George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-four Decoded

“If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face –
FOR EVER.” (Orwell, p.250)
There are few books as famous and infamous as George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-
four. It was banned in the US for being Communist and in the USSR for being anti-
Communist. It is a biting critique of everything from authoritarianism to
censorship to Plato and it is one of the frequently mentioned books by politicians
across the globe. The spectre, or ghost, of George Orwell’s nightmare looms large
over public consciousness and will do for many years to come.
For all of this significance, we rarely stop to examine Orwell’s novel in depth:
what is it the makes the villainous party so destructive and what makes living
under their brutal regime so unbearable? Well, this is just what we will explore as
we read the text along. We will uncover George Orwell’s terrifying genus in
designing a state that cheats away at every layer of human psyche, slithering
through our innermost machinery and turning us into dull manipulable slaves. As
you read along, pay attention to the following salient points:
a) how memory is key to personal identity
b) how and why persistent bodily torture can break its victims, turning them
against the very ideals they once cherished and were willing to die for into
destitute men and women who are willing to give it up just so that the torture
could stop
c) how power can reshape the definition of truth itself and
d) why helplessness is so important to every totalitarian or dictatorial regime.
For sure, we will not be able to cover up all these aspects of Nineteen Eighty-four
because it is such a deep novel in which every re-reading plunges us into a deeper
level of understanding such that at the end, we come to terms with the fact that
Orwell’s text is characterized by multiple layers of meaning and interpretation. The
least I can do is to encourage you all to read the texts for yourself – from cover to
cover and come up with as many questions as we can entertain in the process of
textual analysis and literary appreciation.
To set the ball rolling, let’s start with a brief recap of the story and world of
Nineteen Eighty-four just so we are all on the same page going into our analysis.
 1. Nineteen Eighty-four: A Brief Synopsis
George Orwell’s novel opens on a dystopian totalitarian state named Oceania,
comprising what used to be the British Empire and the United States. Our
protagonist is Winston Smith, an employee and minor member of “The Party”
which is the government ruling Oceania headed up by their messianic leader: “Big
Brother”. Oceanian society is split into three strict classes:
1. The Inner Party: who wield pretty much all the power
2. The Outer Party: about thirteen per cent (13%) of the population who live
under constant surveillance and carry out orders from above, and
3. The Proletariats: (the Proles, as they are called in the text) constituting the
remaining eighty-five per cent (85%) of the population who are sharply
policed and are kept ignorant of the current affairs but are largely left to their
own devices, considered too stupid and uninformed to be a threat.
All the Outer Party members are kept under watch by telescreens: digital devices
that have camaras or microphones attached to them to survey their every move.
Winston’s job is at the Ministry of Truth correcting records. Each day he files into
work and alters documents so they reflect what the government wants them say. Of
course, he is unable to admit to anyone else that this in fact is his job description.
Funny enough, this was partly inspired by Orwell’s own experiences in making
propaganda during World War II, propaganda which included praise of Stalin.
In Oceania, one crime is treated more seriously than any other: Thought Crime,
that is, harboring or nursing and nurturing treasonous ideas that would undermine
The Party. However, there is no clear definition of Thought Crime and you could
hauled and hurled away by the Thought Police for such varied indiscretions as
unsuitable facial expression or sleep talking. Winston for his part secretly
harbours deep resentments for The Party and our story begins in earnest when he
decides to write down his private thoughts in a secret journal or diary knowing that
it if it were ever found out he would be doomed.
Over time, Winston becomes acquainted with a young woman named Julia and
they begin an illicit love affair. Julia is everything that Winston finds lacking in his
own life. She is passionate, naturally rebellious against The Party and irresistibly
attractive to Winston. They slowly fall in love, prompting Winston to rent a private
room above a shop where they can meet and consummate stolen hours together
without raising party suspicions. In Oceania, unions between party members
without explicit permission was strictly forbidden, and sex and relationships in
general were disparaged and looked down on.
Meanwhile Winston catches a suspicion in one of the members of the Inner Party,
O’Brien, who seemingly harbours similar rebellious sentiments to himself. One
day O’Brien asks Winston to visit him at his address under the pretense of
providing him with a new government language guide. Winstin goes there bringing
Julia and O’Brien reveals himself t be a member of the Brotherhood: a secret
organisation hell bent on overthrowing Big Brother. They – Winston and Julia -
agree to join the organisation, but only on one condition, that they never be
separated. O’Brien arranges for Winston to be provided with a key text of the
Brotherhood which explains the inner workings of The Party and why it must be
overthrown. This work describes the numerous aspects of the totalitarian state
including how the country is kept in a perpetual state of war in order to waste
resources and have the populace accept terrible hardship – all so they are kept
more loyal and dependent on The Party.
Winston is reading this book to Julia in bed when all of a sudden, the Thought
Police descend on their hiding spot. The owner of the shop from whom Winston
rents the room is revealed to have been a member of the Thought Police all along
as is O’Brien. both Winston and Julia are whisked away into the Ministry of Love:
the ominous house of The Party’s twisted justice system. Winston is brutally
tortured again and again by O’Brien with the aim of breaking his spirit and
remaking him in The Party’s image.
O’Brien explains that external truth is a delusion held by the insane. Since The
Party has destroyed any and every evidenced that doesn’t parrot their narrative,
the only reasonable thing to do is to believe that what they say is true; any other
perspective was woefully out of line with the evidence and reflected a flawed and
outdated philosophy. O’Brien also reveals The Party’s motives: It wants power for
the sake of power – FOR ITS OWN SAKE. In the same way a Utilitarian places
happiness above all action The Party places power as the supreme good of
existence. O’Brien explains that they don’t just want power over your behaviour.
THEY WANT POWER OVER YOUR MIND and they will stop at nothing until
Winston’s psyche is reshaped entirely to willingly accept this idea wholeheartedly.
Eventually, Winston is to the extent that he truly believes anything O’Brien tells
him, even affirming that 2 + 2 = 5 without question. But, in his cell he becomes
agitated and in a nervous fit cries out for Julia. O’Brien then realizes that Winston’s
heart is still his own, and so, he takes him to Room 101 to face his ultimate fear.
Winston has a terrible phobia of rats and O’Brien hooks him up to a machine
which will allow rats to each his face and burrow through his eye sockets into his
skull until he gives in in his terror. Winston screams that O’Brien should do this
Julia instead, if only it would let him go free. O’Brien knows that at this moment,
he has dominated Winston’s entire soul and so, he lets him go.
We flash-forward to see Winston sitting in a café robbed or stripped off all feeling.
He meets with Julie but they both consent to having betrayed each other to The
Party without which they would have still been held in captivity. What remains
now is only the faint disgust they have for each other. Having nothing left to give
his life meaning, Winston gives into The Party ethos and has a quasi-religious
experience proclaiming in ecstasy that he loves Big Brother.

Nineteen Eighty-four is one of the most depressing stories you could ever read but
it is also perhaps one of the
Stopped at 06:58