Comments for 1984

1984

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Questions about 1984

Q: What is the mood of this novel? Do you find this novel saddens you in any way? Why?

I thought that the moods of this novel were inhuman and oppresive. If I could choose a color to match the mood the coor would be plain dark gray. Everythings just blurred out and inside the mood everythings real and alive but fading and dead at the same time. The setting of the book can't be even imagined. A place where every move is watched and controlled is really scary. Being tortured to the point of admitting that you did things that you actually didn't do is inhuman. Just thinking about living in that kind of world is really scary and sad. How could anyone bear to live there let alone believe that the party is alwasy correct? Its really unthinkable.

Questions about 1984

Q: Who are the main characters in the novel? Do you like them? Why or why not? What is special about them? What do they reveal about the universal human experience?

The main character of this novel is Winston Smith. Other characters that come out a lot but aren't as important as Winston are O' Brien and Julia. I personally don't like any of the characters but I did admire Winston. Winston is an ordinary person who tries to find the truth about the world he is living in and wants to find a better place to live in. That really is challenging. Julia to me just seems like a little girl trying to break rules and not get caught. She's just someone you meet once in your life. You can be a close friend to her or be an enemy but nothing more than that. O' Brien is someone who loves the party dearly and he would do anything to anyone to make them submit to the party. To me he's just this crazy person messing up people's lives. Hes really cruel and inhuman. The characters show parts of people characteristics. Being curious about rebelling against upper powers, fighting for what's right to you, and using every way possible to get people do what you want. Its what you can see in any normal person.

Questions on 1984

Q: What is the climax of this novel? What happens? How do the events of this novel make you feel?

The climax is defined as the event where the character experiences a point of no return. The event in this novel when Winston experienced a point of no return was when he met O' Brien and confessed that he wanted to join in a rebellion against the party. He and Julia admitted and confirmed their rebellion and told another person about it. Because you can't trust anyone in this dystopian world whatever you tell someone can't be changed. Winston was totally going toward a rebellion and there was no turning back for him. They didn't know anything about O' Brien even the fact that he loved the party and he was one of the thought police. After the meeting with O' Brien Winston and Julia were constantly watched and eventually captured and tortured. They were brainwashed and eventually they give up. Even though they know that they are right. Winston in particular just admits that O' Brien and the party is right. He submits to everything they want him to do. Instead of pity and anger at them giving in, I felt more sympathy and understanding. How much torture could be given to you to make you surrender to someone and agree that you'll brainwash yourself? It would be devastating to have to submit to something that is totally against what you think because that is the only way to live. But that's just something common in a dystopian world. Can you imagine what it would be like?

Questions about 1984

Q: Are there any settings in this novel which you have found to be beautiful? or disturbing? Describe these settings and comment on why they were meaningful to you.

Page 7

He tried to squeeze out some childhood memory that should tell him whether London had always been quite like this. Were there always these vistas of rotting nineteenth-century houses, their sides shored up with balks of timber, their windows patched with cardboard and their roofs with corrugated iron, their crazy garden walls sagging in all directions? And the bombed sites where the plaster dust swirled in the air and the willow herb straggled over the heaps of rubble; and the places where the bombs had cleared a larger path and there had sprung up sordid colonies of wooden dwellings like chicken houses?

This setting was disturbing to me because people in the book don't even remember what everything looked like and they don't care. The Party that is "caring" for them makes a main city all in covered in debris and falling apart. If the future is like that and everyone is brainwashed to the extent of not recognizing devastation that is the worst thing that can happen to man. What's the point of living like that? At the rate the current world is going on about fighting and unifying the situation in 1984 can be possible. We can't just say that its just a book and ignore it. We need to consider it and try to prevent it from happening. Just like the extinction of animals. Many people used to say that it is impossible to wipe out a whole species but in just a few years we wiped out not one but many species. Nobody looked out for it and prevented it until extinction actually happened. So thats why this passaged stood out to me and made me concerned about the whole idea on totalism.

Intro to 1984

George Orwell, the author of 1984, was famous for writing satires on totalism. He wrote 1984 based on his fears of a bureaucratized state of the future. The book is in a dystopian setting, in a world that we can barely imagine. The main character, Will Smith, is just an ordinary,weak, and powerless guy who tries to bring the truth out to society. His job in the party is to record history to the modified version of what the party wants to tell people. He begins to question about what the party says and tries to find fault in the party to tell more people on how their are living like robots.

CITATION:http://www.levity.com/corduroy/orwell.html
http://www.online-literature.com/orwell/1984/

Questions about 1984

1. Are there any current situations in the world that relate to the novel?

Yes, I think that there are many coutries that still live in a brainwashed society even today. The most similar example can be North Korea. Everyone is brainwashed and they know nothing more than what the government tells them. Kim Jong-Ill is like "Big Brother" who everyone adores and thinks highly of. North Koreans have a ration on everything like they do in the book 1984. The history they know is all modified and they hear about victories of their country but actually they are suffering inside their own country and they hold no threat or a great importance in the world. People are closely watched and a little mistake can make them in BIG trouble. In the book, 1984, the main characters Winston and Julia think of breaking rules and not getting caught. Personally I don't think that North Korean people can rebel this way toward the government because they don't feel that they are living in a bad situation and the police is much more tense there. Once in a while a person might find out a better life or they might be running away from capture. Then they will think of escaping over to Korea or China. But many people can't think of escaping and even if they do a the majority of those people get caught.