1984
1984 is about a world, our world, in the future (it was written in 1949). It is a world that has been divided into three superstates: Oceania,Eastasia, and Eurasia. The main character is a man named Winston Smith who lives in Oceania, which is under the control of the Party. The Partycontrols every aspect of daily life, and has four large buildings that keep Oceania in their power, the Minstry of Peace (for war purposes), theMinistry of Truth (for media purposes), the Ministry of Plenty (for economic affairs), and the Ministry of Love (for criminals to go). Thenaming of these buildings is the exercise of "doublethink," which is the process of holding two contradictory thoughts in your head at t
You can't control how you feel towards something or someone, although you can hide it. George Orwell does a remarkablejob in comparing Winston's actions to our own, such as in the scene in the Ministry of Love where he is interrogated and broken down by O'Brien's reasoning. Through using this method, the Partycan control what people consider to be the truth and twist the truth around. But then, he learns that he is the insane person, because how could a minority of one ever be right? Slowly, it is learned that the Party can control the past by controlling what people think, and in essence, control the future. Soon enough however, he is tortured until finally he "comes to his senses" and loves the Party, and Big Brother, because certain things are unbearable for any man. he same time, and accepting both as the truth. Any person in the same situation would be forced to the sameconclusion. Everywhere you look in 1984, some kind of injustice is taking place: constant wars, people confessing to crimes they did not commit, people'smemories being rewritten every minute, the Party controls everything and seems to be like the Stalinist Russia. Winston is just a normal human being when compared to us, and on the outside he's also normal in Oceania. He knows how things work, but he doesn't know why they do, which hestruggles to find out like any other person would. But then, in the scene of theinterrogation, we learn a lot more about how the Party compares with "governments of the past," and how truly human Winston is. Winston can be seen as a representative of man throughout the book. As any of the readers would, Winston struggles against accepting the Party during the interrogation, because in his mind that means he won't be free. But it isn't over yet, because Winston, although belonging to the Party intellectually, cannot control how he feels towards it, and that's where Winston shows how truly human he is.
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