bugged, Winston is horrified and then it turns out that Charrington is also the Party agent including O’Brien who is his co-conspirator. That is why seeing no way out by the end Winston raises the slogan of loyalty to Big Brother.
• Poverty vs. Wealth : Although it is a socialist system, the Party shows this contradiction in the living standard through its inner and outer circles in that the inner circle lives in luxury and wealth with servants and other gadgets at their beck and call , while the inner circle is trapped in a routinized lifestyle. The ordinary members have to lead a low-quality life with ordinary food, devoid of love, and family pleasures. That is why Winston finds new love and O’Brien looks at London with nostalgia .
• Technification of Society : The novel also shows the theme of the technification of society in such a way that the people are not immune to propaganda. They do not have an option to think freely. The Thought Police have intrusive sources of telescreens to measure public thinking and change it likewise. However, it is ironic that despite showing such technological progress, some of the mechanical tasks are still lying in the realm of human beings such as Winston’s revision of history, printing machines in the Ministry of Truth, and living in apartments. Perhaps, as the book was written before the technology was discovered the author had given his best guess regarding today’s technical advances. Now, we have GPS and it is easy to trace anyone.
• Use and Abuse of Language: The novel shows the use of language in controlling the public. The party uses several sources such as the Ingsoc system, Newspeak magazine, and doublethink strategy to change the thinking of the people. Winston and O’Brien are employed for this very task in the Ministry of Truth to abuse language to hoodwink the public.

Major Characters in 1984

• Winston Smith: Winston Smith, is the protagonist and main character of 1984. He is a 39 years old man, working in the Party office in Oceania. His task includes correction of errors in the documents of the Party and revision of the history in the old magazines. However, his lurking animosity for the Party’s authoritarianism leads him to befriend the Party agents who pose them as rebels working to overthrow Big Brother. Despite his marriage, he falls in love with Julia and has an affair, another Party worker, though this affair ends prematurely. Winston is caught, and he does not seek disagreement when he is given up by agents. He undergoes severe physical and mental torture. Seeing no way out, he secures his release by raising a slogan in support of Big Brother. He knows that with excessive surveillance nobody can slip out of the Party clutches. Though he carries his old feelings, after the release he suppresses it and becomes animated just like everyone.
• Julia: Julia, a young woman, and the Party Worker, also works with Winston in the same department and almost in the same capacity. Although she responds to Winston’s advances with positive overtures, her frigidness, demonstrated later, shows that she might have alerted the Party high command about Winston’s rebellious nature. Despite demonstrating some opposing ideas, she does not think it an ideal course of action to stage overthrow of the Party. That is why she also undergoes torture but demonstrates much improvement after they win release. She also proves more loyal than before after her release.
• O’Brien: O’Brien is the inner party member and holds a top position. He suspects that Winston might be rebellious, and he becomes alert. He immediately plans to hook Winston through his espionage and gets him arrested. Working as a dedicated government servant, O’Brien has various natural contradictions in his character except for his fidelity and loyalty to the Party and Big Brother.
• Big Brother: Big Brother is an elusive character and the main leader of the Party. He is also the ruler of Oceania, who is popular for his omnipresent surveillance capabilities. The phrase “ BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING YOU ” is the catchword in Oceania. Although some of the citizens, like Winston, think that he does not exist, it seems that somebody has adopted this name to terrify the population into submission. He seems the symbol of the all-powerfulness of the ruling faction.
• Parsons: Mrs. Parsons is the second female character after Julia. As a neighbor of Winston, she seems to be tired of this rule despite being a mother of the two children working in the Spies and Youth Language. She later, hands over both of their parents to the Thought Police for their political edification.
• Tom Parsons: Tom Parsons’ significance in the novel lies in his being a jolly and simple neighbor of Winston. He despises Parsons for his all-acceptance mentality. He becomes the victim of his children’s espionage activity who hands him over to the Thought Police for the edification of his political ideas.
• Charrington: Charrington’s significance in the novel lies in his secretive nature of work for the Thought Police. Surprisingly and sadly, Winston, he seems a simpleton antique shopkeeper. Winston does not know his reality when he meets Julia in the apartment on the upper floor of his shop. However, the truth is only revealed after their arrest.
• Katharine: She is Winston’s wife, though he does not discuss her much and she appears only when his flirtation with Julia starts. Katharine is loyal to the Party and the government and is only interested in childbearing responsibility.

