In Summary

George Orwell was an incredibly intelligent, albeit a worrisome, writer who desired to write for a specific purpose: he desired to create change. It is for that reason that he left his ineffective job at BBC, why he signed up for the Home Guard when he could not get into the military, and most importantly why he wrote the cautionary tales that he did. 

George Orwell saw firsthand the struggles of a dramatic world unraveling in front of him, and reacted to it by writing to the rest of his generation, a warning and a plea, he designed worlds that the future could hold if ideas of Nazism or Stalinism took root and began to grow unchecked. 

Animal farm was a warning for the future in a sense, but it was primarily a criticism as well as explanation of what went wrong in Russia. While he knew that Czar rule was bad for the people, he also knew that certain individuals took advantage of the revolution and ruined something that could have been beautiful. 

1984 was directly warning the public of a future where government power is unchecked and privacy was sent to the wayside as well. This warning also has a few prophetic undertones as well. For example, the constant surveillance is partially true, as just about anywhere someone goes in the public they are being watched by a surveillance camera. Also acts that reduce freedoms, such as the Patriot Act, are hotly debated at first, but then the people seem to just become compliant, accepting it as a necessary loss of privacy and freedoms to fight our enemies. 

By the way… The war in the Middle East is over and we have a new president, yet the Patriot Act still stands. Most people seem to have forgotten about that.

1984: Book 3

                Winston is held in a cell where he knows he will be beaten to the point of betraying his love, but he does not quite understand how exactly they will do it to him. A man next to him was arrested for failing to remove “God” from a piece of writing is soon dragged off to “Room 101”, the worst torture chamber in existence, where unimaginable pain and misery lies. 

                O’Brian walks in, to which Winston thought meant that he was captured, but soon learns (or more admits) that O’Brian was always for the thought police, and just undercover to help capture Winston and Julia. 

                Through Torture O’Brian convinces Winston that logic does not matter; only what the party deems as truth matters. Winston only holds out in one field, and that field is for his love of Julia. He did not ever go against her, and decided that he would not, no matter what. 

                O’Brian tells Winston not to worry, for soon enough he will break and abandon his love for his girlfriend. Winston is soon after taken to Room 101, where his face is put into a box with rabid rats on the opposite side. O’Brian basically gives him the option of either letting the rats eat his face or having Julie do it in his stead. Winston breaks, and is then sufficiently broken and set free. 

                The final chapter of 1984 has Winston sitting in a coffee shop, hollow and completely broken in mind. He does see Julie, but they can no longer be love each other, for they knew they had betrayed each other in spirit.

1984: Book 2 (Part 2)

                Winston awakes from a dream crying. When Julia asks what the matter is he talks about his blame for his mother’s death. What is most important, though, is how soon after he blames the party for loosing feelings, as feelings are what makes people human. 

                O’Brian’s meeting with Winston finally happens, where he is able to shut of the telescreen and tells Winston that the brotherhood is real, and even gives him a copy of the manifesto of the brotherhood. This is after Winston confesses to his crimes with Julia to O’Brian, thinking he is an ally.

                After a switch of enemies for Oceana, Winston has to perform a 90 hour workweek to alter all the documents so that Oceana was never at war with Eurasia, but always with Eastasia. Winston reads the manifesto and finds out that the war is perpetual, and nothing more than a trick played by the governments to keep the people suppressed and ignorant. 

                Winston awakes the next morning and talks with Julia for a bit about their futility and their admiration for the Proles. A voice then comes from the room they are in, to which they notice a telescreen is hidden behind a painting of St. Clemens’ church. They are arrested by the same man they have been renting the room from, and acknowledge that their lives are forfeit.

1984: Book 2 (Part 1)

Winston decides not to commit suicide and the next day heads in to work.  The dark haired girl runs into him at work and secretly passes him a note saying that she loves him. He and the girl decide to meet in the crowded street during a hate week rally, to avoid detection while they talk. 

They meet in the countryside, and Winston makes love with the girl, who we learn is named Julia. They meet often to do this in secret, where we learn that Winston wishes to not only rebel but also spread the rebellion. Julia, however, is only interested in self-rebellion, more as an act of freeing herself. 

