1984

Customer Reviews

1984 (Summer Reading - Period 3 - Miss Bobertz - English 3)

1984 is a book about a controlling government taking too much power over it's people. This book totally reminds me of my favorite movie series, Star Wars. The dictatorship is close to the communism in present-day Cuba where the people have no say in any matter. The government known as Big Brother has developed a language, Newspeak, for the people of Oceania. The language prohibits people from acting against Big Brother. All citizens are under intensive constant watch including the main character Winston Smith. All thoughts, actions, and words are recorded by telescreens at all times. These telescreens are watching for anything out of the ordinary. Winston is constantly thinking rebellious thoughts while knowing the government is "ungood". The common English word "bad" translates into Newspeak as "ungood". The setting holds three superstates Oceania, Eastasia, and Eurasia who all have simmilar governments looking to gain ultimate power over the other two.

As the book goes on Winston finds a co-worker and future lover Julia who thinks the same way as him. The two share thoughts and present them to O'Brien, a third worker who is believed to be in charge of "Brotherhood". Brotherhood is the rebel group who disagrees with Big Brother. Two weeks later we find out the secrets of Big Brother. Doublethink is the known method used by Big Brother to have a single person think to opposite thoughts and believe both. O'Brien tells us about doublethink with "Reality exists in the human mind, and nowhere else," says O'Brien. " . . . In the mind of the Party, which is collective and immortal. Whatever the Party holds to be truth is truth."

Orwell obviously was a strong believer in the warnings of a "controlling American government"

The book makes me think to myself could this all happen if the government became everything it has become throughout 1984.

doubleplusgood

George Orwell's 1984 is unquestionably one of my favorite novels, if not my favorite (and not merely because the title is my birth year). Powerful and enlightening, it offers the reader a glimpse into a society in which the omnipotent State controls the populace through manipulation of language, alteration of the past, and other devices. With a population composed of brainwashed Party members and apathetic proles, the zeitgeist is characterized by contented and unthinking servitude to Big Brother. Yet Winston Smith (committing an odious, illicit act) begins to think negatively of the status quo, giving the basis of this thought-provoking novel. Admittedly, one section (but only one!) becomes a bit tedious, Goldstein's book. Keep reading! The immaculate third chapter soon follows, culminating in the most effectual ending that I have ever read. Its impact proves that Orwell successful captivated the reader throughout the novel. I wonder, considering that literature as chimerical as David Deutsch's Fabric of Reality gains placement as non-fiction, if 1984 has been incorrectly categorized. It would not surprise me if Pol Pot had used this novel as a guide book. Of course, elements are also apparent in modern American society, from the welfare state to political correctness to surveillance devices. The advice I give to the prospective reader is this: quit reading reviews (in a worst case scenario one might learn the ending) and read 1984!

~pythia~

Hands down, the best book written in the last 100 years.

Anybody who has not read this book is depriving themselves of great literature. Not only does it depict a perfect example of a negative utopia, but it illustrates the way people were thinking at the time it was written. George Orwell is one of the best writers of all time, and this masterpiece is a prime example why. Once you crack open this book, you cannot put it down. Bottom line, you need this book.