Book Review #48: 1984 (Nineteen-Eighty Four) By George Orwell

“WAR IS PEACE, FREEDOM IS SLAVERY AND IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH”!!

Probably this is one of the most disturbing books that I've ever read in recent times. I had no idea what was happening but I was sure that, I was feeling all those creepiness, all those dreaded ways of torturing people, and most of which, the way an existing government treats its workers for the sole purpose of staying in power.

At the same time, this is one of the classics ever written on socio-political grounds. George Orwell has mastered at the character creation, that it almost felt like the events described in this book might have happened for real. The Dystopia that Orwell had expressed in this novel is quite an amazing thing. Written in 1948, but for the people of 1984 is what makes this book as a unique and class apart.

Winston Smith, the protagonist of our novel, who happened to be an inner party worker. He always hated his government for their way of treating its people. Their totalitarian way of handling things and events resulted in more hatred from among its workers than the normal citizen. Winston was working in Ministry of Truth, a government organization whose purpose is to distort the dates and events and recreate those things as never happened or happened at the behest of the wishes of government. He was often wondering why things are like this and why their government is behaving like this. Their government went a step ahead and created a new kind of dictionary called “NEWSPEAK" that eliminated almost every word that can be used to describe the hatred against their government. This dictionary always uses words such that, there is no way that anyone can write against government, because, those words didn't exist in the NEWSPEAK dictionary.

As the story further progresses, Winston was slogging every day to his work though he hated it. So, he purchased a diary from local market and started to write his hatred against the government in that diary. He had to keep this activity so secret that, his every move, his every step has been watched very closely by his government and Big Brother. Wherever he used to sit, at his home, at office, on the street, there will be special telescreens that will spy on him and often he gets reminders from the same screen whenever they encounter some unusual activities. Not only was him, almost everyone undergoing this surveillance. They are not even allowed to think against their government, otherwise, this will get booked under the act “Thought Crime”. There are few cases like people were booked under “Thought Crimes” and there are “Thought Police” everywhere in the city to keep an eye on these people.

During these events, he meets a female co-worker Julia from his office that expresses her interest towards Winston. Initially he was skeptical that, she might be an inside informant who is spying on him. Later, he comes to know that, even she hated the government. So he accepts her proposal. They usually go to the woods to spend some romantic time together, since, couples who are going together and are not married is a crime according to the government. So, Winston rents an apartment in the 2^nd floor of an antique artefacts seller.

One fine day Winston meets O'Brien, a colleague of him that pretends to hate their government and Big Brother. He befriends him and reveals all his details and his love affair with Julia. Initially, O'Brien acts as if he is the member of secret group and hands over a book of secret group to Winston to study. He collects all the information from Winston and pretends that they can work together and bring down this government. Winston believes in all these things and along with Julia will head back to their apartment and begins to study that book. This is the longest section from the novel where Winston reads and understands everything about their government and the secret group. In all these events, both Winston and Julia were certain of one thing, they believed that they will get caught sooner or later by their government or people from Big Brother and will be executed. During this phase, their apartment door will be kicked open and both of them will be arrested. The owner of the apartment Mr. Charrington, who pretended to be a normal person, is actually one of the “Thought Police”.

So, both Winston and Julia will be arrested and will be put in separate prisons. This section of the novel is the disturbing section. Winston will be tortured like anything and made to accept to all the crimes that he has committed or not. The twist in the novel appears now, O’Brien, who happened to be a member of the secret group is actually a spy working from outside the party and working for Big Brother. He confronts Winston and reveals his true face and explains Winston about all his spying activities. He tortures Winston in all possible ways and forces him to confess everything. O’Brien transfer Winston to Cell 101, a dreaded torture room specifically designed to torture people in the cruelest way and will be made to confess almost anything that they wanted, even though they never committed in the first place. According to O’Brien, Winston and Julia have committed Adultery, they committed thought crime, they are traitors, they worked against the government, etc… But, all O’Brien wanted from Winston was to forget Julia. He tortures Winston and brainwashes him in such a way that, Winston almost nods for everything and even he accepts 2+2=5!!

Finally, O’Brien was able to brainwash Winston successfully. His final resort of torturing Winston by allowing the rats to eat Winston’s face in a closed box proved to be successful. Winston who often gets dreams of eaten by rats was actually coming true. He decides to confess to his final crime and says to O’Brien that he can torture Julia instead of him. This is the final answer that O’Brien was expecting from Winston. Finally, Winston will be released and was allowed to live like normal Proles. Winston encounters Julia in later days after his release, but, he will realize that, he don’t have any feelings left for Julia.

Overall Winston’s journey is completely filled with torture. He realizes that, one alone cannot do anything against the government. The realization from “I hate Big Brother” to “I Love Big Brother” is a complete brainwashed phenomenon.

