Book of the Week

1984 by George Orwell
Recommended by Kiyo Brandreth-Stroud

'Ignorance is strength' is the last line of the motto in the novel 1984, a dystopian novel written in 1949 by the author George Orwell, famous for his book, Animal Farm. This book is famous for its many underlying messages and is interesting on many levels.

The book was written just a few years after the horrors of World War Two and only twenty five years after the Russian revolution. The Labour party is in power and Orwell is in despair, driving him to write this book reflecting his inside emotions.
The book follows the life of Winston Smith on Air Strip One (where Britain used to be) in the fictional super-continent of Oceania. He works in the Ministry of Truth, re-writing old documents to support the current regime and destroying any harmful information. Under the rule of a totalitarian government that uses fear, deception, and manipulation to force total obedience, the novel follows his search for individuality. It ends, however, on a dark note after realising that the true price for freedom is betrayal.

The message that radiates from the book is an attack on communist Russia telling us about the horror and brainwashing that happened under the regime. The second line of the motto, 'Freedom is Slavery', is a shocking sentence that makes people realise what happens if you let things go unchecked. Orwell was furious with the widespread allegiance to Stalin despite overwhelming evidence of the atrocities he committed and annoyed that 'nearly the whole of the English has been driven to accept the Russian regime as socialist.' However, the underlying message of the book was a way for Orwell to express his dissatisfaction and despair at the post war state of English socialism, in particular the Labour party, which was in power when he published the book.

Orwell wrote his book in a different style to the normality today; it was divided into three parts with the action only starting to build up in the second section, focusing before that on building up the scene and the character. He also uses almost no dialogue, similarly focusing on Winston’s reaction to interaction.

His book carries a warning even now and it seems that we are approaching that fictional reality every day, with unwarranted recordings being taken, victimless crimes being enforced and the changing view of society constricting people’s right to say what they want, the current views of society forcing people to speak 'correctly' for fear of offending someone. The legacy of his book seems only to grow as the years go by.

This is a meaningful book, containing references to some of the most prevalent issues in that day. It has achieved its goal in becoming one of the most significant books of its genre. Written well, it subtly adds layers of thoughts and primal feelings under the main actions. You are able to get a deep understanding of the central character and all of his irrationalities. For example, during the two minutes hate, where the citizens are brainwashed and made to hate 'the enemies', the character thinks that 'the horrible thing about the two minutes hate was not that one was obliged to act a part but that it was impossible to avoid joining in.' This shows not only what goes on inside the character’s head, how the very idea of the two minutes hate is ingrained in his memory and in his experiences but also how the society operated, manipulating people into something quite opposite to their true nature.

1984 is a masterfully written novel and I would definitely recommend it to other people, but only once they are in their teens as you cannot fully appreciate the story without the contextual knowledge, it contains almost no dialogue and the action starts late into the book making it a tough book to get through. However, all in all it is an excellent novel that forces people to zoom out to look at the bigger picture.