1984
George Orwell was born Eric Arthur Blair on June 25, 1903, in Motihari, India. His parents were agents of the British Empire in the British Raj. Before his death on January 21, 1950 from complications of tuberculosis, Orwell wrote five novels. Of the five, Orwell's 1984 is said to have had a profound effect upon the way people thought during the mid 20th century. When 1984 was published in 1949, the Cold War had just begun. The novel's ending was pessimistic and thus seemed as an attack on socialism in Communist Russia. The novel was also considered to be the prophecy of what would happen to the West if the communist ideology spread. The idea for writing 1984 also came from an American economist name James Burnham. Meyers notes that "Burnham predicted that if Germany had won the war, the world would be divided into three areas"(125). This idea is used by Orwell because the society in 1984 is centered around three areas- Oceania, Eurasia, and Eastasia. Even more so, the rest of the symbolism throughout the duration of the novel is based upon reality and factual events and or persons. Koestler, a refugee from Fascist and Communist prisons, was the model for protagonist of 1984 - Winston Smith. Orwell chose this name because he f
The function of Room 101 was to eradicate every possibility of competing passion. In Room 101, a person learned to value God/Big Brother above everything else and devote their life to them. Orwell leaves the reader with a grim view for the future at the end of 1984. He felt that morals are revolutionary are constantly undermining one another. Bookshelf states that Orwell said, "Marx had exploded a hundred tons of dynamite beneath the moralist position, and we are still living in the echo of that tremendous crash. But, already, somewhere or other, the sappers are at work and fresh dynamite is being tamped in place to blow Marx to the moon. Then Marx, or somebody like him will come back with yet more dynamite, and so the process continues, to an end we can not foresee." (Bookshelf 1994) This quote was justified by a later quote by Orwell. "For the ordinary man is passive. Within a narrow circle he feels himself the master of his fate, but against major events, he is as helpless as against the elements. So far from endeavoring to influence the future, he simply lies down and lets things happen to him."(1994) In essence Orwell is trying to let people know that they should be aware about what is going on around them. You can't expect everything to fall in your lap, you have to go out and get it, or someday someone will get it for you- and it will be too late to change it. Human nature wants to be passive and ha
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Approximate Word count = 954
Approximate Pages = 4 (250 words per page double spaced)
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