Nineteen Eighty-Four
George Orwell
Nineteen Eighty-Four
In Airstrip One, a province of the superstate Oceania, Winston Smith rewrites history at the Ministry of Truth and begins a forbidden love affair, under the constant watch of the Party and Big Brother (1949).
About the book
Published in 1949, Nineteen Eighty-Four is set in Oceania, a state ruled by the Party and its ever-watchful leader, Big Brother. Winston Smith works at the Ministry of Truth, rewriting old newspapers so that the record always agrees with what the Party says now. Privately he keeps a diary, a crime in itself, and begins to wonder whether anyone else shares his doubts. George Orwell imagines a totalitarian state that controls not only what people do but what they are able to think, through constant surveillance, perpetual war and a language designed to make dissent impossible. Words from the novel, among them Big Brother, doublethink and thoughtcrime, have passed into everyday use.
Characters
Winston Smith — Protagonist
A clerk at the Ministry of Truth who rewrites the past and privately doubts the Party.
Julia — Winston’s lover
A young woman from the Fiction Department who rebels in her own practical way.
O’Brien — Inner Party member
A powerful Party official whom Winston believes may share his doubts.
Big Brother — Leader
The face of the Party, watching from every poster, who may or may not exist.
Emmanuel Goldstein — Enemy of the state
The Party’s great traitor, the target of the daily Two Minutes Hate.
Mr Charrington — Shopkeeper
The elderly owner of a junk shop in the proles’ quarter.
Syme — Philologist
A colleague of Winston’s working on the dictionary of Newspeak.
Parsons — Neighbour
Winston’s enthusiastic, dim neighbour, devoted to the Party.
About the author
George Orwell (1903–1950) was the pen name of Eric Arthur Blair, an English novelist and essayist who turned plain, exact prose into a political act. Born in India and schooled at Eton, he served five years in the imperial police in Burma, then lived among the poor of Paris and London, and was shot through the throat fighting Franco's forces in Spain — and each of those became a book. He wanted prose to be "like a window pane", and distrusted any language built to hide what it meant. Animal Farm made him famous; Nineteen Eighty-Four, finished on a Scottish island while tuberculosis was killing him, gave the world Big Brother and doublethink. His work also includes Burmese Days, The Road to Wigan Pier and Homage to Catalonia.