Writing Style 1984‎

George Orwell is popular for his pithy, symbolic, and well-knit writings as a seasoned writer and a veteran political commentator. His authorial intrusions in his narratives are prominent, as he often employs foreshadowing about political predictions and future events. The most important is the use of symbols, phrases, and suitable diction that make his narrative effective though this futuristic outlook sometimes looks far-fetched. It has won him a great readership across the globe. His style is also marked with the short, curt and concise slogans, which have now become popular catchphrases in the political circles.

Analysis of Literary Devices in 1984

• Action: The main action of the novel comprises the conflict of Winston Smith with the oppression of the Party in Oceania. The rising action occurs when he starts dating Julia and meeting O’Brien about dissidence and resistant movement. The falling action occurs when he faces arrest and subsequent torture with the final sloganeering in support of Big Brother.
• Adage : It means the use of a statement that becomes a universal truth. The novel, 1984, shows this use of the statement in its famous sentence given in all capitals; “BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING YOU.” (Chapter-1)
• Allegory : 1984 shows the use of allegory in its political story that demonstrates that totalitarianism is unsuitable for human beings, power brings corruption and absolute power brings absolute corruption. It also shows that some characters may not exist without their ideational representation such as Big Brother, while others have been made to represent abstract ideas. Surprisingly, this allegory is very much applicable to current times.
• Antagonist : At first, it appears that Big Brother is the main antagonist of 1984 in the opening chapters. However, as the story progresses O’Brien is revealed to be the antagonist later when he leads the arrest of Winston Smith after becoming his confidant in resistance against the Party.
• Allusion : There are various examples of allusions given in the novel, 1984. However, some of these may be modern allusions Orwell might not have in mind when writing it such as surveillance tools used by the internet companies, the rise of Communism, and the implementation of the communist system. The references of Ingsoc, Oceania, Eurasia, and Eastasia are to the Russian communist system, while the three states refer to the Managerial Revolution written by James Burnham and published in 1941.
• Conflict : The are two types of conflicts in the novel, 1984. The first one is the external conflict that starts among Winston Smith, the Party, and its agents in which he faces defeat when he faces arrest after O’Brien betrays him. The second is the internal conflict that is going on in his mind about his ideas of freedom and rights, and the system of the Party in which he is living and working.
• Characters: 1984 presents both static as well as dynamic characters. Winston Smith is a dynamic character who changes, though, he becomes the same again. However, all the rest of the characters are merely puppets of the Party. Hence, they are all static or flat characters .
• Climax : The climatic in the novel occurs in the second chapter when the love of Julia and Winston reaches its peak and both start dating each other, but the Thought Police arrest them.
• Foreshadowing : The first example of foreshadowing in the novel occurs when the first chapter opens as “It was part of the economy drive in preparation for Hate Week” (Chapter-1). The slogan of “BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING YOU” is also a type of foreshadowing which heralds the use of telescreens, the Thought Police, and the siblings spying on the parents.
• Hyperbole : Hyperbole or exaggeration occurs at several places in the book. For example, i. The ideal set up by the Party was something huge, terrible, and glittering a world of steel and concrete, of monstrous machines and terrifying weapons a nation of warriors and fanatics, marching forward in perfect unity, all thinking the same thoughts and shouting the same slogans, perpetually working, fighting, triumphing, persecuting three hundred million people all with the same face. (Chapter-1) ii. He knew what it meant, or thought he knew. The place where there is no darkness was the imagined future, which one would never see, but which, by foreknowledge, one could mystically share in. (Chapter-1)
• Imagery : Imagery means the use of five senses for the description. For example, i. The person immediately ahead of him in the queue was a small, swiftly-moving, beetle-like man with a flat face and tiny, suspicious eyes. (Chapter-1) ii. From over scrubby cheekbones eyes looked into Winston’s, sometimes with strange intensity, and flashed away again. (Chapter-1) iii. The sunlight, filtering through innumerable leaves, was still hot on their faces. (Chapter-1) The first example shows images of sight, the second one of sound and color, and the third one also shows of color.
• Metaphor : 1984 shows good use of various metaphors . For example, i. Chocolate normally was dullbrown crumbly stuff. (Chapter-1) ii. All this marching up and down and cheering and waving flags is simply sex gone sour” (Chapter-1) iii. Folly, folly, his heart kept saying: conscious, gratuitous, suicidal folly. (Chapter-1)
• Mood : The novel, 1984, shows a satirical tone . However, it also shows characters to be sarcastic and ironic at times according to the circumstances and contexts . It, however, becomes tense during the love affair of Winston and Julia.
• Narrator : The novel, 1984 is told from a third-person point of view . It is also called an omniscient narrator who happens to be the author himself as he can see things from all perspectives . Here George Orwell is the narrator of 1984.
• Personification : Personification means to attribute human acts and emotions to non-living objects . For example, i. ‘If the Party could thrust its hand into the past and say this or that even, it never happened—that, surely, was more terrifying than mere torture. (Chapter-1) ii. Power is in tearing human minds to pieces and putting them together again in new shapes of your own choosing. (Chapter-4) iii. Both of these examples show the Party and power personified.
• Protagonist : Winston Smith is the protagonist of the novel. He enters the novel from the very start and captures the interest of the readers until the last page.
• Paradox : 1984 shows the use of paradox in slogans such as war is peace , freedom is slavery and ignorance is strength (Chapter-1)
• Rhetorical Questions : The novel shows good use of rhetorical questions at several places. For example, ‘Why should it be? And if it were, what difference would that make? Suppose that we choose to wear ourselves out faster. Suppose that we quicken the tempo of human life till men are senile at thirty. Still what difference would it make? Can you not understand that the death of the individual is not death? The party is immortal.’ (Chapter-4) This example shows the use of rhetorical questions and their answers given by the same character, O’Brien.
• Theme : A theme is a central idea that the novelist or the writer wants to stress upon. The novel, 1984, not only shows the futuristic thematic idea but also demonstrates human sufferings, love, hate, political ideals and several others.
• Setting : The setting of the novel, 1984, is further Oceania state and its city of London.
• Simile : The novel shows good use of various similes. For example, i. His tiny sister, clinging to her mother with both hands, exactly like a baby monkey. (Chapter-1) ii. He clung to O’Brien like a baby, curiously comforted by the heavy arm around his shoulders. (Chapter-2) The first simile compares the girl, Winston’s sister, to a tiny monkey and second Winston to a baby.

