1984? They wish

[wordstoliveby]

Sums it up



“My conclusion would be that success or failure in competitive activities heretofore asserted exhibits no tendency to be commensurate with any objective consideration of the elucidated phenomena which necessarily compels the innate capacity, but that a considerable element of the unpredictable must invariably be taken under consideration or in the alternative should be considered bull****.”



You see ... what you do is put a bunch of 75 cent words in a spinning drum and have three educated idiots pull out four to six each and place them in random order, call it a major event, publish it, and be declared a genius. A similar device was used for the naming of Cabbage Patch Kids ....

[Goldenchild]

The proles lead simple lives, away from the hassles of the party and Big Brother. Though uneducated, they seemed happy. On the contrary, those people who are educated, like Wintson smith, lead unhappy and controlled lives working in the ministries, under the constant watchful eye of Big Brother.

What do you think was a key motivator/s for loving BB? Some characters faked this love including Wintson and Julia, but why is it, that people like O'Brien and Mr Charrington have a genuine love and dedication to the party?

Please enlighten me with a response, i'm finding it difficult to understand their motives.

[rabid reader]

I think what truely makes 1984 a masterpeice is not the government and the system. It's not the Ministry of Truth where the manufactor lies or the Ministry of Love where they create hate, no. It's Orwell's ability to accuartly depict human nature in a world where the human (as we know it) seems extinct.

Dispite all the control, all the safty procausions, it is still evident that the natural rebel still lives in the system. Eventually the rebel fails like most, but still the existance of Winston's will is an encouraging ray of hope in the dark world.

[Goldenchild]

That ray of hope is indeed evident through Winston's ability to fight the inherent beliefs of society around him, yet the "victory" at the end can only leave the reader feeling that there is no hope in a bleak future... if it mirrors the society that Orwell created.

Many people would agree that the present days reflect what Orwell stitched together through the shortening of our language, through our constant monitoring and surveillance and being brainwashed by the media. With that in mind i question...should we expect that the worst is yet to come?

[gtambourines]

Satire??? really??? No. Satire is generally supposed to be funny. Unless I've been missinformed. I think it's pretty straight forward. It's not a prediction so much as a warning. The world could possibly turn into this if we are not carefull. And I think it could, as long as the majority of the world is living in such terrible conditions that it doesn't care about the government (which it is).

[oak_jam]

Satire??? really??? No. Satire is generally supposed to be funny.

No. Satire does not have top be funny. "Satire is generally witty, but is not essentially comedic"

Unless I've been missinformed. I think it's pretty straight forward. It's not a prediction so much as a warning. The world could possibly turn into this if we are not carefull. And I think it could, as long as the majority of the world is living in such terrible conditions that it doesn't care about the government (which it is).

I disagree. It is because the western world is living in essentially good conditions that people don't feel the need to challenge the governments.

[thescholar]

I'd like to make a comment about the first post- specifically, mind over matter.

I agree with many of the above posts concerning this matter- If you truly beleive that you are unaffected by gravity- then you won't actually notice that you are quite suddenly dead. Think about the mentally insane, or the movie "A Beautiful Mind." A person's mind may tell them one thing, when 'reality' is something completely different.

If Winston was broken down far enough to truly beleive that 2+2=5, then no one would be able to convince him otherwise, despite what we know to be 'true.'

think of i this way. you are in an anti grav chamber. your "normal" assumptions of "up" "down" "left" "right" are NO LONGER APPLICABLE. the same goes for modern connotations of true, good, right, wrong, free, and the like. you have to realize that, in order to achieve empathy with Winston one must first forget about their preconceived notions about almost everything. just remember, many aspects (such as truth, fair, good, etc.) of this novel can not be compared to "today"

[kelby_lake]

i agree that it is unlikely that 1984 will be repeated exactly but maybe that's just because we can't comprehend a future like that. i doubt we'd have a future like that unless a massive event happened- something would have to be the trigger for it, I'm sure. And the scary thing about the book is that self-doubt is scary and possible. We know things because we've been told them, or read them, etc, but what if they're not true? Have you ever had a memory of your childhood where you think you can remember, say, falling off a swing in a park in Paris, but you're not actually sure it happened? If you had a video then you could definitively say it happened but if you didn't have a video, or photograph, or something, you wouldn't know it had happened.

