1984 by George Orwell from different aspects

Abstract

It is one o'clock on a cold April day in 1984. Winston Smith, who works at the Ministry of Truth comes home back from the Ministry. The Ministry is settled in London which is the chief city of Airstrip One. Airstrip One is the third most populous of the provinces of Ocenia.Ocenia is, on the other hand, is one of the three super - powers of the world. The others are Eurosia and Eas tas i a. There is always war between them. The gov ernmental system in Ocenia is the dictatorship of the Party. There are the other ministries such as the Ministry of Peace concerned with war, the Ministry of Love trying to keep law and order, the Ministry of Plenty responsible for the economic affairs. The ministry where Winston Smith works concerns itself with news, entertainment, education and the fine arts. Now, Winston is at home trying to be alone but however, he knows that he can"*t be on his own nowhere in the city. Because the thought police plug in the comminication - systems and watch people through the tele - screens which are almost everywhere. Winston decides to open a diary which was illegal and if detected could be punished by death. The reason is simple: Noone can express his own ideas! The first thing he writes in the diary is the date: April 4 th, 1984. Winston remembers the Two Minutes Hate in the Ministry. This is a performance where individuals sit in front of a screen broadcasting about Emmanuel Goldstein» the enemy of the People and the Nation. He has been engaged in counter-revolutionary - 3 - activities and condemned to death. On the screen he calls people for freedom of thought and of press but the audience shout and swear at him. This continues for a while and then the face of Big Brother appears on the screen announcing the slogans of the Party: War is Peace, Freedom is Slavery, and Ignorance is Strength. At this moment the entire group of people break into a deep chant of "B-B!.. B-BU." over and over again. Then Winston sees O'Brien who is an important man in the Party. During the session, he later sees a pretty looking, dark-haired girl. Coming out of the mood of recollection. His eyes refo- cuses on the page where he starts writing "Down with Big Brother" filling half of the page. He is aware of the fact that he has committed thought-crime. He hears the knock at the door and moves to open it. CHAPTER li Winston opens the door and sees Mrs. Parsons, a neighbour living next door. She states that her husband Tom, who is Winston's fellow - employee in the Ministry is not at home and asks for help for the blocked sink. Winston goes home and repairs the sink, but while he is working with the spanner in his hand, the noisy Parsons** children shout at him calling him a Eurasian spytraitor. They also blame him for being a "thought-criminal". Mrs. Parsons apologizes to Winston for her children's naughty behaviour. She explains that her children are restless since they cannot go to the public hanging. Winston leaves the flat and realizes that the parents _ 4 - are scared of their own children because the Party teaches them to watch around and report suspicious people to the Thought Police. He comes into his room and starts thinking about O'Brien. Together with O'Brien he also remembers a dream he had long time ago. He thinks that there is some sort of relation between the dream and O'Brien. In the dream somebody in a dark room tells him "We shall meet in the place where there is no darkness". He, later in the novel realizes that the owner of the voice in the dream is O'Brien himself. He hesitates for a while because he cannot find out whether he is an enemy or not. He goes back to the diary and writes a kind of address ing to a time in the future or in the past when there is no restriction over thought and freedom. He adds that he is writing this from a time of uniformity and from the age of Big Brother. Then her puts the diary into the drawer leaving some dust on it so that he will understand if anyone touches it. CHAPTER 3i. Winston falls into a dream about his mother and sister. They are in the saloon of a sinking ship, looking up at him through the darkening water. Winston is out in the light while they are being sucked down to death and they are down there because he was up here. Now Winston is struck at the death of her mother which was very tragic and sorrowful. He feels that tragedy belongs to a time when there was privacy, love and friendship. But now there is none of these. Suddenly, in the dream he finds himself in a beautiful - 5 - country which he calls "The Golden Country". There he sees a girl who he saw in the Records Department in the ministry before. She approaches him and takes off her clothes as if she has destroyed the whole system the culture, the Party and the Thought Police. He thinks that she belonged to a time in the past. He wakes up with the word "Shakespeare" on his lips. Together with the noise on the screen, Winston goes back to his childhood and remembers his father and himself in a Tube Station trying to take shelter from an air - raid. There, he also remembers an old man in a dark-suit, stinking of alcohol. He was probably lamenting over his dead-mother. Then he recalls the war which was literally continuous ever since. At that time, there were street-fights within London. But he cannot remember who was at war with who at any given time because there were no records and no spoken words. Everything has been controlled by the Party itself. The history is set by the Party not by Time. The school -children are thought what the Party wants them to learn but not the pure facts. For example, at this moment in 1984 (if it is 1984 he is not sure), Ocenia is at war with Eurasia and in alliance with Eastasia. But it was only four years ago that he remembers it was the other way round. So, he thinks of the Party Slogan "Who controls the Past, controls the future". This is what they call "Reality Control" or in Newspeak "double think". Later, he starts watching the woman on the screen calling for gymnastics. She warns Winston to join in the exercise.