The Great Book Review: How scary is 1984?

War is peace; freedom is slavery; ignorance and power are the words of the famous British anti-utopian novelist.

George Orwell's 1984 book is one of the most controversial works in European and American literary history.

Whether it's 24-hour mind surveillance, betrayal among family members, falsification of history, mind control, etc.

I can feel the fear when I read it is not scary.

You may have read it before, but doing this video is very stressful.

But anyone who reads this book is lucky because the scarier it is for you, the more freedom you have.

The more horrible this book is to you, the more it shows how free a soul you have. Ready to change your life and follow 8CatsBook?

Let's get into George Orwell's 1984. Orwell wrote 1984 in 1948.

In his vision of 1984, the world would be left with three superpowers after a series of wars and annexations.

Oceania, East Asia, and Eurasia. Oceania is a totalitarian state where the supreme leader, Big Brother, has ultimate power.

The oldest brother made many incredible laws, such as banning writing anything, banning assembly, banning sex outside of childbirth, etc.

What's especially scary is that Oceania is full of monitors, and everyone needs to be scrutinized by the thought police all the time.

In Oceania, history is rewritten every day according to the needs of Big Brother, and people work and live according to Big Brother's standards.

If the monitors and the thought police find someone who violates the law, they are arrested and brainwashed or sentenced to death.

Winston, the main character, lives under Big Brother's control in Oyangol, and he can't stand the mental and physical oppression.

Not only does he keep a diary, but he also falls in love with Julia, a member of the anti-sex group, and has a physical relationship. Although Winston is conscientious, the Thought Police's surveillance is pervasive.

Eventually, he was arrested and became an ideologue, and Van Winston was tortured and punished mentally and spiritually.

After going through the Ministry of Human Love, which is responsible for the internal cleansing of the mind, Winston eventually became a walking purity of mind.

These are the main contents of 1984, but many people only feel that after reading him, they have to think about a few holes.

1984 has always been regarded as a model of forbidden political fiction in the 20th century.

The text in 1984 is full of absurdity and a bit of dark humor, but as you read it, or rather laugh at it, you feel as if a hand is slowly strangling you.

It's as if a pair of hands are slowly choking you, tightening your grip until you're suffocating. The novel opens with the background of the story, and it goes like this.

But according to the country, the government was divided into four departments: the Ministry of Truth, the Ministry of Peace, the Ministry of Human Love, and the Ministry of Vice.

The Ministry of Truth is responsible for news, entertainment, education, and art, the Ministry of Peace is responsible for the war, and the Ministry of Human Love is responsible for maintaining law and order.

The Vice Ministry is responsible for economic affairs, and ironically, the names of the four ministries are the exact opposite of what they do.

For example, the front of the Ministry of Truth building has its own massive slogan of the core truth.

The Ministry of Human Love, for example, has its own colossal core truth slogan on the front of the building, which we mentioned at the beginning: War and Peace, Freedom, Slavery, Ignorance, and Power.

The novel describes him as entering through an intricate road with barbed wire, and even in the street leading to his outer barrier, there are grim-faced guards milling about.

They wear black uniforms and carry two batons, but what's even more breathtaking is Big Brother's omnipresent surveillance.

In the novel, Big Brother is the source of surveillance, and through the ubiquitous battery and the pervasive mind of the police, the people are monitored from all sides.

The battery is a rectangular metal plate, like a mirror of woolen glass, and its sound can be turned down, but it cannot be turned off.

The battery has a receiving and transmitting function, and the surveillance of people is two-way. This unattractive object penetrates every detail of people's work and life.

The heroine takes a considerable risk of falling on her back to slip Winston a little note of love.

And Winston can only hide in a toilet cubicle to see the ubiquitous electric battery and control people's lives.

For example, the instructions from the battery had a coercive function on people, and the people in the Ocean Kingdom started their day with morning exercises.

In the morning, the battery will remind people to wake up with a sound that pierces their eardrums and make them flap their arms with a happy expression like zombies through the mysterious effect of shaded glass.

