1984 is a great book.

[Jen-e Johnson]

Hi whoever's reading this, I bought 1984 on my own, but hence my lack of self disipline, I waited untill I was forced to read it for school. So I read the book, and I enjoyed it so much. I think I enjoyed it more as a piece of literature than a book about politcs, I think I saw it more as a book about how humans act and a book about truth and love. It's a book that I think I'll always have with in my memory.. It's actually kind of funny because I got pretty attracted to Winston throughout the course of the story, and I'm only 16 years old!!<br>So anyways, I just thought I'd add my opinion about this story along with the 500 million other ones that are on this site.<br> sincereley, jen-e johnson<br>

[6079 Smith, W]

Hi there!
You and me are in the same boat. I heard about the book at school in Language class so I went out and bought it, read it in a week, read it on the same night I finished in again and now I'm reading it again !!:D :nod:
I really like Winston, not as a boyfriend,:blush: but I would really like to be him, he's become my total idol, even after he was so unfairly conquered and tortured in the end. I hate O'Brien! :flare:
Nice to know so many people like the book as well...... and by the way the scene in the woods is soooooooooooooooooooo romantic, right??? :yawnb: :nod:
W.

[starrwriter]

I really like Winston, not as a boyfriend ...
No kidding.


but I would really like to be him, he's become my total idol, even after he was so unfairly conquered and tortured in the end.
Why? I think Orwell portrayed Winston as a miserable excuse for a human being at the end of the book.

The novel is a warning about government bureaucracy that has already come true to a surprising extent. NewSpeak has been standard political practice (now called "spin") for a long time. The U.S. war department was insidiously renamed the defense department when the Cold War started. President Nixon's press secretary once described a statement as "no longer operative" -- meaning it was a lie in the first place. In the novel the totalitarian government's treatment of its citizens as less than human is mirrored today by fully-funded government agencies that fail to put a dent in the growing number of homeless and hungry people. While jobs are outsourced to foreign countries, prisons burst at the seams with unemployed people who resort to crime to survive.

Orwell was a visionary prophet. In the late 1940s he saw where we were heading and we have largely arrived at the dismal dystopia he foretold.

[ThatIndividual]

While you are certainly entitled to think of Winston as a miserable excuse for a human being, it wasn't Orwell's intent to portray through him any 'miserable excuse' for a human being. Not at all. If you'll remember, Winston held out for quite a long time throughout the torture. He withstood quite a lot of pain and torture before breaking. He withstood much torture even before mentioning the girl. Orwell's intention was that any human would eventually break and become 'a miserable excuse for a human.' There are no heroes. Winston tried to be one, and failed, as we all would. Winston is meant to represent MODERN MAN, not an example of a weak man, or a miserable excuse for a man. He's simply man. It's far more accurate to say, instead of Winston is a sorry excuse for a man, that MAN IS A MISERABLE EXCUSE FOR A BEING. Men are selfish, men are cruel. That is Orwell's point. Even the good ones, like Winston, at some point, must break.
This is to be seen as well in Animal Farm. In the final paragraph, the pigs (rulers) are in the farmhouse having a feast and drinking with the neighboring farmers (men). The animals are looking at this from without and in the final lines of the book, Orwell writes that their gazes fell upon the faces of the pigs, and then on the faces of the men... Then upon the pigs, then upon the men... And eventually it became apparent that they couldn't tell which was which.
This was why Socialism never works. In 1984, EngSoc was the banner behind the pictures of Big Brother. It's the story of a Socialist society, turned Fascist. This is identical to Animal Farm. Orwell means to say that men are miserable and selfish, naturally. (Like Napoleon in Animal Farm.) Even the good ones, like Winston, who aren't that selfish, still have their breaking point, and still will act selfishly. It's the human condition that is the object of prosecution for Orwell, not Winston, or any man in particular.

[6079 Smith, W]

Why should Winston be a miserable excuse for a human????
I think George Orwell gave him patriotic qualities, to stand up again a huge enemy alone because you know it isn't right instead of unwillingly going with the flow. Thats what impresses me and makes Winston my Idol. You shouldn't always just accept things although they are completly wrong.
What happens to him in the end is just to show that you cannot stand up to the government without being conquered sooner or later, it just happens. But still the act is very brave and daring, it's a symbol of humanity.:nod: And like Thatindiviual so wisely said: Everyone has its breaking point, you cannot endure pain and torture forever. Room 101 is merely the last stage of torture which always works on every indiviual, its like O'Brien said its like a reflex to not be able to bear it. I wonder how many people would just sit in that strapped chair and do nothing to prevent what is coming. I certainly think I wouldn't if someone told me my face was about to be eaten alive by rats. I mean COME ON!
W.