1984 - Orwell
tags :
- keywords
- Fiction / Classics,Fiction / Dystopian,politicalNovel
Motivation for reading
Having said so many times that my own country is rushing into the story of 1984 so many times I am finally reading the book in detail.
Background
The book is published in 1949, but Orwell has more in mind than the anti-communist sentiments in the work. In Orwell’s thought, he found analogy between the British Labour Party and the Communist Party under Stalin and consider himself the left of the left. In his idea, both parties claimed to present the interest of the working classes and fight against the communist, but in reality, concerned only with perpetuating their power.
In 1945, the Tory-led labour party won the British electorate and got the first time opportunity to reshape the Biritish society along the socialist line. However, according to his letters, he was worried how likely the Labour will stick with its original ideals and choose not to extend the scope of its power. (Judging by the plot of the book he’s probably very negative about the prospect…)
Besides, he’s very happy about the widespread allgiance to Stalinism among the lefe despite overwhelming evidence of its evil nature, as uncovered from one of his letter he wrote in March of 1948:
For somewhat complex reasons, nearly the whole of the English Left has been driven to accept the Russian regime as “Socialist”, while silently recognizing that its spirit and practice are quite alien to anything that is meant by “Socialism” in this country. Hence there has arisen a sort of schizophrenic manner of thinking, in which words like “democracy” can bear two irreconcilable meanings, and such things as concentration camps and mass deportations can be right and wrong simultaneously.
Memo Quote
On language and thought
- Ideas that are orthodoxy has the authority, the power dictates all other different ideas. However, such ideas are unquestionable, and things are unquestionable and can only remain that way when people believe unconsciously.
The whole literature of the past will have been destroyed. Chaucer, Shakespeare, Milton, Byron – they’ll exist only in Newspeak versions, not merely changed into something different, but actually changed into something contradictory of what they used to be. Even the literature of the Party will change. Even the slogans will change. How could you have a slogan like “freedom is slavery” when the concept of freedom has been abolished? The whole climate of thought will be different. In fact there will be no thought, as we understand it now. Orthodoxy means not thinking – not needing to think. Orthodoxy is unconsciousness.
- If reality can be fabricated, the mind can be controlled. Can anything truthful only inside of one’s mind still have the credibility to be truthful?
If both the past and the external world exist only in the mind, and if the mind itself is controllable–what then?
On what’s the implication of a “future”
- There’s no future, if future only resamble the present.
For whom, it suddenly occurred to him to wonder, was he writing this diary? For the future, for the unborn. His mind hovered for a moment round the doubtful date on the page, and then fetched up with a bump against the Newspeak word doublethink. For the first time the magnitude of what he had undertaken came home to him. How could you communicate with the future? It was of its nature impossible. Either the future would resemble the present, in which case it would not listen to him: or it would be different from it, and his predicament would be meaningless.
On group polarization (during three mins hates)
The little sandy-haired woman had turned bright pink, and her mouth was opening and shutting like that of a landed fish. Even O’Brien’s heavy face was flushed. He was sitting very straight in his chair, his powerful chest swelling and quivering as though he were standing up to the assault of a wave. The dark-haired girl behind Winston had begun crying out ‘Swine! Swine! Swine!’, and suddenly she picked up a heavy Newspeak dictionary and flung it at the screen. It struck Goldstein’s nose and bounced off: the voice continued inexorably. In a lucid moment Winston found that he was shouting with the others and kicking his heel violently against the rung of his chair. The horrible thing about the Two Minutes Hate was not that one was obliged to act a part, but that it was impossible to avoid joining in.
On sex oppression
It was even possible, at moments, to switch one’s hatred this way or that by a voluntary act. Suddenly, by the sort of violent effort with which one wrenches one’s head away from the pillow in a nightmare, Winston succeeded in transferring his hatred from the face on the screen to the dark-haired girl behind him. Vivid, beautiful hallucinations flashed through his mind. He would flog her to death with a rubber truncheon. He would tie her naked to a stake and shoot her full of arrows like Saint Sebastian. He would ravish her and cut her throat at the moment of climax. Better than before, moreover, he realized why it was that he hated her. He hated her because she was young and pretty and sexless, because he wanted to go to bed with her and would never do so, because round her sweet supple waist, which seemed to ask you to encircle it with your arm, there was only the odious scarlet sash, aggressive symbol of chastity.
On rebellion
If there is hope, wrote Winston, it lies in the proles.
- But even if they succeed, what’s the future they lead?
Until they(proles) become conscious they will never rebel, and until after they have rebelled they cannot become conscious.
