Nineteen Eighty-four And Why George Orwell Matters

By Author: tina reeves
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Nineteen Eighty-Four is a dystopian novel published in the year 1949 by George Orwell, an English novelist and journalist. He believed in social democracy and had a passion for clarity in language. The book is a dystopian political fiction and a modern classic novel in content, plot, and style. It’s set in Oceania, a society ruled by an oligarchical dictatorship. A political system, euphemistically named English Socialism, subordinates the people of Oceania to a supposed greater good. The privileged inner-party members work on government surveillance and incessant public mind control. Big Brother, the part leader, decries individuality and reason as thought-crime.

Of the things citizens have lost, privacy is just one. The state uses language as a mind control tool. The press is state-run and literature is state-revised. Autonomy is not an option. Modern advocates who understand the book’s power, use Orwell to argue against private-sector databases and the deployment of technology. Orwell combines a thriller narrative with a core political message to demonstrate his brilliance as a thinker and his masterfulness as ...
... a literary artist. The story revolves around an outer-party member named Winston Smith who secretly hates the Party and thinks of rebelling against Big Brother. The strongest aspect of the novel is Orwell's blunt answer to the question of ‘why’. Winston had read a book that described how the Party stays in power, but he is plagued by the question of ‘why’. When he asks this question, the answer is as blunt as it could be imagined; power for the sake of power. We are confronted with the abstract homily about absolute power and the confidence of its own immortality. The reality of complete and utter social power perpetuates itself. There should be tears in our eyes at the ending, for different reasons than Winston's tears, as Winston sits in the Chestnut Tree, thinking about how much he loves Big Brother.

The cultural impact of this classic is huge. Phrases like Big Brother, Room 101, the Thought Police, thoughtcrime, unperson, memory hole, doublethink and Newspeak have become contemporary vernacular since publication, denoting authority. Even an asteroid that was discovered in 1984 was named Orwell.

Upon publication, the book was heavily censored and the Soviets even banned it. The book has been included in many literature classes. Orwell was right about the three big issues of the 20th century--imperialism, fascism, and Stalinism. He trumpeted a warning we still listen to. Orwell was a leftist, but embraced by the right. A radical, certainly. He emerged out of family; father had made a living out of selling opium. It may be noted that there is no mention of any father in any of his works. He distances himself from any kind father figure. Orwell never had a steady publisher, job, or income, was insecure and risked his life.

Privacy and government power have an inverse relation. Orwell wrote Nineteen Eighty-Four to caution against the power of governments. He also predicted the loss of privacy in the future. We do not have ‘telescreens’, but what we do have is an expansion of CCTV. Our Internet use, e-mails and phone calls can all be monitored. Credit cards allow our movements to be tracked and our spending habits to be analyzed. At the time of publication, authoritative governments were on the march in many parts of the world and the future looked bleak.

Today, we can read the book knowing that the core of Orwell’s vision did not come to pass. There are a lot internet boards that discuss literature and one can even join fan clubs of their favorite authors. These boards can be accessed over the internet at a reasonable cost with bundled offers like Time Warner Deals.

Tina is a blogger and a freelance writer. She writes about books and the various deals provided by ISPs like Time Warner Deals[/a].