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1984


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(pub. 1949)





Webmaster's Note, 5/10/2007 - We have been informed by the rights holder that this work is still copyrighted in our territory. So we have removed it. You may still read our original summary though to the left.

Also commonly titled as Nineteen Eighty-Four

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1984 is possibly the definitive dystopian novel, set in a world beyond our imagining. A world where totalitarianism really is total, all power split into three roughly equal groups--Eastasia, Eurasia, and Oceania. 1984 is set in Oceania, which includes the United Kingdom, where the story is set, known as Airstrip One.

Winston Smith is a middle-aged, unhealthy character, based loosely on Orwell's own frail body, an underling of the ruling oligarchy, The Party. The Party has taken early 20th century totalitarianism to new depths, with each person subjected to 24 hour surveillance, where people's very thoughts are controlled to ensure purity of the oligarchical system in place. Figurehead of the system is the omnipresent and omnipotent Big Brother.

But Winston believes there is another way.

1984 joins Winston as he sets about another day, where his job is to change history by changing old newspaper records to match with the new truth as decided by the Party.

"He who controls the past, controls the future" is a Party slogan to live by and it gives Winston his job, but Winston cannot see it like that. Barely old enough to recall a time when things were different, he sets out to expose the Party for the cynically fraudulent organisation that it is. He is joined by Julia, a beautiful young woman much in contrast with Winston physically, but equally sickened by the excesses of her rulers.

You will meet many recognisable characters, themes, and words which have become part of our everyday life as you read 1984. Where did Big Brother first appear? Certainly not on Australian TV! Written in Orwell's inimitable journalistic style, 1984 is a tribute to a man who saw the true dangers of historian Lord Acton's (1834-1902) statement: "Power corrupts; absolute power corrupts absolutely."

Submitted by The Atheist.



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Recent Forum Posts on 1984

What the Hell?

I have never read such utter drivel in my life. Orwell has made up words, without proper definition, and the backstory simply makes no sense. London is continuously at war with one region or another, so what does the government do? they decide to turn the citizens of London into mindless automatons. How does that solve anything? And why didn't they just try and leave? It seems to Winston that the whole world revolves around his workplace. It sucks that I have to study this book for Unit 4. :flare:

Posted By Wattsini1 at Tue 30 Jun 2009, 9:08 AM in 1984 || 3 Replies

Short info on the CCTV cameras in the Uk and around George Orwell's flat

I just learnt that within 200 yards of the flat where George Orwell wrote 1984 there are 32 CCTV cameras! That has totally shocked me! I am listening to a BBC radio 4 programme talking about privacy, and apparently the UK has 20 per cent of the amount of cameras there are in the world.... this is just crazy! And what makes it sad is that if George Orwell saw how it's turned out now, this big brother state, he would be so shocked that it's us that's mainly brought this about, a lot of people want them there.... Just thought people might be interested in what I have learnt today :)

Posted By SmileyBon at Fri 19 Jun 2009, 7:08 AM in 1984 || 5 Replies

Forced-labour camps

When he came back his mother had disappeared. This was already becoming normal at that time. Nothing was gone from the room except his mother and his sister. They had not taken any clothes, not even his mother's overcoat. To this day he did not know with any certainty that his mother was dead. It was perfectly possible that she had merely been sent to forced−labour camp. As for his sister, she might have been removed, like Winston himself, to one of the colonies for homeless children (Reclamation Centres, they were called) which had grown up as a result of the civil war might have been sent to the labour camp along with his mother, or simply left somewhere or other to die. Winston's mother and father disappeared in the mid 1950's, five years before the word 'Ingsoc' appeared. 'The two of them must evidently have been swallowed up in one of the first great purges of the fifties.' Presumably 'the party' had just overthrown the UK parliament and monarchy in a bloody coup, following nuclear world war. Labour camps were set up to isolate suspect citizens. Can we assume that Ampleforth, Parsons and Syme were sent to labour camps rather than destined to Room 101 and a bullet through the brain?

Posted By Gladys at Wed 17 Jun 2009, 8:55 PM in 1984 || 5 Replies

Just a deterrent?

Is the reason for the Inner Party's elaborate torture and token rehabilitation of thought criminals and worse, nothing more than an expensive way to deter future unrest within the Outer Party?

Posted By Gladys at Thu 11 Jun 2009, 11:48 PM in 1984 || 4 Replies

Does O'Brien love Big Brother?

In what sense, if any, does O'Brien love Big Brother? Hardly in the same way as Parsons, Syme, or Winston in the Chestnut Tree Café. Does O'Brien really think he's doing Winston a favour in Room 101? Surely O'Brien knows he's a viscous torturer, working to dehumanise Winston. O'Brien seems to defend Ingsoc primarily to preserve the privileged existence of he and his mates. Does O'Brien regard 'Big Brother' as anything more than a euphemism for his personal claim to power and privilege? O'Brien seems a man without conscience or creed. Are all Inner Party members, like O'Brien, as culpable as Eichmann, Hitler’s gas chamber bureaucrat?