On Freedom
- Freedom is the freedom of speaking the truth. Speaking of what’s unalterable.
Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else follows.
Impression
- It’s more intriguing than I expected at first…
- He uses a lot of “What was adj. was not that… but that…” or similar form lol.
- I have more hope for humanity than sank itself into a dystopia FOREVER. The book itself is almost like a modern version of Job and God, in this case, Winston is the Job that eventually comes to love the God, the party, the big brother. (this reminds me of Camus' perception of communism, he thinks the concept of communism is people’s attempt to construct a god in this human world). I don’t believe the all mighty everywhere presented god could ever exist. It is against both the good side and the dark side of the humanity.
- One day Big Brother will collpase, its image will be taken down and it will be killed, physically and metaphorically. Just like god is killed.
Questions inspired:
Can history be completely remade? Has it ever happened in history? What is the limitation to this ambition?
Thoughtcrime does not entail death: thoughtcrime IS death? (what does it mean?)
Will narrowing the language narrow the thought? I always have the feeling that language/words are just a symbol or representations of some concepts already embedded in my mind. Whether such words exit only helps me crystalize the thinking.
Reading log
<2022-11-28 Mon> : Reading Progress : 100%
- finished the book. I don’t really like the ending. It’s very rushy.
<2022-11-24 Thu> : Reading Progress : 64%
- Winston met O’Brien and confirmed the existence of the brotherhood.
- The way the brotherhood is organized is very interesting.
- At the section where Winston is reading the book.
<2022-11-24 Thu> : Reading Progress : 52%
- I like the first time Winston had sex with Julia and think it’s a political act.
- At where Winston is renting the old second-hand stores upstairs and having affairs with Julia.
<2022-11-22 Tue> : Reading Progress : 41%
- Winston’s visit to where proles live, he tries to interview an old man and want to have a picture of the past. But the attempt was a failure because the old man cannot recall anything that provides big picture but only details.
- On the way back Winston encountered the girl he thought must be the spy, but it turns out the girl loves him.
- They are meeting in some place to witness public trials of war prisoners.
<2022-11-21 Mon> : Reading Progress : 31%
- Winston’s diary about his wife, the prostitute, and his memory about three earlier revolutionary heroes who were prosecuted and their fabricated crimes being written and written again and again. His craving for true love and his hope for changing the circumstances from the proles.
<2022-11-19 Sat> : Reading Progress : 23%
- I am where Winston is having a conversation with Syme, and it’s so funny Winston has the conviction that he will definitely be vaporized one day…“One day he will disappear. It’s written in his face.” This conviction in plain English is just hilarious.
One of these days, thought Winston with sudden deep conviction, Syme will be vaporized. He is too intelligent. He sees too clearly and speaks too plainly. The Party does not like such people. One day he will disappear. It is written in his face.
- the idea of changing the language to control thought is very interesting and also sounds true enough to me.
- The idea of the destruction of words… I have had similar questions about it, if there’s a prefix to add the opposite connotation for a word, why bother to invent another word to indicate an opposite meaning… It’s so redundant.
<2022-11-19 Sat> : Reading Progress : 15%
- The second day of reading the book I was too tired yesterday and didn’t read a lot…
- Finished chapter 2, I don’t particularly enjoy reading a political novel but this book is beyond my expectation so far. I love who Orwell depicts Winston’s revelation during the three mins hates, where he realized the hatred towards the sandy-haired woman was due to the scarlet sash round her sweet, which symbolizes chastity.
- The part where Orwell describes the hint of frightfulness in the grayish haired woman’s face toward her children is very touching. It’s ironic to even think the book is published in 1949, the same year another despotism regime gained firm control of a new a a born country that will, through its propaganda and ideological control, and spies on people’s thought crimes, which culminate to the tragedy exactly as described in the book…
With those children, he thought, that wretched woman must lead a life of terror. Another year, two years, and they would be watching her night and day for symptoms of unorthodoxy. Nearly all children nowadays were horrible. What was worst of all was that by means of such organisations as the Spies they were systematically turned into ungovernable little savages, and yet this produced in them no tendency whatever to rebel against the discipline of the Party. On the contrary, they adored the Party and everything connected with it. The songs, the processions, the banners, the hiking, the drilling with dummy rifles, the yelling of slogans, the worship of Big Brother – it was all a sort of glorious game to them. All their ferocity was turned outwards, against the enemies of the State, against foreigners, traitors, saboteurs, thought-criminals. It was almost normal for people over thirty to be frightened of their own children.