Thank goodness,i have just finished reading the novel by George Orwell's novel 1984.In tandem,i also managed to watch the captivating movie that potrays the novel.There is sex,violence and anything vile you can dream of.
The story starts, in the year 1984, and it takes place in England or as it is called at that time, Airstrip One. Airstrip One itself is the mainland of a huge country, called Oceania, which consists of North America, South Africa, and Australia. The country is ruled by the Party, which is led by a figure called Big Brother.The protagonist is Winston Smith, a member of the Outer Party, working in the Records Department of the Ministry of Truth, rewriting and altering records, such as newspaper-articles, of the past. The action starts when Winston develops critical thoughts against the ruling dictatorship of the party, for the first time. Doing so he buys a book, to use it as a diary. As individual expression is forbidden by the Party, having a diary is a crime, which may even be punished by death. There are so-called telescreens in each room, showing propaganda and political pamphlets, and which has a built-in camera and microphone, in order to spy on people. Therefore keeping a secret book is not only forbidden, but also very dangerous.
When Winston makes the first entry in the diary, he thinks about an experience he has made during the Two Minutes Hate, a propaganda film repeated each day. During this film he caught the eye of O'Brien, a member of the Inner Party, whom he thought might also be critical to the regime, or that at least there is a bond of some kind between them. After this reminiscence, he finds that he has written the sentence: "Down with Big Brother" all over the page. The same night Winston dreams about his mother and sister, who starved to death in the war, because he had been so greedy. Then he dreams of having sex with a girl he has seen in the Records Department, during the Two Minutes Hate.
Early in the morning, Winston is woken by the harsh voice from the telescreen. During the performance of the physical exercises, Winston's thoughts move back to his childhood. The last thing he remembers clearly is the World War. After the WW, the Party took control of the country, and from then on it has been difficult to remember anything, because the Party changes history constantly to their own benefit. After the exercises Winston goes to work at the Minitrue (Ministry of Truth), where his job is to alter records, and once altered, to throw them into the memory hole where they are burnt. At dinner Winston Smith meets Syme, a philologist, who is working on the 11th edition of The Newspeak Dictionary. Syme explains the main character of their work on this dictionary. During their conversation the telescreen announces that the chocolate ration has been increased to 20 g a week, whereas yesterday it was cut down to 20g a week. Winston wonders whether he's the only person with memory who isn't inflicted with Doublethink. As he looks around in the dining room he catches the eye of the dark-haired girl he had dreamed of the same night.
Back home again he makes an entry in his diary about his meeting with a prostitute three years ago. He remembers her ugliness, but nevertheless he had sex with her. Winston had a wife, but she was very stupid and just following the orders of the Party, which said that there may only be sex to produce "new material" for the Party, and that sex for personal pleasure is a crime. Then Winston thinks about the Party and believes that the only hope lies in the Proles.Later he remembers another fact of his past - Jones, Aaronson and Rutherford, the last three survivors of the original leaders of the Revolution. They were arrested in 1965 and confessed to all kinds of sabotage during their trial; they were pardoned, reinstated but not long after arrested again and executed.
The next morning Winston is again filled with the conviction that the future lies with the proles, that they will overthrow the greyness of the Party. But suddenly reality crashes in. "We are the DEAD", he says to Julia. An iron voice behind them repeats the phrase, the picture on the wall falls to bits to reveal a telescreen behind it. Uniformed man thunder into the room and they carry Winston and Julia out. Winston is in a cell in what he presumes is the Ministry of Love. He is sick with hunger and fear, and when he makes a movement or a sound, a harsh voice will bawl at him from four telescreens. A prisoner who is dying of starvation is brought in, his face is skull-like. Later the man is brought to "Room 101" after screaming and struggling, and even offering his children's sacrifices in his stead. O'Brien enters. Winston thinks that they must have got him, too, but O'Brien says that they got him long time ago.
A guard hits Winston, and he becomes unconscious. When he wakes up he is tied down to a kind of bed. O'Brien stands beside the bed, and Winston feels that O'Brien, who is the torturer, is also somehow a friend. The aim of O'Brien is to teach Winston the technique of doublethink, and he does this by inflicting pain of ever-increasing intensity. He reminds Winston that he wrote the sentence: " Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two makes four". O'Brien holds up four fingers of his left hand, and he asks Winston how many there are. Winston answers four a couple of times, and each time the pain increases .At the end of the session, under heavy influence of drugs and agony, Winston really sees five fingers.O'Brien now explains how the Party works. The image he gives of the future is that of a boot stamping on a human face - for ever. Winston protests, because he thinks that there is something in the human nature that will not allow this; he calls it "The Spirit of Man".
O'Brien points out that Winston is the last humanist, he is the last guardian of the human spirit. Then O'Brien gets Winston to look at himself in the mirror. Winston is horrified by he sees. The unknown time of torture has changed him into a shapeless and battered wreck. This is what the last humanist looks like. The only degradation that Winston has not been through, is that he has not betrayed Julia. He has said anything under torture, but inside he has remained true to her. Winston is much better now. For some time he has not been beaten and tortured, he has been fed quite well and allowed to wash. Winston realises that he now accepts all the lies of the Party, that Oceania was always at war with Eastasia, and that he never had the photograph of Jones, Aaronson, and Rutherford that disproved their guilt. Even gravity could be nonsense. But nevertheless Winston has some unorthodox thoughts that he cannot suppress. But now it is time for the last of the three steps, reintegration. Winston is taken to Room 101. O'Brien says that the room 101 is the worst thing in the world.He looks forward to the bullet, they will kill him with some day.
Sunday, 6 December 2009
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment