Sunday, March 30, 2014

Confusing but good

George Orwell's 1984 has been a tough read for me. The language and the style is unlike any other things that I've read. The concept is also very interesting. I feel like the plot is slow moving but the whole is great. The book was published in 1949 so the time period greatly effects the book. The book is set in 1984, hence the title. The book is George Orwell's vision of 1984 and even though it was inaccurate and to the extreme, the book is not bad. In the book, the continents and countries don't exist. There are new ones like Oceania and Eurasia. Some are at peace, others at war. The government controls everything, they watch everything you do via things called telescreens. The government feeds propaganda and controls rations. It is kind of like Nazi Germany and WW2 which had recently happened in real life. It is cool how Orwell based his book off what was happening in real life.

The book makes the reader think about control and power. Orwell writes, "Syme had vanished. A morning came, and he was missing from work... Syme had ceased to exist; he had never existed" (Orwell 122). Orwell opens up a chapter with this. One of Winston's co-workers was killed by the government. The government has all the control and can make it seem like he never existed. Opening up the chapter with this was a pretty big statement and Orwell wants it that way. He wants the reader to think about how powerful control is and at the time was warning people to not let governments control people. The government motto is:
People live by this motto and it really shows the control. 

Another thing Orwell wants people to think about is love. Winston is secretly having an affair with a woman named Julia. Winston's life was boring and routine until he met Julia. He is happier with her and enjoys his life more. He also can talk about anything with her and they talk about the government and such. They trust each other.  Love is an important thing and so is trust. If Winston and Julia rebel or start some sort of up rising against the government, they will need each other. 



1 comment:

  1. I like the way you connected the government control to World War II. Its a great connection. I like how the book goes into the idea of the government watching, I feel like it is easy to connect to this because of all the news about the NSA

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