1984 Review -Big Brother Is Watching

Hi readers:

This week I've gone back to reading a classic literature novel, I fancied a change from the supernatural and so I decided to look at another of my favorite genres: dystopia. It feels like this genre is also growing and seems popular with young adult fiction. The Hungry Games is a good example of this and my review can be found in the archive section.

For those of you that that don't know, dystopia is the opposite of utopia, most of the time it has happened after a world war, or other large disaster, which means that society has changed. Often there is one ruling power and the people are controlled and restricted by it. Religion, identity and differences are done away with or changed. Also the world has become a darker, less colorful place where people don't live but survive.

Orwell's 1984 has many of these themes and also coined two things, which we use today, though with a slightly different context; Big Brother and Room 101. This novel in a way questions the future of humanity and I want to look at how a novel written in 1949 and set in 1984 could be similar to 2014 now. Whilst reading, I kept coming back to this question and it does seem to be a theme in the novel. So, nearly everyone has heard of Orwell and people will have read his novels in school/college, especially Animal Farm. If you've not read 1984, I would highly recommend it.

The plot of 1984 is centered on Winston Smith who is living in what once was Britain, but has become Oceania after the second World War. He works in an office and his job is to rewrite things so that everything stays in the present and there is no record of the past. However, he slowly starts to give into the rebel voice in his head and starts to question the world he lives in. Of course he gets caught and has to go through a program of rehabilitation. He meets other characters along the way and at first all of them seem to aid him in rebelling against The Party, who are in control of everything throughout the book, and their leader Big Brother, but of course that doesn't last.

The other main character is Julia, who falls in love with Winston. She leads him more into rebelling and thinking about a different life. However, she also leads him to his downfall. Her character symbolizes human freedom and spirit. This is actually what the Party want to get rid of and they want to have complete control over everyone, but strip them down to nothing. Whilst Winston comes across as being completely formed into the perfect party member.Them and the other characters are really well written and feel really realist. The world they live in stands out too and there are a lot of similarities to today's world. For insistence, the idea that you are being continually watched and controlled in your thinking.

The language used doesn't feel dated and I think one of the reasons why this is has to do with Orwell's invention of 'Newspeak'. This is the new form of language that the Party has come up with and is getting the people to use. It isn't heavily used and mostly it just sums up words and shortens them. There are other new terms such as 'doublethink', which has to do with the contradiction of facts and 'thought-police,' so you to control your thoughts. Towards the end of the novel there are also extracts from chapters of a book that Winston is reading. This just reinforces and deeper explains what has already been set up.

Overall, this is a classic novel and it doesn't feel dated at all. The characters and the settings come across as real and it is possible to see a world like this one day. The novel doesn't get stuck down with setting up all the world and giving out information, instead it lets this come through via the characters point of view. As a dystopia novel, it has all the traits and themes, but doesn't dwell or try to force the dystopia genre in the plot.

Images from:
http://mookseandgripes.com/reviews/2009/03/16/george-orwells-nineteen-eighty-four/