HaCKeRz KrOnIcKLeZ 3/HaCKeRz_KrOnIcKLeZ.iso/anarchy/essays/schoolsucks/1984.txt

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Nineteen Eighty-Four: A Grim Prediction of the Future

Nineteen Eighty-Four was written between the years of 1945 and 1948.  Orwell got the title from switching
the last two numbers of the publication date.  In OrwellÆs criticism of a perfect society, his book became
known as one of the greatest anti-utopian novels of all time.  The bookÆs message is so powerful that some
say it went so far as to prevent the sinister future from realizing itself.

Althought the book starts out as the story of a neurotic, paranoid man,  it quickly turns into a protest
against a quasi-utopian society and a totalitarian government.  The book appears  to be a satire at the start,
similar to books such as ôGulliverÆs Travelsö, or HuxleyÆs ôBrave New Worldö, but all too quickly the reader
will ôdiscover, quite unpleasantly, that it is not a satire at all.ö  Nineteen Eighty-four is not simply a criticism
of what Orwell saw happening in his national government with the coming of English Socialism, but a
warning of the consequences of contemporary governmental practices, and what they where threatening to
bring about.

Perhaps the book seems so bleak because the events in the book are a somewhat logical projection from
current conditions and historical environment that Orwell observed in 1948.  Perhaps people would be more
comftorble with the book if they could rule out in their minds the possibility of the profecy becoming a
reality.

In a critique of his own work, Orwell called Nineteen Eighty-Four ôA work of a future terrible [sic] because it
rests on a fiction and can not be substantiated by reality or truth. ô   But perhaps this future is realizing itself
more than Orwell thought it would.  Orwell, more than likely, would have made note of, but wouldnÆt be
astonished by, the fact that in 1983 the average American household spent over 7 hours in front of the
television every night.  The number is even greater for those households which currently subscribe to a
cable service.  Those families watch television for more that 58 hours a week.  That is more that 2 days
straight without sleeping, eating, or going to the bathroom.

He also wouldnÆt have passed by this magazine advertisement that could be seen in 1984:  Is Big  Brother
watching?  If you are tired of Government, tired of big business, tired of everyone telling you who you are
and what you should be, then now is the time to speak out.  Display your disgust and exhibit your
independence, Wear a ôBig Brother Is Watchingö tee-shirt.  $10, Canadians remit us dollars.  Big Brother is
Watching LTD.  Neenah, WI.  This advertisement makes one wonder if there is really a group dedicated to
the rise to power of someone called ôBig Brotherö.

No true reader could ever pass off Winstons experience with indifference.  You have to have some kind of
sympathy for a man, even if fictional, who can not remember his childhood, or for that matter, even his
mother.  That is certain to strike a nerve with almost anyone.

In addition to this constant pain of loss, the reader will also have to vicariously live through lengthy
episodes of of other psychological pains, and physical pain.  The reader will also be forced to endure the
pains of society as ôThe Partyö  turns children against parents,  friends against friends, and although ther
reader will discover the beauty of a love between a man and a woman, ôThe Partyö will eventually destroy
that too.

While ôThe Partyö is an important theme, two other themes are far more important.  The first is the
distruction of language.  By eliminating more and more words from peopleÆs vocabularies,  ôThe Partyö
eliminates the ability of people to unite or conspire against the government.  However, they are also
eliminating the possibility of conceiving original thought, which has catastrophic effects.  The ultimate goal
of ôThe Partyö is to reduce the language to only one word thereby eliminating any thought at all.  The
second important theme is the elimination of the past.   This is the main character, WinstonÆs, job in the
ministry of truth, to make sure that ôThe Partyö always looks right about  every decision it has made in the
past.

This quest for total power by ôThe Partyö  is an excellent dramatization of Lord ActonÆs famous apothegm,
ôpower tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely.ö  ôThe Partyö  seems like it wonÆt stop
until it controls the minds of everyone under itÆs power, and has complete physical and psychological
surveillance on  all people at all time.  This is exemplified in the fact that the government can look back at
you through your television, or telescreen as it is called in the book, and the governmet has set up
telescreens almost anywhere you can go.  While they donÆt have telescreens in unpopulated country sides,
they have gone through the trouble to place hidden microphones disgused as flowers in those areas.  and
while there are real no laws,  the thought police can spy on your thoughts at anytime, and can arrest and kill
you on a whim.  This policy is mythical.  It is not really used for punishment, but to scare everyone else into
being good citizens.

No other work of this century  has inspired people with such love of liberty and hatred of tyranny.   Humans
have a basic desire to be free and not controlled.  Therefore, to Orwell as to the Utopian reformers, the
adoption of the governmental doctrine, socialism, was less  an economic decision and more a moral decision.

Nineteen Eighty-Four is an expression of Mr. OrwellÆs irritation at many of the facets of English socialism.  It
is also an expression of his moral and intellectual indignation at the concept of totalitarianism, where a
country is ruled utterly and completely by a group of few.   Another critic says that the book is not a
criticism of English socialism at all, but a warning of the consequences of the contemporoary political paths
we are following, or were at the time the book was written.    The bombs in Nineteen Eighty-Four
symbolize OrwellÆs pent up rage about everything in the political world from the disasterous state of
unemployment of the 1930Æs, to the ignorance of the leftist intelligensia, stupidly justifing Stalinism.  Some
literary critics have attributed the bookÆs extreme grimness to OrwellÆs declining Health, and surmise that his
pessimistic views illustrate his collapsing spirit.

Whatever his inspiration or motivation, almost fifty years after its first publication, Nineteen Eighty-Four
remains one of the great novels of this century.