1984- Brief Synopsis and Meaning

1984, judging by the name is based in 1984, on a futuristic world (Bearing in mind it was first pub-lished in 1949) in which a complete Totalitarian state has been implicated on London and the rest of the world. The Earth has been separated into 3 dominant powers Oceania, Eurasia and Eastasia, each with an equal control over the land, yet at constant war with one or the other party.

The book is set in London, and follows the life of a man named Winston, a worker for ‘The Party’ the government of Oceania run by an entity known only as ‘Big Brother’. Winston is an ordinary man of average intellect, however, he knows above many of the party workers that there is some-thing wrong with the world in which he lives, throughout the book Winston begins to unravel the mysteries and intricacies of The Party’s policies and injustices. The Party have the utmost control over their citizens and workers, everything it does gives it the upper hand in any argument, and anyone who contests (or even looks like they are thinking about contesting the ways of The Party, thus named ‘ThoughtCrime’) is ‘Vapourised’ and wiped from the history books as if they never existed, although it is worth mentioning that there are no Laws, as such, within Oceania. This seek-ing out and eradication of ‘thought criminals’ is done by constant monitoring using Telescreens placed in most dwellings and workplaces which blare out propaganda and messages of hate, Microphones placed in secret locations and spies walking the streets, to the point where it is diffi-cult to find somewhere which isn’t under constant surveillance.

The Party keeps control by means of extreme conditioning of it’s people and altering the history records in its favour (at one point it mentions the Aeroplane being invented by The Party), Winston in fact is one of the workers who has to change news articles in favour of The Party’s views and circumstances. Winstons and all the rest of the Party worker’s thoughts are supposed to be con-trolled over the principles of ‘Doublethink’ a word made up by The Party in its own language ‘New-speak’, meaning to think one thing and also the contradictory of it, and believe them both to be true at the same time (much like the theories of the double slit experiment in Quantum physics or Schrodinger’s cat, it is a thought experiment), this means that although he is altering history himself in favour of The Party, he is not only expected to write these lies but he is expected to believe The Party did the things he is writing about without question. The majority of the population lives under these false pretenses without question or protest, partly for fear of being vapourised and partly because of the conditioning The Party has implicated over it’s populace that Big Brother is some kind of devine being. (Kim Jong Il was a perfect modern day example of this kind of ruling… except without the vapourising).

After explaining the ins and outs of The Party’s ruling (Which would take an entire novel in itself to write about) the story begins to unfold. Finding himself becoming more and more unable to contain his strong resentment towards The Party, Winston meets Julia, a young woman who wants to break, bend and protest within her mind the rules of the party, as sex is viewed as a disgusting act for reproduction only, she and Winston meet up regularly for recreational sex and discussions about views which would make The Party highly suspicious of their activities and expose them as ‘Thought Criminals’.

After a few months of this Winston is approached by an ‘Inner Party’ member, a highly privileged worker, who is part of an underground ‘Brotherhood’ who’s aim is to destroy The Party and give freedom to the people, and is asked to join the Brotherhood. This man, named O’Brien, sends Winston a book, written by a man named Goldstien, an outcast member of The Party for thought crimes. The book describes the reasoning for The Party’s actions, explaining that everything they do is to keep the people under control and have ultimate power, even the war which is supposed to be going on around the world may not necessarily be real in the sense that people are fighting for land, rather, they are fighting for destruction of plentiful resources and products, the reason being to keep control of the population by lack of resources.

Winston reads the book to Julia who has a very distinct lack of interest in the idea of overthrowing The Party, she prefers to know that the only thing they cannot get is her thoughts and her love for Winston no matter how much they torture her.

The day after, they wake up in their secret room and are apprehended by the ‘Thought Police’, split up and taken to the ‘Ministry of Love’, one of the four ministries in London dealing with different sectors of government. Winston is shut in a cell in which many other people pass through and get taken off to ‘Room 101. After a few days he is taken out of the cell and beaten and tortured again and again for days on end with little food or water given to him. He stays here losing his perception of time and losing his sanity until O’Brien visits him, confessing that he was trying to catch Winston out all along. O’Brien then begins a program of reformation with Winston, the intention being to break him down and model him using brainwashing into a conforming citizen, he does this by use of torture devices and persuasive power, using his superior intellect to try and win Winston over. O’Brien does not avoid the truth of The Party’s intentions being to become all powerful, stating that The Party works as an Oligarchy from which it gets its strength, and using the argument that 2+2 can equal to 5 if The Party wishes it to, much like the stars can revolve around the earth if they wanted them to. He uses the idea of Solipsism as an example and says that The Party is the gov-erning brain behind this principle. It is explained that unlike Stalin’s attempts at complete control or the Nazis, The Party are not lying to themselves saying they want equality for all men, they want power for themselves and they will not stop until the spirit of man is so broken they have complete dependancy on Big Brother.

Eventually, by use of Room 101, in which Winston is subjected to his worst fear, Winston is broken to the point of even betraying Julia, saying to do these horrible things to her and not him. O’Brien has finally got to the one thing that Winston and Julia thought they would never get to, his mind and utmost devotion to Julia.

The rest of the novel explains the life Winston now lives, he has not been vaporised but he has been brainwashed to the point of getting excited about The Party winning battles and believing it/not believing it at the same time, he has succumbed to the principles of Doublethink, he is no longer a threat to The Party and lives out his days in the knowledge that he loves Big Brother, and nothing else.