1984

By Sampurna Chakraborty

2nd Year, BA English (Hons)

NAME OF THE BOOK: 1984

AUTHOR OF THE BOOK: George Orwell

NO. OF PAGES: 328

OVERALL RATING: 4/5

What if I tell you that you must lead a life where an omniscient and omnipresent authority were to decide how you think, behave and go about the ways of life? Where you don't have the freedom to love, desire is disdained, and relationships are steered by an outside party.

What if I tell you that any attempt at stirring a rebellion can lead your own children to sacrifice you for the glorification of the Party in rule and that 2+2=5 and you are obliged to believe me without question?

Suffocating, isn't it? This is precisely how you would feel if you lived in the same world as Winston Smith.

“WAR IS PEACE

FREEDOM IS SLAVERY

IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH”

This is the ideology of Big Brother, the party that governs Oceania.

George Orwell's dystopian novel 1984, explores the dangers of an authoritarian regime and the perils of the erasure of individuality. Set in Oceania, one of the three continental superstates that divided the world among themselves after a global war, Orwell’s masterful critique of the political structures of the time works itself out through the story of Winston Smith, a man caught in the web of a dystopian future and his clandestine love affair with Julia, a young woman he meets during the course of his work for the government. Published in the summer of 1949, it is one of the most definitive texts of modern literature.

Winston, an employee at the Ministry of Truth that works to alter the course of history, labours under a cumbersome struggle between a desire to break free from a power structure that not only controls information but also individual thought and a deep-seated fear of the haunting ramifications that might follow. The party manoeuvres itself through the Thought police that monitors citizens for signs of rebellion and Newspeak, a language aimed at eradicating words with dubious meaning and restricting freedom of thought.

A gripping tale about love, loss, betrayal and a constant attempt to decipher one's true self, George Orwell's 1984 is a timeless classic that satirizes the social and political structures of the world. One will go through a myriad of emotions while they devour through the pages of this book. Like Winston, you too will feel nothing short of being ensnared, flapping your wings hard enough to escape a fall, deep into a chasm that awaits you.

“Power is in tearing human minds to pieces and putting them together again in new shapes of your own choosing."

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