[kevinthediltz]

The proles lead simple lives, away from the hassles of the party and Big Brother. Though uneducated, they seemed happy. On the contrary, those people who are educated, like Wintson smith, lead unhappy and controlled lives working in the ministries, under the constant watchful eye of Big Brother.

What do you think was a key motivator/s for loving BB? Some characters faked this love including Wintson and Julia, but why is it, that people like O'Brien and Mr Charrington have a genuine love and dedication to the party?

Please enlighten me with a response, i'm finding it difficult to understand their motives.

The mindless and ignorant love that O'Brian and Mr Charrington feel toward big brother can be most easily compared to western religion. No one in any church anywhere has genuinely seen, heard, felt, or been affected by a God in any way. But ask any christian or catholic or mormon or whatever and they will tell you how much they "love" God. God is seen as all powerful, all knowing, and all loving, as well as the ultimate decider of our fate and destiny. i.e. His "plan" or however its refered to. Big Brother is seen in EXACTLY the same light. This is the very reason that i believe Orwell Wrote 1984 as anti-totalitarian as well as anti-catholic. He uses their "love" for big brother as representitive of someones "love" for God. However he puts it into the application of "love" for a dictator to more easily exemplify its somewhat rediculous concept of love for an unseen,unfelt, idolic figure.

I hope this offers you MY retoric on 1984. It may not agree with yours, and frankly i dont care, right and wrong is not the point of retorical analysis. And Im sorry if i offended anyone, I am simply pointing out how 1984 and modern western religion are similar. And its no secret that orwell wasn't a big fan of catholicism.

As for me, i admire those with faith. I just hate the modern adaptation of conformed religion. I have no problem with (ANY) religion, just the church.

[kevinthediltz]

Also, 1984 is a warning against the government and media, only in a shallow sense. It is more focused on the true value in life: love, loyalty, and compassion. It is a warning to not lose your individuality. Orwell had an appriciation for the lower, working class because, like modern society, its the only place where human nature can still be found. When is the last time you saw a business man stop on the side of a road to help an old lady change a tire? The proles show this loyalty to fellow man in 1984. Not because they will somehow be rewarded, only because they feel the need of another human. "The proles are human beings, we are not human" Winston says this at the end of chapter 6 part two.

[The Atheist]

The mindless and ignorant love that O'Brian and Mr Charrington feel toward big brother can be most easily compared to western religion.

As you say, each to his own on interpretation, but I think you're way off base here. To claim equivalence between christianity and the RCC and 1984, you'd need to display that the pope, cardinals and priests of the RCC are all in collusion at building a fake god for the good of their organisation.

As you may guess from my name, I'm an atheist - and a fairly cynical one - but I have no doubt that the beliefs of priests are honest and result from no doubelthink at all.

And Im sorry if i offended anyone, I am simply pointing out how 1984 and modern western religion are similar. And its no secret that orwell wasn't a big fan of catholicism.

Yes, but you're doing Orwell a disservice by suggesting that he hid criticism of the church in 1984. Orwell not only painted his targets brightly, he made sure his barbs went all the way home. Subtlety was not his strong suit. Orwell made his feelings toward religion plain in many essays and some of his other novels, so he had no need to try to hide a message inside 1984. 1984 is purely anti-totalitarian.

Also, 1984 is a warning against the government and media, only in a shallow sense. It is more focused on the true value in life: love, loyalty, and compassion. It is a warning to not lose your individuality.