I recommend this book to be read by everyone. This book is truly a masterpiece and covers the post war details of the country Oceania in greater details. Though it’s a fiction, but, nobody will come to a conclusion that this novel is purely fictional tale oriented!! The 3 sentences from the novel will be reverberated in your head even after finished reading it. “WAR IS PEACE, FREEDOM IS SLAVERY AND IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH”!!

My Rating:

5/5

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Book Review #2 – Animal Farm George Orwell (Parallel story to Russian Revolution)

Animal Farm

The book “Animal Farm by George Orwell”, Published in 1945, which created a lot of controversies. As Orwell himself claims that this book reflects the events leading to Russian Revolution of 1917 and to the stalin era in the Soviet Union as cited by Wikipedia.

Me, being an avid reader of Historical and Political books, I absolutely enjoyed reading this book. As a matter of fact, we must know about Russian Revolution of 1917 and Stalin’s Communist ideologies to relate to the characters in this book. Orwell, by creating a parallel story for these Russian Revolution, created the Animal Characters and marvelled at it.

It requires great amount of perception and intelligence to understand the political statement that Orwell was trying to make with “Animal Farm – A Fairy Tale”.

And the readers, must have interest in finding out the subtle link between the Animal Farm and The Russian Revolution. Only then, I can vouch you, this book will make you drool for more. (Not an exaggeration though!).

In his era, The author Orwell had an amazing insights into the Communist Regimes. Orwell wrote Animal Farm at a time when, the truth was hardly known to the people in Russia. According to the global readers opinion, Orwell must get a noble prize for bringing out the truth in such a fashion.

So, Here we go…

Mr. Jones, the owner of Manor Farm, is a lazy drunkard person. It so happened that, one day, due to over drinking, he forgets to feed his overworked and underfed livestock. This led to a discussion among the animal groups during every night and decided to take over the Farm by Humans into the hands of Animals, which led by PIGS.

By taking consent of all the animals, the PIGS decided to finally attack Mr. Jones and take over the Farm. Vowing to eliminate the terrible inequality of the Human Farm, the renamed “ANIMAL FARM” was organized to benefit all the animals who walks on Four Legs. When Chickens questioned on their positions, since they had only two legs, PIGS convinced the chickens that, the WINGS are indeed a form of Legs, that eventually they are also FOUR LEGGED animals.

Finally all animals, one day, attacked Mr. Jones and took over the farm into their control. But, as the time passess, the ideals of the rebellion are corrupted and then forgotten. And something new and unexpected emerges.

The Hypocrisy of the regime, with changing of the commendments to fool the guillable masses as and when it suited for pigs. The initial commendments when the ANIMAL FARM was formed was this one,

“FOUR LEGS GOOD, TWO LEGS BAD!!”

Now, this has been changed by the corrput PIGS to,

“FOUR LEGS GOOD, TWO LEGS BETTER!!”

Let us first understand what is Communism is all about:

Communism was supposed to be a utopian solution for the imperfect world we live in, where some are more equal than others. But, they must have forgotten that, even a small baby is capable of taking care of its own doll.

Communism also requires that all means of production be controlled by a BIG BROTHER. In other words, No one can own his or her own business or produce his or her own goods, because the BIG BROTHER owns everything.

Communism is an idea that everyone in a society receives equal share of the benefits derived from its labor. Communism is designed to allow the poor to raise up and attain social and financial status equal to that of Middle class land owners.

In order to acheive equality, wealth is shared so that the members of the upper class are brought down to same social and financial status as that of middle class. They didn’t think that, by doing this, they are actually pulling people to a stress and hatred mode.

Back to book…

In the novel ANIMAL FARM, Snowball (another Pig who is equal to Napolean), is chased out of the farm by Napolean’s vicious guard dogs. Afer that, Napolean blames his erstwhile colleague and hatchet man snowball for all the problems on the farm, and he alludes that Snowball was a Mr. Jones stooge.

Snowball had fought bravely at the “Battle of Cowshed”. Now, all the other animals was being brainwashed into believing that snowball was a double agent and he is actually fighting for Mr. Jones and shots/Wounds he sustained in the battle are made out to be Napolean inflicted on him. Those other animals who are accused of supporting Snowball are purged and executed after being forced to confess and Napolean offered a reward for capturing Snowball.

Napolean takes Nine puppies from their parents and begins to raising them himself with cunning motives. No one knows exactly, what he is doing with the dogs, until recently the dogs suddenly appears, fully grown to chase the Snowball off the farm.

After Snowball is exiled into woods, Napolean is in complete dictatorial control of the farm. He speaks relatively little because he has a squealer who does all his jobs. He is eliminating all chances of open protest by banning public meetings, saying that it is better if all the decisions are decided by the committee headed by Napolean.

