Review: 1984 by George Orwell (Alternate title: "The hell of totalitarianism released on page")

Novel: Dystopia fiction, Political. Contains violence, adult situations, and disturbing imagery. 

This review contains spoilers. 

Down with Big Brother.

I hardly know where to begin.

1984 is as emotionally crushing as it is sickeningly honest, and it is as crushing as an out of control freight train. The beginning was a bit of slog for me, but the middle picked up my interest, and the story being spoiled for me, the ending still took me by surprise.

The story quickly robs you of all faith in a happy ending, it starts out cold hearted and grimy and ends in protruding contrast. Which isn’t to say that it ends happily, as the book says, happiness what everyone wants, and they are willing to sacrifice freedom for it. The book revolves around the character Winston Smith who lives in Oceania, a country which stretches from England to the bottom of South America. The book starts in the year 1984 of this alternate universe, in which the world is divided into three superpowers, each as dystopian as the last, but due to the authoritarian and obscurest manner of “The Party” (who rule Oceania with an  iron fist) it is highly difficult to even tell the year.

At first, the book does seem like the anti-Stalinist rant that many have mistaken it for. But in the end, it is more than that. It reflects on human nature, on cruelty and fascism as a whole. In this day and age, many have compared our current society with that of Oceania. I wholeheartedly disagree with these assumptions. The society depicted is essentially the worse we could ever reach. It is disgusted and corrupted in every sense of the word.

And that’s the point.

George Orwell wrote this as a cautionary tale, an idea of what the future (again, the book may not even take place in 1984, and if The Party wants it could be the year 3489734) might contain if we allow BigBrother to win. Children are turned into informant monsters, information is constantly revised so that The Party and their mascot, BigBrother, is right.

Winston writes “Down with Big Brother!” over and over again in the traitorous journal (books are of course illegal) he buys at the beginning of the book, because his soul has been exhausted by the madness infringed upon him by a government that is ruled by despicable men, and enforced by a mixture of sadists and (ideologically) rabid lunatics. DOWN WITH BIG BROTHER doesn’t mean down with communism, it doesn’t mean down with socialism either, and it doesn’t even mean down with fascism.

It means down with tyranny.

As Orwell enforces in the book, the lower class will remain in an awful situation regardless the human rights which are given or taken. They will remain there, to be used and abused by the ruler, as long as there is inequality. As long as there is a lower class to be abused, they will be abused. Orwell was a Marxist, he saw how awful capitalism was at the beginning of the 20^th century and late 19^th. He wanted something very simple, freedom followed by happiness.

The book reflects that he came to discover that people cannot have exactly both of those, so they will inevitably give up freedom. But when they give up freedom in 1984 it does not mean they pay the government more. They do not have a few Kafkaesque restrictions. They have given up identity, history, knowledge, certainty, and even the ability to think for themselves.

In short, they have surrendered themselves.

There are easily enough “proles” to overrun the system and reclaim their liberty. Heck, there are enough of the middle class “lower party members” to destroy the system if they sought fit. But anyone caught rebelling is thrashed into the worst manner possible. All hope is removed for them, and their entire life, as well as all memory of their existence, is removed. They could all win, and they are all miserable in their allotted spaces, even the majority of the upper-class Party members don’t live particularly well.

They do what they do for the hell of it, going long beyond thrashing the populace into submission, they are obsessed with destroying the psyche of the guilty party member. You see, common criminals are sent to labor camps, whereas “traitors” are thrown in The Ministry of Love, which, like the ministries of Peace, Plenty, and Truth, are named ironically. The middle class will never revolt because their instinct to survive drives them to be miserable, the lower class will not revolt because they are pre-occupied, and the upper class will stay slightly better than everyone else, but still miserable with the madness the system they worship endorses. By keeping people fearful and miserable, The Party knows they will never stand up.

“Until they became conscious they will never rebel, and until after they have rebelled they cannot become conscious.” But there is a dimwitted, self-imposed ignorance, one which both I and Orwell share a vehement abhorrence for.

“War is peace.
Freedom is slavery.
Ignorance is strength.”  

The Party operates by convincing its subjects to force themselves into the Doublespeak mindset, which is part of their twisted take on socialism, Ingsoc.

“Doublethink means the power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one's mind simultaneously, and accepting both of them.” 

While this can be attributed to the ridiculous standards and views of our society, it remains rooted in the idea that because The Party wields ultimate control over the minds of its citizens and therefore, their realities.

“The best books... are those that tell you what you know already.”

We know that tyranny is wrong. The only ones who are out pushing for fascism are neo-Nazi's and idiots. People who we collectively despise. We would all hate it under the rule of The Party, but when people in this day and age suggest similar rules or mindsets, we sit by like the dumb livestock in Orwell’s other famous book, Animal Farm. No dictators started out claiming totalitarianism to be their goal. It just takes a few slips of the public's attention, and they can get away with murder. That's why so much conservative media is devoted to keeping people fearing things like political correctness while poverty increases and people with mental illnesses have no one to turn to.

  “Big Brother is Watching You.” 

That oh so infamous line, one which caused idiots to make a reality TV show, that idiots could watch and root for more idiots. The people in 1984 wield no choice as to whether they want to be monitored, but today we willingly put our information where any sicko with a computer can see it.

In the end, it runs down to the fact that people can be cruel beyond comprehension to one another, and this book perfectly displays that cruelty and explains the logic behind it. It is a great, crushing book, and it will be there to laugh as they bury you. Because 1984 was finished in 1949, and its title might suggest that it is dated. But it is a classic. It is the worst dystopia that we could possibly imagine.

When we throw the book at fascism, nationalism, blind leadership, censorship, and authoritarianism, the book we throw is 1984. The book does not fail, it wasn’t what I expected, but it still remains unwavering.

But we as a society have failed. We failed to heed its warning. So, in the infamous words of George Orwell; “If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face – forever.”