I think you're putting the cart before the horse a little - Orwell's message was all about totalitarianism, the concepts of love and loyalty are ancillary to that, as is individualism. See my sig.

Orwell had an appriciation for the lower, working class because, like modern society, its the only place where human nature can still be found. When is the last time you saw a business man stop on the side of a road to help an old lady change a tire?

I'm sorry, but this is plain nonsense. You have actually just re-hashed the Party's own history of hard-hearted capitalists. You're stereotyping and wrong. Who are the world's greatest philanthropists? Bill Gates and Warren Buffet - who between them are giving away more than most governments ever will. I'd say it's every bit as likely a businessman would stop to assist with a tyre change than anyone esle. Orwell would never have made such a statement and nor should you.

The proles show this loyalty to fellow man in 1984. Not because they will somehow be rewarded, only because they feel the need of another human. "The proles are human beings, we are not human" Winston says this at the end of chapter 6 part two.

Where do the proles show loyalty?

Orwell emphasised the crowd baying for the saucepans to show that the proles had no cohesion at all. You've romanticised the proles exactly as Winston mistakenly does - the proles aren't human at all, but cattle.

[kevinthediltz]

Orwell was openly against the church and there is no denying the similarities between the church and 1984. There are deeper purposes in EVERY novel. And his criticism of the church isnt really hidden in 1984. Its quite obvious. As far as the proles representing loyalty and compassion, i nearly quoted the book in this one! "all hope lies in the proles." How can you argue with that? And i understand that some of the richest people in the world are kind and compassionate, i am meerly saying that, IN GENERAL, you wont find loyalty to fellow man like you will when you experiance the lower, working class of people. Orwell openly hated intelectuals and had a great respect for the working class. The proles are not cattle at all, they are the only beings left on earth that take pride and joy in their work. Go back and read about the part in 1984 when winston and julia are listening to the fat woman singing as she works for her family. It seems like you are trying only to criticize me because my interpitation of 1984 is slightly different than yours.

[ugudka]

One thing we must all remember is that fact that orwell depicted a totalitarian society in which control was already, more or less achieved. This is what was both shocking and frightening about the book, the fact that a totalitarian socialist state such as one in 1984 is self sustaining.

Orwell shocked the world and got us all thinking with is book because of the fact that the society he depicted seemed very realistic. It seemed like it worked, it just made sense. However, being the birlliant writer that he is, it is significant that he spent majority of his time describing this state of absolute control once it had already been achieved, and describing how it worked, rather than describing how it got there.

The novel may have, possibly, worked better, stylistically if it were to describe the deterioration of this society as it happens, rather than starting at the finish point of this process. But logically speaking that would be a hrad thing to do as nobody know how anyone could get to that point. Therefore Orwell's descriptions of the fall of Ocenia from relative democracy to totalitarianism are extremely few and far between, not to mention vague.

So what I'm saying is that getting to that state of totalitarian rule at which Ocenia was in 1984 would be practically impossible. Its not something that could be planned. But wars wuch as world war two and the war depicted in the novel turn the world upside down for a while, and open the tiny window of opportunity for a such oligarchal dictatoprship to establish itslef. If we were to come out of a cataclysmic event such as a world war in a similar totalitarian state, we'd be stuck there.

Its like the egg and the schicken. Forget who came first, once they're there, they're there forever. They're self-sustaining. They never go away. But someone had to put one of them (it doesn't matter which one) there in the first place.

[One word..fun(:]

ROCKrocks I agree with you all the way. this concept is soooooo hard to understand, take it from a 16 year old who is having a very hard time trying to understand this book. The concept of this book is quite amazing though.. almost unbelievable! Most of the things Orwell perdicted to happen in this book, have come true within the last few years or so. Orwell makes me wonder.., how in the world did he know these things were going to happen? How did he accurately guess what the future had in store? It makes your brain wonder, i almost don't believe it myself. I mean really, in the year 1948, could YOU have accurately guessed what was going to happen in the future and then write a book about it?