George Orwell’s 1984 is the definitive dystopian novel, an account of a world where a totalitarian regime takes over and seizes away every meaning of the word freedom.
Summary of the Book
In an alternate timeline, it is 1984. The world governments have collapsed, coalescing into a few totalitarian regimes. What was one the United States has come under the vigilance of a perverse, omnipresent authority known only as Big Brother. Big Brother watches everyone, his eye constantly examines the events and shapes the past to his clandestine needs. No one has any sort of freedom. There is no freedom in life, no freedom in death and definitely no freedom in love. Even reproduction becomes a government-authorized act, and love must be approved and even initiated by Big Brother’s council. In this dystopian timeline, Winston Smith is a man who works in the Records Department of the Ministry of Truth. He is tasked with rewriting history so that the records match the constantly changing party line and the machinations of Big Brother. He constantly hopes to break away from Big Brother’s gaze, and when he meets a young woman named Julia who has the same idea as he does, he begins to find a means of challenging Big Brother’s authority.
About George Orwell
Eric Arthur Blair, better known as George Orwell, was an English writer born in Burma. He is best remembered for his essays, his diaries, his novels, including Animal Farm and Down and Out in Paris and London.
Orwell is considered to be a pioneering novelist and thinker, responsible for the rise of the dystopian literature genre. It is, therefore, no small achievement that the word Orwellian has become a synonym for totalitarian regimes and their ideals.