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Oceania is at war with Eastasia. It has always been at war with Eastasia. Winston Smith knows that this is not true - Oceania was allied with Eastasia in the recent past - but as a worker in the Ministry of Truth, it is his job to rewrite history to match the party line. He knows that life used to be better than this - at least, he thinks he can remember when it was, but, thanks to the Ministry, there is no written evidence left. Knowing that he is doomed to fail, Winston decides to rebel.
A lot has been written about Orwell's great political dystopia, and I doubt that I can add any great insights, but here goes...
As a novel, I think Nineteen Eighty-Four suffers somewhat from the Expository Lump, occasionally reading like a political info-dump (totalitarian-state-HOWTO, anyone?) However, given the quality and power of the political message it carries, it seems churlish to complain about such things.
The exceptional description of a grim, gritty London, watched over by thought police, left me feeling paranoid and dirty just by reading it, and a sense of opression permeates every word.
Despite being written over fifty years ago, the political message is still relevant. If anything, in today's world of global, politically-influenced TV news networks, the message is even more important than when Orwell wrote it.
Read it.
Oceania is at war with Eastasia. It has always been at war with Eastasia. Winston Smith knows that this is not true - Oceania was allied with Eastasia in the recent past - but as a worker in the Ministry of Truth, it is his job to rewrite history to match the party line. He knows that life used to be better than this - at least, he thinks he can remember when it was, but, thanks to the Ministry, there is no written evidence left. Knowing that he is doomed to fail, Winston decides to rebel.
A lot has been written about Orwell's great political dystopia, and I doubt that I can add any great insights, but here goes...
As a novel, I think Nineteen Eighty-Four suffers somewhat from the Expository Lump, occasionally reading like a political info-dump (totalitarian-state-HOWTO, anyone?) However, given the quality and power of the political message it carries, it seems churlish to complain about such things.
The exceptional description of a grim, gritty London, watched over by thought police, left me feeling paranoid and dirty just by reading it, and a sense of opression permeates every word.
Despite being written over fifty years ago, the political message is still relevant. If anything, in today's world of global, politically-influenced TV news networks, the message is even more important than when Orwell wrote it.
Read it.
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Re: There *is* hope in the proles
Date: 2003-12-26 13:42 (UTC)I had, just about, picked up an undercurrent of hope from the the main body of the book, but it's a nice touch to have a few more hints about.