Later, Napolean rarely appeared in public meetings, and spent all his time being a monarch of the farm. When he did emerge, it was solely for the purpose of some ceremonial reasons with an escort of dogs around him. He protects himself all fronts and loopholes. With the help of squealer and the other pigs, he re-wrote the history of the Animal Farm. By portraying Snowball as a traitor and increasing his own popularity as a protector of the farm. He relies on the guillability of the strongest animals, like Boxer the Horse and the apathy of the wisest, like Benjamin the Donkey. When anyone questions Napolean’s ideas or decisions, he has a herd of sheeps, loudly protesting it over and drowing it out.

The connection with Russian Revolution:

Napolean is STALIN. Joesph Stalin was the general secretary of the Communist Party from 1922 until his death more than 30 years later. Like Napolean, Stalin was a master of manipulation and a spin doctor for the highest pedigree. He grew a secret police force, the NKVD (now KGB) which behaved like Napolean’s Dogs (as in Novel) , ultimately proving its efficiency by assassinating Leo Trotsky.

Stalin also kept a tight control over the media, commissioning paintings of himself in which the children gazed up at him adoringly. He used his political power to essentially, re-write the Russian History, giving himself a much larger role in the Russian Revolution in 1917 than he had actually played and later suggesting that he was the only one who is personally responsible for winning the World War II.

This is a striking similarity of the Orwell in his Novel Animal Farm, where Napolean the PIG, portrays itself as a savior of the farm and giving himself the award for the battle. In reality, it was Snowball who had done most of the battle wining against humans.

One of the biggest parallels between Napoleon and Stalin has to do with the way Animal Farm’s productivity slumps off while Napoleon is in control.  He decides to fill the granaries with sand to hide the smaller harvest.  This episode is an allusion to how Stalin disrupted agricultural production with his Five-Year-Plans (begun in 1928). When the Plans resulted in widespread famine across Russia, Stalin did his best to conceal coverage of the famines and to make it look like Russia was doing as well as before.

Napoleon’s was cunning and shrewd.  Animal Farm is a machine that runs according to Napoleon’s iron will. We get hints of Napoleon’s ruthless Stalin type nature long before it erupts into full force. The first comes when he unleashes the dogs on Snowball, and they chase him out of the farm. The second comes when Napoleon squashes the hen rebellion by cutting off their food rations, causing a number of hens to die of starvation. But nothing measures up to what he does next.

Napoleon begins to demand that various animals come forward and make false confessions before the group.  He gets rid of anyone that had the power and means to contradict him, and after they reveal themselves as traitors, “the dogs promptly tore their throats out” .

In this way,

Napoleon knocks off the four pigs who sometimes agreed to disagree with him, and the hens who acted as ringleaders in the rebellion.

“And so the tale of confessions and executions went on, until there was a pile of corpses lying before Napoleon’s feet and the air was heavy with the smell of blood, which had been unknown there since the time of Jones “.

The violence that erupts mid-way through Orwell’s “Fairy Tale,” is an allusion to the Great Purge, also known as the Great Red Terror, which was overseen by Stalin in the late 1930s. Pig Napoleon’s methods mirror Stalin’s own quite closely.

Some people would just disappear; others were sent to the Gulag prison camps; others were arm twisted ( by kidnapping their children ) to discredit themselves publicly by confessing to crimes they had never committed.  All of these extreme methods were ways for Stalin to consolidate his power, to make sure that his position was unshakeable.

What is so diabolical about Napoleon’s method is that he forces such animals to tell lies about themselves before they die.  And dead men nay animals tell no tales. By robbing their right to free speech, he forces the animals to essentially kill any public respect or self respect they might have had.

Both Napoleon and Stalin were dictators.  Fuelled and driven by paranoia  cum sheer love for violence. To make sure all of this floats with the other animals, Napoleon cleverly keeps doctoring the Commandments to make them say what he wants them to say.  Squealer explains that the commandment didn’t say that you couldn’t sleep in a bed, only that you couldn’t sleep in a bed with sheets.  Similarly, the commandment forbidding alcohol later forbids drinking alcohol to excess.

Meanwhile, Napoleon denounces all the grand social dreams that gave birth to the idea of Animal Farm.  He tells the other animals: “the truest happiness lay in working hard and living frugally” . In other words, Napoleon has taken the idea of prosperous living and kept it all for himself.  Everyone else is out on their own.

It’s clear that Napoleon has made a mockery of Old Major’s ideas in the same way that Stalin did. The “worker’s state” that actually existed under Stalin was more like a horrible, dark parody.

In short Orwell seems to be arguing that delusional idealist thinkers, totally out of touch with reality can imagine fantastic utopias,  but there’s always gonna to be some dirty pig that comes along to put a spanner in the works.

My Rating: 5/5