In this meeting between the two lovers two interesting things happen. Firstly, the poem about St. Clemens happens to be shown to be a great peace of irony (as shown later in the book). Secondly, the rat that causes Winston to panic is shown later to be the cause of his downfall, an interesting form of foreshadowing. 

Syme (Winston’s friend from earlier) vanishes one day. Winston believes this is because he was too intelligent. Shortly after this moment O’Brian talks to Winston in an office hallway and invites him over to his home. Winston Is perhaps most excited about this, as he considers this to be the moment he has been waiting for his entire life.  

1984: Book 1

                Mostly the book takes the first section to go through the many details of the book, so little action is present. Winston Smith is set to clearly be the main character of the book, and has a level of paranoia even seeming to the point of being delusional. That is quickly seen to be more than just understandable, though, as the new world he lives in is controlled by a tyrannical government that watches your every breath. 

Winston keeps a journal, which is against the many rules of the new world. Every room has a television screen, and on the screen is a sign of a well cut man and a quote saying “Big Brother Is Watching You”. He thinks often of a dream where a party official by the name of O’Brian tells him that they will meet in the place with no darkness. 

Winston then does his exercises (forced by the government) and heads into work; he manipulates or completely alters history to benefit the government best. Winston has lunch with a friend who says the government will remove words from speech, limiting the ability for people to even possess free will. 

The greatest act of rebellion, as Winston sees it, is to have sex, and enjoy it. While he remembers his time with a prostitute, he wants something with someone he can enjoy it with, and who will also consider it an act of rebellion.

            In the last chapter Winston walks through the Proles, an area where the lower class and common folk live. He notices the same dark haired girl from his dreams following him, and he panics. he returns to his house and contemplates suicide, knowing that it would be much easier than what would happen if the party caught him.

1984, A Background

Nineteen Eighty Four was written by George Orwell in light of the Nazi and Communistic totalitarian rule over Germany and Russia. The book is often said to be a warning, not a prophecy, of what the future could hold if complete control over a people was allowed to continue.

Published in 1949, George Orwell most likely wrote this while examining Russian Communism, which was not only still in power, but was also growing in power quite rapidly. Orwell witnessed similar strategies being used in communistic Russia, such as retraining, brainwashing, and revising history, as displayed in the book. Also George described the face of big brother surprisingly similar to the face of Stalin, who also had his face plastered on many posters and walls in bigger cities of Russia.

Lastly the idea of three great nations left, who are in perpetual war, could easily be a warning to great alliances, as similar events had just happened between the Allied Forces and the Axis Forces during the Second World War. The rationale behind that is because of the ability to unify a people against a common enemy that large scale war had on the people, with most giving up just about everything they didn’t need to help the war effort, it was proven that creating a perpetual war could very well placate a people who would have otherwise rebelled against the oppressive government.

Animal Farm: Chapters 8, 9, and 10

One of the commandments has been changed again, and the animals are quickly convinced that it was always that way. The commandment reads “No animal shall kill another animal without cause”.  Napoleon takes many titles, becoming more officially the ruler of the animals. In trying to sell the timber with the two neighboring farmlands the animals are convinced that whichever neighboring farm is unlike at the time is the hiding place of snowball and the enemy of the animals. Mr. Frederick pays for the timber, but with forgeries. He eventually attacks the farm, blowing up the just completed windmill and killing many of the animals. The pigs start drinking and change another commandment to “no animal shall drink to excess”.

                Boxer is heavily injured and the animals set out start the windmill over, at the same time the rations that are handed out are lowered once again. Animal Farm is decided by the English government to be an official republic, and Napoleon is elected the leader. Moses returns to keep preaching, and Boxer collapses, and is sent to the “hospital” but is in reality sold for supplemental income of the pigs. 

                The windmill is finally complete, after many years and many of the original animals have died. Instead of electricity, however, the windmill is used to grind corn to make more profits. The animals find Squealer and Napoleon walking on hind legs, and Napoleon carries a whip. The barn commandments are reduced to only one “all animals are equal… But some animals are more equal than others”. Animal Farm is once again Manor Farm, and in the final scene when the pigs and humans are playing card games, the other animals can no longer tell the pigs from the humans.