Related posts:

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• War is Peace
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• Animal Farm Quotes
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Book Review – 1984, by George Orwell

George Orwell’s 1984 is a grim read that tells of a future in which something has gone horribly wrong in society resulting the extreme oppression of the citizens of at least one super state. It might be most famous for exploring the idea of technological mass surveillance but at its core it is a book about power.

To best understand the book it helps to understand a little about the circumstances in which it was written. Released in 1949 it was written during the immediate aftermath of WWII as the Iron Curtain descended over Eastern Europe and Stalin tightened his grip on power. It was also a time when communism was spreading globally, particularly in Asia. The threat of global war was renewed however this time with the prospect of nuclear weapons.

This was also a time when the old European empires were in rapid retreat, the seat of Western power had shifted to the USA and Britain had yet to develop its own nuclear weapons. Britain was also struggling to recover from WWII economically.

George Orwell himself was a disillusioned socialist. Deeply committed to socialist economics  but strongly opposed to communism and its totalitarian tendencies, especially Soviet style communism under Stalin.  

The effect of all these personal (Orwell), national (Britain) and global anxieties are reflected in the story. However, while socialist revolutions were the vehicle used to explain how the political structure of 1984 emerged, the central themes of the story would still work if a different ideology was used, i.e extreme oligarchical capitalism. It is a book about political power crushing the lives of individuals so all that is required is a mechanism to concentrate extreme political power in the hands of a few at the expense of an increasingly disempowered general population. What matters is the relentless accumulation of power for power’s own sake.

1984 is told from the perspective of Winston Smith, a low-level party member who works in the “Ministry of Truth”. Winston’s world is one in which there is no objective truth, only party approved “facts.” The classic example of which is requiring citizens to believe “2 + 2 = 5” despite knowing it being demonstrably false. 1984 explores the throne of lies upon which totalitarian oppression sits. In the party’s view, every “fact” is malleable, one of several possible truths. Which one is true at any one time depends upon which best suites the purposes of the party.

The best example of this is the global war that has been running for decades between the three super states that exist in 1984. At any one time Winston’s nation is at war with one and allied with the other. Winston observes that every few years the allegiances suddenly switch for no apparent reason but the official history is that the allegiances have never varied. Winston begins to doubt the war’s existence and since it is never directly observed by the reader, he might be correct. He begins to suspect that the war might simply be another party tool to maintain social unity. United against a common enemy.

“War is Peace”

The threat of a global war against two rival super states over time enables the party to force the citizenry to tolerate ever more pervasive attacks on their individual freedoms in support of the war effort. To do otherwise risks losing the war and being enslaved by foreign invaders. Only total loyalty to the party can avert this fate.

“Freedom is Slavery”

This leads to doubts about the very nature of Winston’s world beyond Airstrip 1 (formerly the United Kingdom). No other parts of the world are directly observed or objectively documented as foreign trade and travel do not exist in 1984. It is possible that only the United Kingdom has succumbed to such brutal totalitarianism and now exists as an isolated hermit state. Or the world could be exactly as described by the party. The point is that Winston (and by extension the reader) have no way of knowing. Objective truth is buried.

