George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four is one of the most popular and critically-acclaimed novels of all time. However, a recent UK poll revealed that 42% of respondents had lied about having read this classic book in a bid to impress. Orwell’s novel is thus clearly deemed worthy of reading, likely due to its massive cultural impact upon modern society and its fascinating speculations concerning the future, yet why have so many people not yet got around to reading it?
This situation has begun to change with the recent political climate and election of President Donald Trump, resulting in a soar in sales of Nineteen Eighty-Four. Several Orwellian experts have drawn clear parallels between the novel and the current predicament, including Jean Seaton who states that ‘What you had previously thought you read at a cool, intellectual distance (a great book about “over there”, somewhere in the past or future) now feels intimate, bitter and shocking. Orwell is writing of now when he writes, “Every year fewer and fewer words, and the range of consciousness always a little smaller.”’ (Read the full article here: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/jan/25/george-orwell-donald-trump-kellyanne-conway-1984) However, if you have not yet joined the crowds and picked up a copy of Orwell’s famous novel, this article should convince you to do so.
Roughly speaking, Nineteen Eighty-Four is a dystopian novel set in the future with the action located in Airstrip One, belonging to the superstate of Oceania. It follows the daily life of Winston Smith who works for Big Brother and his Party in the Ministry of Truth where he is employed to rewrite the past in a way that supports the Party’s interests. However, Winston becomes more supportive of the truth than the fictions created by Big Brother and begins rebelling, at first minimally through writing a critical diary, then more significantly by starting a secret affair with Julia and attempting to join the underground Brotherhood. However, due to the intelligence provided by Big Brother’s totalitarian regime, including use of monitoring telescreens and deployment of Thought Police, Winston is identified as a traitor of the Party and captured along with Julia. The ending is both impressive and highly disturbing, but I won’t give it away.
Since its publication, Nineteen Eighty-Four has had a massive influence upon society and culture, most notably in its introduction of several new terms which have become commonplace within our everyday vocabulary such as ‘Big Brother’ and ‘Room 101’. Furthermore, Orwell’s novel has provided a huge source of inspiration for the entertainment industry, resulting in TV shows based upon both of the previous ideas and providing a wide array of concepts to be used and manipulated by contemporary musicians and writers alike.
Upon rereading the novel recently, the thing that struck me most was the incredibly horrific and oppressive nature of Big Brother’s regime. The idea of living your whole life under such intense control and surveillance is even more disturbing when you know it stems from Orwell’s vision for a future reality: one which hopefully will never materialise but is scarily imaginable, especially in light of the whole Trump debacle. Concepts such as ‘War is Peace’, ‘Freedom is Slavery’, and ‘Ignorance is Strength’ are clearly counterintuitive yet not altogether dismissible. Furthermore, some of the most unnerving elements of Orwell’s dystopian society, such as brainwashing and indoctrination, closely relate to those employed by Hitler and, arguably, by Trump, and are thereby uncomfortably close to real life.
However, novels like Nineteen Eighty-Four are not merely cause for worry but also cause for hope. If writers and human beings in general can see such a world as a terrifying and destructive creation, then we can fight against it and protect our freedom and integrity. Despite the recent major setback, the ensuing environment of intense discontent and protest proves that there is some good left in the world and, as long as we can identify and vanquish the evil, we will emerge on the other side.