Nineteen Eighty-Four

‘Does he exist in the same way as I exist?’ ‘You do not exist.’ In the drab, windowless offices of the Ministry of Truth’s Records Department, Winston Smith rewrites history to fit the Party’s infallible narrative. Winston is skilled at his job—so much so that it is beginning to work on his own memory. The Party, headed by Big Brother, and its various ministries have succeeded in crushing nearly all forms of human life, from language to love to memory itself. One evening, a long-suppressed instinct returns to Winston; he has a sudden urge to rebel. This defiance initially takes the form of secret diary entries, venting his frustrations on the bleakness of everyday life under the Party’s rule. Winston soon begins an affair with Julia, a defiant young machinist from the Fiction Department. The lovers’ secret meetings and shared desire for freedom draw them into a shadowy conspiracy of dissidents working to bring down Big Brother. In doing so, they risk coming under the notice of the Thought Police and of the terror that waits for them in Room 101. Nineteen Eighty-Four is George Orwell’s second late masterpiece, following Animal Farm, and one of the twentieth century’s defining works of fiction. Its influence on cultural and political thought is incalculable, from how we discuss language, censorship and technology, to concepts for reality television. Numerous phrases from the novel have entered into common usage: Big Brother, Thought Police, Newspeak, Doublethink, Room 101. However, it is more than just the first source of familiar terms and phrases. Nineteen Eighty-Four is as much a psychological thriller and romance as it is a political warning. It presents a frightening human contradiction, the simultaneous need to both reject and embrace tyranny, whether self-imposed or at the hands of a political system.