Posted By Gladys at Wed 10 Jun 2009, 5:16 AM in 1984 || 2 Replies

You are prepared, the two of you, to separate?

At his sumptuous residence, O'Brien asks Winston and Julia a question. 'You are prepared, the two of you, to separate and never see one another again?' 'No!' broke in Julia. It appeared to Winston that a long time passed before he answered. For a moment he seemed even to have been deprived of the power of speech. His tongue worked soundlessly, forming the opening syllables first of one word, then of the other, over and over again. Until he had said it, he did not know which word he was going to say. 'No,' he said finally. Why does Winston hesitate before replying, unlike Julia? Is there evidence to support one of these possibilities: Winston is bothered by O'Brien's motives in asking such a question. Winston is intimidated by O'Brien. Winston is desperate for freedom. Winston almost rates subverting Ingsoc above his love for Julia. Winston is reluctant to offend Julia, and lies.

Posted By Gladys at Sat 6 Jun 2009, 7:56 AM in 1984 || 4 Replies

Parsons and Poet in MiniLove

Just finished 1984; my head is still reeling. I have a hundred thoughts in my head but I’ll start with one: Did Parson really yell out in his sleep “down with big brother” or did his daughter lie in her incrimination? If he did yell it out, does that further support that all of society has a natural notion (ancestrial knowlege, I think Winston called it) of right/wrong, just/unjust and how things ought be? What about the poet (his name eludes me) that is in the holding cell? Was his seemingly unconscious act to not strike God from the poem mimic Parsons sleeping outburst? Yet Parson is not a critical thinker. He is not inteligent enought to question Ingsog and yet his subconsious does?

Posted By Litchr-LiteWait at Thu 4 Jun 2009, 7:27 AM in 1984 || 9 Replies

Why Orwell made Goldstein a Jew?

It might be debatable, but Orwell paints a stereotypical image of a Jew for the apparently, but not unequivocally, mythical underground resistance leader named Goldstein. I think it is significant. Orwell knew the Nazi's used the Jews as a scapegoat and that they were persecuted in Soviet Russia. The character of the Jews as being different but also historically persistent is what Orwell is projecting here and is what is needed for a tyranny's scapegoat. The Jews also discovered conscience and morality which is what Orwell's Party in 1984 stands opposite.

Posted By Leonard_K at Sat 30 May 2009, 1:36 PM in 1984 || 12 Replies

Original copy for sale

http://cgi.ebay.com/George-Orwell-1984-ORIGINAL-COPY-published-1949_W0QQitemZ220421954033QQcmdZViewItemQQptZUS_Fiction_Books?hash=item33522c19f1&_trksid=p3286.c0.m14&_trkparms=72%3A570|66%3A2|65%3A12|39%3A1|240%3A1318|301%3A1|293%3A1|294%3A50 had to post it....big brother told me to....hes standing right behind me

Posted By jorgis at Fri 29 May 2009, 4:43 PM in 1984 || 4 Replies

Orwell was no prophet, but an honest man

(Please, note that english is not my mothertongue. I hope I will not foul it too heavily) 60 years after, Orwell's 1984 keeps sparking questions, as this forum attests. Of course, we answer many of those questions according to our personal political stance. But there is one particular theme on which I think many people could agree, so I submit it to test: IMHO, Orwell NEVER intended 1984 as a prophecy. It was used in that perverted way by people with their own agenda (Disqualify any attempt to overcome capitalism, or on the other side, reject the book as a treason to the "People's Cause"). What Orwell did was share his questions. The aching questions of an honest man, left without any certainty. He wrote a scary tale, a fable, a nightmare, you name it, but not an argumented vision of the future. Reporter as he was, an acute observer of his times, he could have built an argumented case, but he did not. Again IMHO, his main concern was the individual, not the system. In his book "Homage to Catalonya" (1938), he leaves no doubt that he praised equality of rank, pay, etc..., anarchy, to name it. And when that ephemeral equality was bashed by the communists, the very party which was supposed to rather fight for it, well...he was left orphan, with nothing more than an unextinguished faith in human decency. But even that last core of faith was continually tested by all the lies and the propaganda that the western and eastern élites alike swallowed and repeated until they became official truth. To sum up, when I re-read 1984, I hear an honest man, grieving his lost innocence, desperately trying not to become desperate (sorry for the poor image). And maybe telling us, people of his future: "In my time, we were SO EASY to manipulate, especially by those who instrumentalize our hopes. Have you made any progress, dear friends?" Have we?

Posted By Sindel at Mon 25 May 2009, 9:07 AM in 1984 || 32 Replies

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