1984!~

Okay, let me introduce about myself... I am Lim Jun Wei; the most obedient student in Catholic High School. Honestly, i hardly read any storybooks but when i came upon the book called 1984... i realize my passion and potential in reading books.. so i want to take this opportunity to thank MS FERNANDEZ for letting us have this wonderful book to accompany us during the holidays... =D

- Jun.Wei.Lim. 4-9

Nineteen Eighty-Four (or 1984 ) is an English dystopian novel by George Orwell, written in 1948 and published in 1949. It is the story of the life of the intellectual Winston Smith, his job in the Ministry of Truth, and his degradation by the totalitarian government of Oceania, the country in which he lives. It has been translated into sixty-two languages, and has deeply impressed itself in the English language. Nineteen Eighty-Four, its terms and language, and its author are bywords in discussions of personal privacy and state security. The adjective "Orwellian" describes actions and organizations characteristic of Oceania, the totalitarian society depicted in the novel, and the phrase "Big Brother is watching you" refers to invasive surveillance.

In turn, Nineteen Eighty-Four has been seen as subversive and politically dangerous and thus been banned by libraries in many countries. Along with Brave New World, by Aldous Huxley, and Fahrenheit 451, by Ray Bradbury, it is among the most famous dystopias in literature. In 2005, Time magazine selected it as one of the 100 best English-language novels since 1923.

Main Character: Winston Smith

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 and where people's very thoughts are controlled to ensure purity of the oligarchial 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, Winston sets out to expose the Party for the cynically fraudulent organisation 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.

Where did Orwell's inspiration came from?

In the essay Why I Write, Orwell explains that all the serious work he wrote since the Spanish Civil War in 1936 was "written, directly or indirectly, against totalitarianism and for democratic socialism." Therefore, Nineteen Eighty-Four is an anti-totalitarian cautionary tale about the betrayal of a revolution by its defenders. He already had stated distrust of totalitarianism and betrayed revolutions in Homage to Catalonia and Animal Farm. Coming Up For Air, at points, celebrates the personal and political freedoms lost in Nineteen Eighty-Four.

Much of Oceanic society is based upon Stalin's Soviet Union. The "Two Minutes' Hate" was the ritual demonisation of State enemies and rivals; Big Brother resembles Joseph Stalin; the Party's archenemy, Emmanuel Goldstein, resembles Leon Trotsky, (both are Jewish, both have the same physiognomy, and Trotsky's real surname was 'Bronstein') Another suggested inspiration for Goldstein is Emma Goldman, the famous Anarchist figure. Doctored photography is a propaganda technique and the creation of unpersons in the story, analogous to Stalin's enemies being made nonpersons and being erased fro official photographic records; the police treatment of several characters recalls the Moscow Trials of the Great Purge.

Biographer Michael Shelden notes these influences: the Edwardian world of his childhood in Henley — for the golden country; being bullied at St. Cyprian's — empathy with victims; his policeman's life in the Indian Burma Police — the techniques of violence; and suffering censorship in the BBC — capriciously-wielded authority.^[8]

Specific literary influences include Darkness at Noon and The Yogi and the Commissar by Arthur Koestler, The Iron Heel (1908) by Jack London; Brave New World (1932) by Aldous Huxley; We (1921) by Yevgeny Zamyatin, which Orwell read in French and reviewed in 1946; and The Managerial Revolution (1940) by James Burnham, predicting permanent war among three totalitarian superstates, broadly equivalent to those in Nineteen Eighty-Four. Orwell told Jacintha Buddicom that he would write a novel stylistically like A Modern Utopia by H. G. Wells.

World War II acts as the grounding for Orwell's more fantastic elements. Most of the novel contains direct parallels, and occasional outright pastiche, of the rhetoric and politics surrounding the end of the war and the changing alliances of the nascent Cold War. The overseas service of the BBC, controlled by the Ministry of Information, was the model for the Ministry of Truth. The Senate House, where the Ministry of Information was housed, is the architectural inspiration for the Ministry of Truth. Nineteen Eighty-Four's world reflects the socio-political life of the UK and the USA, i.e. the poverty of Britain in 1948, when the economy was poor, the Empire dissolving, while newspapers reported imperial triumphs, and wartime ally Soviet Russia was becoming a peacetime foe. Oceania is a metamorphosed future British Empire that geographically includes the United States, and whose currency is the dollar. As its name suggests, it is a naval power, with much militarism focused on venerating sailors serving aboard floating fortresses greater than Dreadnoughts. Moreover, most of the fighting by Oceania's troops is in defending India (the "Jewel in the Crown" of the British Empire).