George Orwell 1984 Summary

Nineteen Eighty-Four is, by many accounts, George Orwell’s best work, finished just before he died, which describes his prophetic vision of the future in relentless detail. Completed in 1949, the futuristic story of a dystopian universe is an intrepid read that will be difficult to look away from.

Winston Smith is an average Party member in Airstrip One, the location where London used to be.The Party sees the people of Oceania everywhere - their houses, workplaces, and apartment buildings - through telescreens put in in every wall. The little television like devices enable the Party to diffuse propoganda incessantly, while at the same time letting the thought police to see and listen in anything within the telescreen's range. When someone is caught by the telescreen working in an unorthodox manner they are just about definitively doomed to be caught and made to vanish in the hands of the thought police.

Among Winston’s responsibilities at his job in the Ministry of Truth – or ‘Minitrue,’ in newspeak (the handicapped and molested adaptation of the English language the Party is working on) - is removing all records of a person’s name once they run afoul of the thought police. Not only that, but, he edits newspapers in which high ranking Party members made predictions which happened to be incorrect, lowers estimates of output goals to make it seem as if manufactured goods is in surplus, and incinerates or rewrites books which are enthusiastic about or promote individualistic or other liberal behavior.

The image Orwell illustrates of the worldwide community is equally perturbing. He identifies a planet in which only 3 states remain, in a state of constant war with each other. The war they fight is untraditional in its role as well - it is fought only as a means of destroying manufactured goods, which therefore makes a call for work enabling the authorities to maintain control over its population. Orwell tells the reader that the war exists chiefly as an emotional justification for such destruction, as plainly throwing out or burning up the commodities allows a similar situation but leaves the people less content.

1984 is a warning to everyone about the world an authoritarian mentality is likely to create. Orwell’s interpretation of a fascist political ruling will send shudders up the backbone and unveil moments of devastating verity which can leave in the audience a feeling as if they are combing through a history book or a Nostradamus prediction instead of a story. The fact that George Orwell completed what a lot of his followers call his most brilliant piece just before his dying allows for a notion of precognitive mysticism which will leave the audience wishing for more even after the story is complete.

By: Jason Whitey

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