1984, written in 1949 by George Orwell, portrays a futuristic socialistic society. In the novel, the government is run by someone or something called Big Brother. Big Brother has control over all aspects of a person’s life. The plot centers around a man named Winston Smith, who lives in London. Winston works for the Records Department of the Ministry of Truth. The Records Department continuously revises the past to suit the current needs of Big Brother and the Party. Winston’s job is to change newspaper articles that are no longer acceptable for a variety of reasons. One of the reasons is when people are vaporized. A vaporized person has all of the written evidence of his existence erased by the Thought Police. The Thought Police eventually catch people who act against the government. Winston falls in love with another Party member named Julia. Winston, who is keeping an illegal diary of his thoughts, meets Julia in the area of London where the Proles live. The Proles are the lower class working people who are not Party members. Julia and Winston soon become friends with a man named O’Brien. O’Brien appears to be a member of a group that is opposed to Big Brother. After Julia and Winston join the opposition movement, they read a book that describes the rebellion against Big Brother. Eventually, the Thought Police arrest Winston and Julia in their rented room. Both Julia and Winston are taken to the Ministry of Love, but they are separated from each other. Winston discovers that, rather than being killed, he is to be rehabilitated. O’Brien is actually in allegiance with Big Brother and tortures Winston to make Winston understand what is expected of him. After nine months of the torture, Winston reaches friendly terms with O’Brien. As a final test of allegiance to Big Brother, Winston is subjected to his worst fear, rats. In Room 101, O’Brien puts a cage of rats over Winston’s head, at which point Winston betrays Julia. Winston says, “Do it to Julia! Not me” (236)! Afterwards, Winston is released to live in society once again.
I enjoy considering different views of how the world could be. Because the novel was published in 1949, reading it in 2009 is more like seeing how the past could have been. George Orwell presents a seemingly Utopian society, where the police and the government see and control everything. The society that he creates in 1984 restricts privacy to a point where not even thoughts are private. Several of the policies in 1984 remind me of the policies that George W. Bush started after the 9/11 terrorist attacks. In the novel, for example, the Thought Police know the thoughts that people have about the government and society. These Thought Police remind me of the phone tapping policy that Bush endorsed to locate possible terror suspects. In the novel people suddenly disappear and their names and accomplishments are erased and forgotten. These disappearances remind me of the instances when the CIA destroyed several tapes of terror interrogations.
As to my opinion of the book, I find this book to be phenomenally interesting. However, the novel starts at a slow, crawling pace. After the first third of the book, the plot is so engaging that I could not put the book down. Once Winston joins the movement against Big Brother, the book begins to get very exciting. By the time that Winston reaches Room 101, I am so taken by the action that I feel as if the room I am in has turned into Room 101. After this climax, I am disappointed that Winston lacks the ability to withstand the Party’s rehabilitation that returns him to orthodoxy. It is a strong warning to all of us about the power of governments.
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1984 sounds like an intriguing book to read. I have often sat in discomfort at the thought that at anytime, a conversation on my phone line could be listened to. Personally, I view it to be a violation of my rights as a citizen. Despite these feelings, I believe President Bush’s thought process on the approval of tapping phone lines was strictly an attempt to stop terrorism from attacking his country and nothing else. But knowing how corrupt our world has grown to be, I admit I’m not entirely comfortable with it; especially when the people of the United States are not told who or what is in charge of the said technology. Yet, so numerous are the pros and cons to this new development in scientific knowledge, I can’t exactly make up my mind whether I approve or not.
ReplyDeleteIt’s interesting to think how one is fine with the taping of phone lines and satellite home surveillance of a released murder, suspected terrorist, or thief. Yet if the same surveillance was being done to our own telephones and homes we would be outraged. In a way it makes me feel safe knowing people who have gone against the law are under surveillance, but this also opens the door for the same treatment to be used towards me. And since I don’t approve of these methods in my own life, believing it to be intrusive to my privacy, what am I to do?! The argument I see arising to this would be, “They broke the law, and so they deserve it.” Then again, what if the released convicts or suspected ones have changed their ways? Doesn’t that make their argument the same I’m making here?
In the right hands, the technology being discussed could prevent numerous terrorist attacks and crime to be committed. Yet in the wrong hands it becomes a weapon of extreme power. My biggest question is this, is technology that keeps peace and upholds the law really a good thing if it invades a person’s rights?