1984- A book review

How would you feel if you realize that your thoughts are not your own? How would you feel if all your thoughts were continuously monitored by a group of people whose only job is to make sure you do not think out of the line? What if your deepest thoughts and feelings were put up on display on a giant screen for everyone to see? Would you like to live in a place where Working, eating, drinking, sleeping, talking, thinking, procreating...in short living, all are controlled by the state?

It was a bright cold day in April and the clock struck thirteen. This is how it all begins. This is how the book 1984 starts.

 The author of this bleak haunting frightening yet incredible and mind-blowing book is Eric Arthur Blair better known by his pen name, George Orwell. George Orwell is best known  for   1984 and Animal Farm —they have together sold more copies than any two books by any other twentieth-century author. In 1998, the Modern Library ranked 1984 13th on its list of the 100 best English-language novels of the 20th century.  1984 is a 1948 dystopian novel about an oligarchic, collectivist society.

1984 occurs in Oceania, one of three intercontinental super-states who divided the world among themselves after a global war. Posters of the Party leader, Big Brother, bearing the caption BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING YOU attack the landscape, while the telescreen a transceiving television ubiquitously monitors the private and public lives of the populace. Life in the Oceanian province of Airstrip One is a world of perpetual war, pervasive government surveillance, and incessant public mind control. The individual is always subordinated to the state, and it is this philosophy which allows the Party to manipulate and control humanity.

The social class system is threefold:  the upper-class Inner Party, the middle-class Outer Party, and the lower-class Proles , who represent the working class. As the government, the Party controls the population through  four government ministries: the Ministry of Peace-Minipax which reports Oceania's perpetual war., Ministry of Plenty-rations and controls food, goods, and domestic production; Ministry of Love which identifies, monitors, arrests, and converts real and imagined dissidents. The dissident is believed  to be beaten and tortured, then, when near-broken, is sent to Room 101 to face "the worst thing in the world"—until love for Big Brother and the Party replaces dissension, and the Ministry of Truth- which controls information: news, entertainment, education, and the arts.

This is where protagonist Winston Smith  works as an editor revising historical records to concord the past to the present and deletes the official existence of people identified as unpersons. The three slogans of the Party are: WAR IS PEACE. FREEDOM IS SLAVERY. IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH. Any hint of disobedience or dislike can be detected by various state apparatus such as the Thought Police, telescreen, or even children, who will not hesitate to betray their parents to the authorities. Even language is modified in such ways that you cannot express yourself, since individualism is a crime.

What happens when one person defies the rules and begins to nurse doubts about the Party and its monopoly on truth? What happens when one person decides to go against the all powerful Big Brother?   Winston Smith does precisely this. The story follows Winston on his journey to discover the truth about the society in which he lives and his hopes to make things right by attempting to join the Brotherhood, an organization dedicated to the destruction of the Party. His meager existence disillusions him to the point of seeking rebellion against Big Brother, eventually leading to his arrest, torture, and reconversion.   The story is so powerful and disturbing that you can’t help but imagine yourself alongside Wilson, living in the dreadful world where the past is controlled, rewritten into something that will strengthen the incumbent ruler.

Now you may think..Thank god that was just a story. But is it really just a part of fiction, a figment of our imagination in the present times? Day in and day out we are continuously under the surveillance of cameras and webcams. We have reality shows, the 24/7 news channels which are always on the hunt for some sensational  news, the omni-present internet where all our personal information are available a click away. Your mail engine reads through our mail and spams you with advertisements related to them. Given a chance they could make an entire profile of you, your likes, dislikes, your interests, your contacts, not sparing even  your deepest darkest secrets. Aren't we all living in a world where a lie repeated over and over again eventually is accepted as the truth? The dots are there to connect them. But the real question is, will you dare to do it, like Winston smith did? All I have is a piece of advice; remember The Big Brother is always watching!!