“Ignorance is Strength”

The true horror and genius of 1984 isn’t the mass technological surveillance. Rather it is as a cautionary tale (rather than a discrete prophecy) showing glimpses of a disfigured, tortured, grotesque society that exists in our near future and is a clear descendent of our own. One in which technology is exploited to the detriment rather than the benefit of humanity.

This is a story about totalitarianism and the disturbingly simple but powerful ways to gradually and increasingly enslave an entire population, which is why it remains relevant. The party’s methods are written right there above the front entrance to the Ministry of Truth:

“War is Peace

Freedom is Slavery

Ignorance is Strength”

About the author: Chris is an Associate Editor at Grounded Curiosity and a currently serving Australian Army officer. Building on a multi-discipline engineering background, his passion is technological development and PME. Chris’ work has previously appeared on Grounded Curiosity, Strategy Bridge and The Cove.  Find him on Twitter .

Home — Essay Samples — Literature — 1984 — A Review of George Orwell’s Book, 1984

A Review of George Orwell’s Book, 1984

• Categories: 1984 George Orwell

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Published: Jan 15, 2019

Words: 673 | Page: 1 | 4 min read

Works Cited

• Arendt, H. (1966). The Origins of Totalitarianism. Harcourt, Brace & World.
• Bauman, Z. (1998). Globalization: The Human Consequences. Columbia University Press.
• Foucault, M. (1977). Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison. Vintage Books.
• Huxley, A. (1932). Brave New World. Chatto & Windus.
• Marcuse, H. (1964). One-Dimensional Man: Studies in the Ideology of Advanced Industrial Society. Beacon Press.
• Orwell, G. (1984). 1984. Signet Classics.
• Sartre, J. P. (1948). Anti-Semite and Jew. Schocken Books.
• Skinner, B. F. (1971). Beyond Freedom and Dignity. Hackett Publishing Company.
• Snyder, T. (2018). The Road to Unfreedom: Russia, Europe, America. Tim Duggan Books.
• Zamyatin, Y. (1924). We. Penguin Classics.

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1984 Themes – Meaning and Main Ideas

Home » Literature Explained – Literary Synopses and Book Summaries » 1984 Book » 1984 Themes – Meaning and Main Ideas

Main Theme of 1984 – Introduction

The novel takes place in a futuristic and dystopian version of London, UK. The citizens of this nation, Oceania, are ruled by Big Brother and The Party. They are under constant surveillance and the information that they receive is controlled by The Party before it reaches any citizens. The novel was written in 1949 but the exact year of the story is unknown. Even the main character, Winston, is unsure of the exact date anymore because The Party keeps its citizens uninformed and he lost track. We know that it is “the future” because of all of the technology and the title leads us to guess it may be in the year 1984, which shows Orwell’s intentional message that a government takeover with advanced technologies could be more imminent than anyone would want to believe.

There are several very strong themes in this short novel, and a couple of motifs that back those themes up and support the overall message Orwell intended to create. Doublethink is a motif in the novel—it occurs when The Party suddenly changes the information that they’ve been giving the citizens. The citizens agree to just go along with the changes and are able to believe whatever they need too, even if it is all directly contradictory. For example, when a speech is being given, the orator randomly changes which nation he refers to as their enemy. The people believe it right away and feel bad that they made the wrong signs to bring to the speech. Another motif is the decay of the city as a result of the violent revolution that occurred some years prior. The city is in a state of decay, but The Party ignores this, mismanaging a city of the size completely. This leaves the proles (lower class citizens) largely unmonitored, which is an oversight on the part of the government because it poses the potential for revolution.

Main Themes in 1984

Here’s a list of major themes in 1984.

• Totalitarianism
• State control of expression
• Control over information

Individual Identity

The inherent destruction in totalitarianism.

Psychological Manipulation Through Technology

State Control Over Expression

Since The Party is always watching, they also control how citizens use their bodies. They cannot have sex outside of procreation, and even a misgiving facial twitch could lead to an arrest and subsequent torture to break that individual into submission. The Party also requires daily exercises from all citizens, and they will be yelled at through their telescreens if they do not exercise hard enough. When people turn to anti-Party activities, they will be tortured by officials until they relent and show full brainwashed support for The Party.

Control Over Information

The Party has decided to control all information, being very careful what kinds of history the citizens are able to access. They develop Newspeak, which is a modified form of English that eliminates any words that could threaten The Party’s control over its people. People’s memories become fuzzy, they lose track of the year, and eventually they just comply because they don’t know any better.

