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225 Copies of 1984 for the Olathe School District

By George Orwell

(2475)

| eBook | 9788888888880

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Book Description

Perhaps no other novel in this century has had a greater impact upon the way we think and talk about our world than George Orwell's classic, 1984. "Big Brother," "doublespeak," and "the thought police" have become part of our everyday lexicon, and the term "Orwellian" has become a familiar adjective for any situation -- real or imagined -- where conformity is compulsory and where someone always seems to be watching.
Orwell's novel also has the distinction of being, along with Aldous Huxley's Brave New World, Yevgeny Zamyatin's We, Anthony Burgess's A Clockwork Orange and his own Animal Farm, one of the most important works of anti-utopic fiction produced in this century. These novels, which began to flourish after World War I, imagine a nightmarish society where all that is ugly and perverse about human nature has prevailed, and people are powerless to resist an insidious, coercive order.

In 1984, the insidious order is known as "Big Brother," a personification of the regime that both demands and ensures absolute loyalty and obedience from all of its citizens. One of these citizens is a man named Winston Smith, the protagonist of the novel and a worker in the state's Ministry of Truth. Through following Winston, we see the myriad methods Big Brother employs to keep the populace servile and under its heavy thumb.

Winston's work at the Ministry is to help rewrite history so that Big Brother's pronouncements, in retrospect, always appear to be infallible. Just as sinister is the propagation of "Newspeak," an abridged version of English whose eventual adoption, the party members hope, will limit anyone's ability to think or talk in a way that opposes Big Brother. Perhaps the most often-discussed component to Big Brother's control is the use of the telescreens, television -- like gadgets installed in every home that act as surveillance devices and keep track of who is obeying and who is not. Winston, skeptical of Big Brother, but unsure of who or what to trust, tries to find ways of resisting the state's coercive power, and asserting his individuality. But Big Brother is watching.

Although 1984 is almost universally hailed as a landmark in twentieth century fiction, critics have been divided as to how we are to read it. Some see it, as Orwell himself described it, as a dire warning about the future. Others view it as a polemic criticizing Stalin's regime, the government that Big Brother most resembles and that Orwell saw as a monstrous perversion of Marxist ideals. Still others consider it a satire of contemporary England, a deliberately exaggerated version of the propaganda, conformity and denial of history that can exist even in a liberal, democratic state. These interpretations are by no means mutually exclusive, of course, and it is a testament to Orwell's genius that his work continues to speak in different ways to students of history, politics, philosophy, and literature alike.

65 Reviews

5 people find this helpful

Due to personal reason, I re-read it in 2006. Still capture the very nature of totalitarianism and the claims come to its truest moment ever in history. Striking, stunning, we should bear this masterpiece in mind as the surveillance it has mentioned become much easier with the help of foreign techno ... (continue)

Due to personal reason, I re-read it in 2006. Still capture the very nature of totalitarianism and the claims come to its truest moment ever in history. Striking, stunning, we should bear this masterpiece in mind as the surveillance it has mentioned become much easier with the help of foreign technology. And for the ruling power -- it's all about capitalism, you know.

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張小張・Cons said on Dec 19, 2006 about the Paperback edition | 2 feedbacks

3 people find this helpful

1984 is not a prophecy (I do believe and hope) but a representation of what hunger for power and lies can do when brought to their extremes.
Orwell's dystopia is fascinating because most of it is a picture - though an impossibly excessive one - of what world and politics really are.

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Simbul said on Jan 21, 2008 about the Paperback edition | Add your feedback

2 people find this helpful

• I believe that 1984 is so scary because it identifies some aspects of power that can be found not only in the Stalinist dictatorship in which Orwell was inspired, but also in our democracy, such as the relationship between power and communication tools (TV, radio, newspapers), or power, and histor ... (continue)

• I believe that 1984 is so scary because it identifies some aspects of power that can be found not only in the Stalinist dictatorship in which Orwell was inspired, but also in our democracy, such as the relationship between power and communication tools (TV, radio, newspapers), or power, and history (Kundera wrote in one of his novels that the powerful take control over the rooms where the story is written to control the future). This is a common practice to all dictatorships: the textbooks, especially, are altered depending on what suits the ruling class.

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Cappuccino 92 said on Apr 6, 2011 about the Paperback edition | Add your feedback

Da leggere

Un libro assolutamente da leggere

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Iorio Paolo said on May 31, 2012 about the Paperback edition | 1 feedback

Too much can be said about 1984, so I'll just focus on one aspect that pervades the whole novel: dehumanization.
All the extreme measures taken by the regime to subjugate its citizens (Newspeak, Thought Police, Two Minute Hate, Doublethink, etc.) ultimately have only one goal: to gain tota ... (continue)

Too much can be said about 1984, so I'll just focus on one aspect that pervades the whole novel: dehumanization.
All the extreme measures taken by the regime to subjugate its citizens (Newspeak, Thought Police, Two Minute Hate, Doublethink, etc.) ultimately have only one goal: to gain total control of every individual. And the only way to achieve this aim is to completely strip away every shred of humanity in people, such as love, pride, independent thought, and other inner capabilities. Every strength is quashed. Every decency is denied. Every positive quality is condemned. As a result, as we can see in Winston Smith, no trace of humanity remains after being thoroughly battered and brainwashed. Utopia is achieved - for the totalitarian regime.
George Orwell paints a truly horrible picture of absolute power gone extreme. But even more horrible is the fact that it is true after all; just look at North Korea. That is why I chose to re-read 1984 right after finishing Nothing to Envy by Barbara Demick. I can only say this: I'm glad that North Korea is not rich or powerful enough to prevent its Winston Smiths from occasionally defecting.

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Holmes said on May 23, 2012 about the Paperback edition | Add your feedback