Nineteen EightyFour
Nineteen Eighty-Four: A Grim Prediction of the FutureNineteen Eighty-Four was written between the years of 1945 and 1948. Orwell got the title from switching the last two numbers of the publication date. In Orwell's criticism of a perfect society, his book became known as one of the greatest anti-utopian novels of all time. The book's message is so powerful that some say it went so far as to prevent the sinister future from realizing itself. Althought the book starts out as the story of a neurotic, paranoid man, it quickly turns into a protest against a quasi-utopian society and a totalitarian government. The book appears to be a satire at the start, similar to books such as "Gulliver's Travels", or Huxley's "Brave New World", but all too quickly the reader will "discover, quite unpleasantly, that it is not a satire at all." Nineteen Eighty-four is not simply a criticism of what Orwell saw happening in his national government with the coming of English Socialism, but a warning of the consequences of contemporary governmental practices, and what they where threatening to bring about. erhaps the book seems so bleak because the events in the book are a somewhat logical projection from current conditions and historic
This quest for total power by "The Party" is an excellent dramatization of Lord Acton's famous apothegm, "power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely." "The Party" seems like it won't stop until it controls the minds of everyone under it's power, and has complete physical and psychological surveillance on all people at all time. This is exemplified in the fact that the government can look back at you through your television, or telescreen as it is called in the book, and the governmet has set up telescreens almost anywhere you can go. While they don't have telescreens in unpopulated country sides, they have gone through the trouble to place hidden microphones disgused as flowers in those areas. and while there are real no laws, the thought police can spy on your thoughts at anytime, and can arrest and kill you on a whim. This policy is mythical. It is not really used for punishment, but to scare everyone else into being good citizens. While "The Party" is an important theme, two other themes are far more important. The first is the distruction of language. By eliminating more and more words from people's vocabularies, "The Party" eliminates the ability of people to unite or conspire against the government. However, they are also eliminating the possibility of conceiving original thought, which has catastrophic effects. The ultimate goal of "The Party" is to reduce the language to only one word thereby eliminating any thought at all. The second important theme is the elimination of the past. This is the main character, Winston's, job in the ministry of truth, to make s
Some common words found in the essay are:
Nineteen Eighty-Four, Neenah WI, Lord Acton's, Orwell Orwell, English Socialism, Orwell Utopian, Nineteen Eighty-four, nineteen eighty-four, Wear Watching, Brave World, english socialism, future realizing, warning consequences, reader discover, socialism warning consequences, socialism warning, english socialism warning,
Approximate Word count = 1077
Approximate Pages = 4 (250 words per page double spaced)
|