The novel centers on Winston’s various acts of resistance that start small but then become bolder and bolder until he is finally arrested and tortured for it. He dreams of revolution, imagining that the proles will be the key to overthrowing The Party and giving future generations freedom. He finds inspiration in items that remind him of the past, which he can barely remember. He starts up a love affair with the beautiful Julia. All of these things lead Winston to seek out an anti-Party movement. Ultimately, though, he is arrested by double agents and this desire to resist is tortured out of him. The Party does not treat any opposition lightly, making sure to use every method they can possibly find to brainwash and remove desire for resistance in their citizens.

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“1984” by george orwell essay sample, example.

“ 1984 ” is a novel about totalitarianism and the fate of a single man who tried to escape from an overwhelming political regime. The book was written by the British writer and journalist George Orwell in 1948 and had the Soviet Union as a prototype of the social structure described in it.

Events in the book take place in London, a capital of Airstrip One, which is a province of the state of Oceania. The year is 1984, and the world is engaged in an endless omnipresent war. The political regime called Ingsoc (a misspelled abbreviation for English Socialism) constantly seeks out ways to control the minds and private lives of its citizens. The regime is run by the Party, headed by a half mythical Big Brother. The main protagonist of the novel is Winston Smith, an editor in the Ministry of Truth, which is responsible for propaganda. He has doubts about imposed dogmas that are shared by the majority, and at heart, he hates the Party and the Big Brother.

Winston buys a thick notebook where he writes down his thoughts about the reality that surrounds him. In his world, each step of the individual is controlled by the Thought Police, whose main function is to punish people who think differently from what is contained in the official propaganda. Everyone reports on each other, and even children are taught and encouraged to denounce their parents. Winston knows he commits a crime when he denies the Party’s slogan: “War is Peace. Slavery is Freedom. Ignorance is Strength,” but still he writes in his diary: “Down with the Big Brother.”

At work, Winston recalls recent “Two Minutes Hate” periods of time, when all Party members must gather in special rooms where they watch a short film about Emmanuel Goldstein, the former leader of the Party, who betrayed it and organized the underground movement called the Brotherhood. People are obliged to express hatred towards Goldstein’s image on the screen. During one of these periods, Winston fixates on O’Brien—a member of the most powerful Inner Party. For some reason, Winston imagines that O’Brien could be one of the leaders of the Brotherhood. He wants to talk to him, and he even has a dream in which O’Brien’s voice says: “We shall meet at the place where there is no darkness.”

After the Two Minutes Hate, he received a note from a girl named Julia that reads “I love you.” Julia is a member of the Anti-Sex League, so at first, Winston treats her with mistrust, and he even considers her to be a member of the Thought Police. However, she manages to prove to him that she hates the Party too and they start a love affair. It brings Winston to the thought that they are both doomed, because free romantic relationships between a man and a woman are prohibited. Julia is more optimistic about their situation, because she simply lives in the present moment and does not think about the future. They meet in an old second-hand shop in the Prols’ district—a place where people who have not yet joined the Party life. They seem to be more free and light-hearted than the rest of Airstrip’s One population.

Eventually, Winston and Julia get arrested. They are held separately, tortured, and interrogated. Winston is beaten by jailers and he is forced to confess to various crimes, legitimate and fictional. But still, the physical pain is nothing for him compared to the shock that he experiences when he meets O’Brien and finds that he is a loyal servant of the Big Brother. O’Brien uses a special device that causes incredible pain to “re-educate” Winston, make him love the Big Brother and adopt all the Party’s false dogmas. Winston resists and he declares that despite the fact that, under torture, he has betrayed everything he valued and believed in, there is one person that he is still devoted to: Julia. But here, Orwell depicts the Party’s endless possibilities to monitor the thoughts of each citizen in Oceania. The Party knows exactly what Winston fears most, though it is a secret for Winston himself. O’Brien puts a swarm of rats in front of his victim’s face and, driven to panic and horror, Winston finally cries: “Do it to Julia! Do it to Julia! Not me! Julia! I don’t care what you do to her. Tear her face off and strip her to the bones. Not me! Julia! Not me!”

The novel ends with a description of how Winston is sitting in a cafe, drinking gin. Sometimes he meets Julia occasionally, but they dislike each other now because they know that both of them are traitors. Winston looks at the screen, where an announcer gladly informs everyone that Oceania has won the recent war, and he understands that he now loves the Big Brother. The system managed to break and completely remake Winston.

Orwell, George. 1984 . London: Penguin Books Limited, 2005. Print.

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