In addition to the battery, there is also the ubiquitous thought police, who together form a giant net that keeps people under the surveillance of the thought police from birth to death.

Even when he's alone, he's never sure if he's alone, no matter where he is or where he is.

Asleep or at work or resting, in the shower or bed, he can be watched without notice or knowledge.

Even the most humorous writing, if you put yourself in the shoes of a man like that, it's unsettling.

The most frightening thing about 1984 is the loss of freedom and the distortion of human nature caused by such a stressful relationship.

In the novel, it is written that it is almost typical for people over 30 in Oceania to be afraid of their children.

And not without reason, because every week, the Times always has a story about a little honey detective who eavesdrops on his parents.

Usually called the little hero, he overhears some of his parents' arrows and exposes them to the thought police.

Mr. Parsons was a fool, a standard character who had been brainwashed and had always been very loyal to what his big brother had taught him.

But one time, he inadvertently shouted in his dream that he would beat Big Brother, and his daughter heard him and reported him to jail.

But when he talked about his daughter, Parsons was sad and proud of his work and felt his daughter was on the right path.

When freedom is eroded and humanity is distorted, human beings will eventually come to the tragic end of life dissolution.

Everyone lives like a machine or a walking corpse, but the state is a collective life of extremes.

The novel says that, in principle, no one can have free time except to go to bed and never be alone.

The slightest difference in behavior or details of people's lives from those around them is enough to get them reported to jail.

People in 1984 are raised to spy on others, and in the absence of trust, spying on each other and in dysfunctional relationships.

People have gradually lost all the physical signs of life, and the concept of family has broken down.

Witzenden had worked with colleagues in the archives division for over a decade, but there needed to be more communication between them.

They were like two screws next to each other in a machine, familiar but strange, cold, and indifferent.

Things as primitive as love and sex were even more shattered in Oceania, where old Big Brother preached homiletics.

The only purpose of marriage is to reproduce offspring, a so-called late career.

Nowadays, there is neither pure love nor pure lust because everything is mixed with fear and hatred.

Their embrace is a battle, and the climax is a victory. It's a political act.

The saddest thing of all is that the young people who are the hope of the future of Oceania have established the Youth Anti-Sex League.

They were against sex, brainwashing, and training each other, strongly advocated a celibate life, or vice versa, and gave their offspring to artificial insemination.

As for the children, they are raised in this public institution when the freedom of the family has been eradicated, when fatherhood and desire have disappeared.

Can we call it life when all left is a pile of skin in the biological sense?

In Room 101 of the Ministry of Love, Weston is subjected to physical and mental abuse and torture.

After a series of blows, the underground warrior breaks down and finally gives in, betraying his lover and his love, giving up on himself.

He believed that 2+2=5, he loved Big Brother, and he threw away his true independent thinking and true feelings.

Orwell's final treatment of the main character, Moston, is also very subtle.

He gives the reader an open ending in which Winston's body lives on while his soul is dead.

So is Winston alive in the future? I want to ask you, in addition to the political interpretation, if we interpret it from an existentialist perspective.

We read it from an existentialist perspective: how do we, as living beings, understand the concept of being alive? How do we live?

Although Orwell wrote about centralized power everywhere in 1984, he also writes about the cold pressure of the post-industrial era, which seems like a steel beast.

Orwell's hidden author's heart in 1984 is to remind us that totalitarianism is the most extreme form of existential pressure and that the existence of life has to face all kinds of stress.

Many people shouted slogans, danced funny dances, and slapped each other in groups of two or two, and more often than not, I would also see them in the bus and subway in the morning and evening rush every day.

I see those people with headphones silently looking down at their phones or staring at something, and we're huddled together as if we're trying to breathe.

Many people look tired, their faces are still young, printed on expressionless windows, and the pressure of survival is a big part of life that we all have to face.

Under the weight of survival, have you found your freedom? Follow 8CatsBook, and we'll tell you a good book every week.

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