1984--trying to put yourself in shoes that the ministry of plenty produced
1984 - george orwell - thoughts on the book....
Our hero Winston seems like a terrible mess of a person from the get go and it was really hard to understand the level of pressure and surveillance and paradoxical thinking that he is suffering. We basically start the book by âpeeringâ into his work life for awhile, a very weird messed up worklife with ugly people and personalities. Even if he was at home it appeared to be âwork likeâ in such a way that the telescreen would watch him and heâd have to display guarded actions like secret diarying. It is some wonder whether our own computers âwatch usâ in a way or guard us from thinking what weâd like to this.
The literal climate of the book is quite intense also from the start, from the first line of the book the wind whipping through the front entrance to the ministry of truth, was very impressionable. Then you have the weakly flavored foods, the rations, etc. These elements of the book left a very distinct dreariness that was very hard to get through in the beginning. When suddenly you see that Winston is capable of having a loving relationship it is really endearing. He appeared somewhat passionate before meeting Julia, but it was so neurotic with white-knuckle scribbling in the diary, so when he finds what seems like a fairly whimsical life of love, it is quite a bizarre dream-like state compared to the earlier book.
When finally the whole âcover is blownâ by the entrance of Winston trying to find the conspiracy of the brotherhood, it seems like another twisty narrative to the plain-old drearyness of the party. this whole âenlighteningâ process after the book reading comes completely crashing down as we find that he is being watched in the antique shop, and we go through the entire torture process and learn the concept of the brotherhood is just a farce...in fact oâneil arranges the whole thing. it is strange that when we are reading the contents of the briefcase we think we are being enlightened but itâs funny to âread the briefcase bookl thru winstonâs lensâ...e.g. we only get a glimpse of chapter 1, 3, and we go thru the motion of âare you listening Julia??â âyes yes dear...â and then a bit more of chapter 3. itâs like we never really get chapter 2...
that seems like a weird thing where maybe it is intentionally omitted. we only get the âignorance is strengthâ motif from chapter 1, and this in fact just gives us a picture of the âworld at largeâ with the continental picture. on one end of the spectrum, you can almost see the way the book lays things out as quite realistic you can almost literally hear a political pundit literally advocate that âwar is peaceâ...itâs not so far out of reach... but on the other end of the spectrum it is hard to see oneself literally in winstons shoes cowering and shaking before the government...but under what circumstances would we see ourselves suddenly in his place?
I see some similarity of 1984 to gravityâs rainbow where this dreary weird office environment is all tied up with messy politics, war, personalities, etc. I didnât fully get through gravityâs rainbow, but the intro feels like the âbefore repressionâ era of what 1984 is like...itâs a boys club...itâs all about missiles...all about weird chummy personalities... the gravityâs rainbow environment is much more kind of mysterious and free even despite wartime. so while it is difficult to imagine being in winstonâs shoes in the start of the book, once you get to the point of understanding that he is capable of love, of healing his vericose vein, of escaping the surveillance, it is really touching. and to see that crash down and to go through all the levels of hell that the torture involves is a major disappointment. juliaâs character development is really disjointed and weird, formalized thru his work experiences ,,, âworker who was injured on the mechanical novel writing devices...member of the junior anti-sex leagueâ see her become human is also quite surprising. i donât necessarily know what the entire dynamic is, it is sad that he is eventually forced to âbetrayâ her under torture....itâs strange how sick and medical and controlled but also imaginary the torture seems...maybe more real than you could imagine though...
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