Settting

The setting that Orwell gives for this book is depressing and gray. It is set in what was considered future day London 1984 or as Winston refers to it Air Strip One. The world is also divided up into three super nations, Oceana where Winston lives, Eastasia and Eurasia. Winston lives in Victory Mansions which is a rundown apartment complex. We also learn that where ever Winston goes or anyone else for that matter they are monitored by things called telescreens. It allows for citizens to be view and recorded. Along with the telescreens being everywhere there are posters of Big Brother on almost every building. Under them is the famous caption “Big Brother Is Watching You”. Every so often rocket bombs from an enemy blow up. They keep the war real and at home for the people in the city. It could be best related to what an eastern European county might have been like during World War II. The setting is depressing because Orwell based it on some personal experience and his perspective on the time period. He makes the world be at war or seem that every place on earth in a similar state so that Winston can’t escape. This allows for the story to play out differently and with a different effect.

Synopsis

Winston is the main character who lives in a city called Air Strip One. This resides in one of three residing nations Oceana the other two are Eastasia and Eruasia. All three nations are at war with each other. The description that Winston gives of this world is cold, gray, hopeless and dark. The people that he works with at the ministry of truth are inhuman. The people in control are known as party members. The inner party members are like the government and the proles are the third class. He himself is an outer party member which is like the middle class. The party has various inventions that it uses to keep people in like. An example is Emmanuel Goldstein or double-think. Winston finds an empty Journal in a junk shop that he begins to write in. This is illegal since the party would consider it thought crim. Winston delays his punishment by doing it secretly in a part of his house that the telescreen can’t see. At his job Winston rewrites history to suit the party. One day Winston’s gaze meets with O’Brian an inner party member and fell that perhaps he too is against the party. After he gets a not from the girl that he thinks is with the thought police. It says that she loves him and it throws Winston off for a bit. We find out that her name is Julia and the two meet in various place like out in the country, in an old church and mainly in the room above the junk chop. As the story continues Winston rents the room and his feelings for Julia becomes love. This is when Winston gets a book from O’Brian and is initiated along with Julia into the Brotherhood. It is an underground organization that wants to overthrow the party. It works much like terrorist cells where each person only knows so much of the whole puzzle. Winston reads the book with Julia but find that it contains that about the party which he already knows. Julia and Winston are the captured in the room above the shop. There was a hidden telescreen behind a portrait which the party used to monitor them. We don’t know exactly what happens to Julia but the reader can only assume that she was taken to a different part of the ministry of love. This I like a correctional facility for dysfunctional party members. There Winston meets O’Brian again but it turns out he was a party member all along and had been watching Winston for some time. Here Winston is tortured and broke down both mentally and physically. There are three stages to Winston’s treatment and after he has completed the first three he moves on to the third. The last stage is room 101 where he is forced to betray Julia by being confronted with is deepest fear which is rats. After this Winston is let back into society not as himself but as a true party member. When he meets Julia again on the outside he no longer feels anything for her. She also doesn’t feel for him and they continue about their lives now fully accepting the party and Big Brother.

Analysis of Themes

The slogan of the Party is explained in the pages between 152 and page 179 of chapter 9. Winston is given a book on oligarchical collectivism by Emmanuel Goldstein after Winston's meeting with O'brien. The parts of "Ignorance is Strength" and "War is Peace" are explained in chapter 9 while "Freedom is Slavery" is explained by O'brien later in the book.

"War is Peace" is a way to explain the economic stability of Oceania. As one of three powers, Oceania's industry produces so much of everything that it can produce a surplus. To counter this, Oceania, Eastasia, and Eurasia are at constant war in order to use up the surplus. As the book explains, the war is not meant to be won, it's endless so that the surplus is used and economic stability is achieved.

"Ignorance is Strength" is the means by which the Inner Party keeps a hold of their status. In history, there is always a lower class (the proletariats), a middle class (Outer Party), and an upper class (Inner Party). The lower class is the one that usually causes the revolt with some middle class members in tow. The reason for the upper class' fall is either because of their incompetence or the lower and middle class thinking in a political manner that leads them to revolt against their tyrannical rulers. By learning, they gain the intelligence necessary to overthrow tyranny, but by keeping them ignorant and having a hold on all education no one would bother rising up due to the futility or the lower classes being satisfied.

"Freedom is Slavery" is explained by O'brien as how the people are seen as a whole. The individual is just one person who will eventually die, but the entire community is a being in itself that will never die as it always gives birth to new members. Furthermore, if everyone's minds have the some ideas and by having people give up their freedom of thought, everyone will have one-like-mind and the people will only think of Big Brother as if they were all one working entity and will be immortal.

Symbols

The Paper Weight

In itself, the paperweight is a symbol of the past and a time that was different. You wouldn't find any coral in that regime so it's a rare find. It represents how Winston could break away from the control and think on his own. It could also symbolize Julia where you've got a delicate thing surrounded by glass in a way that Julia and Winston set up their love and protected themselves.

Important Quotes

"Big Brother is Watching You"

This one is pretty much self-explanatory as Big Brother has telescreens and microphone meant to keep an eye on you at all times. This the Inner Party and Big Brother can keep surveillance on everything everyone is doing.

"We are the Dead" pg 182

After reading Goldstein's book, Winston knows that his generation and class will never be able to rise up. The people who will are the proletariats of another generation, and even then Winston and Julia will be long dead. A revolt will never happen in their life-time so they are stuck in this regime.