The novel 1984 by George Orwell is a fictional future where The Party controls everything. The Party is lead by a larger than life figurehead named Big Brother. The main character is Winston Smith. The story is divided into 3 parts and chronicles Winston’s rebellion against and then re-entering of The Party.
Winston works for 1 of the 4 government agency’s, The Ministry of Truth. In his job he re-writes old news articles so they show that The Party has always been and will be in control. By re-writing everything in print, The Party effectively changes history. The only proof of actual history is in the minds of the people who were there. Winston realizes that there is something wrong with this, yet he doesn’t know what. The re-writing of history is all he has ever known.
It is most likely Winston’s job that leads him to rebel against The Party. In the First section of 1984 Winston doesn’t openly rebel, he starts a journal in which he writes how he remember the history that has been re-written. This is called , because it goes against what the party tells you to know. The Thought Police are in charge of arresting people who commit Thought Crime. That is the start of Winston’s rebellion against Big Brother and The Party. In the 2 nd part of 1984 Winston is meets a girl named Julia.
At first Winston believes Julia will turn him in for committing Thought Crime. Then Julia passes Winston a note and they meet each other. The Party also does not allow association that is not goverernd. This is the start of an affair between the two, because they are not married and free love is not allowed. Winston is rebelling fully by his association with Julia. The 2 nd section Winston fully rebels, he joins an underground resistance, and he believes that his life is better because The Party is no longer controlling him.
At the end of this section Winston learns that he has been set-up and followed by the Thought Police the whole time. He and Julia believed that they were resisting and rebelling but had actually been entrapped by the Thought Police. Winston is arrested and taken to The Ministry of Love, another of the main government agencies. Here he is tortured physically by starvation and electrocution under the watch of The Party.
He is manipulated physiologically by being conditioned to avoid torture by answering questions about his loyalty to The Party. The questions are complex and confusing and the torturers are able to tell whether or an answer is given to avoid torture or given because it is what Winston believes. This continues until all the answers that Winston gives are the truth in his mind, because the truth is whatever the party tells him it is. This is the 3 rd section of the book and the last.
Winston is a different person after he his released from The Ministry of Love. It is by the process of setting up, then arresting and torturing it’s members that The Party continually perpetuates it’s self and remains in power. 1984 is an intriguing, yet boring book, because the world of 1984 is bleak and uninteresting because the party re-writes history and dictates the truth so nothing unexpected ever happens. The 3 parts of the book are separated, as they are to show the changes in Winston’s thought and actions. The 3 parts are Winston’s life story, which is condensed into a less than a couple years. He thinks about rebelling, he rebels, and then he re-joins The Party.
In the end Winston is assassinated because his usefulness to the Party was nullified when he committed a thought crime, The Party simply kept him alive and let him re-join to prove that there is no way to overthrow them and that those who try will eventually be caught. This is an eerily prophetic book that I hope is never realized to be the future.