Welcome to the Orwellian world

1984, is a book in which I found many topics related to the society of nowadays, I found interesting how you can compare Winston’s situation with your own actual society, is interesting to notice that there have not been change in our society, since form 1949 (and back), when was published his book, he was writing about a future society in London and how it will be taking into account the present that he was living and the past he had faced. Because of the importance of this masterpiece it is consider our society as an “Orwellian” society  because we are being other characters of his novel, we are being part of what he had imagine many years before.
In 1984, as I said before there are as many topics and characteristics of nowadays as you can imagine, all topics are connected in just one FREEDOM, the comparison I found with the epoch of the Nazism and the reason why I support the idea about being living an Orwell’s prediction in 2017.

Orwell (1949) In 1984:
“How could you have a slogan like ‘freedom is slavery’ when the concept of freedom has been abolished? The whole climate of thought will be different.in fact there will be no though, as we understand it now. Orthodoxy means not thinking –not needing to think. Orthodoxy is unconsciousness” (Pg.53b)2

In this book, I found a comparison with the Nazism epoch and all things that happened when Hitler was the leader of the movement, I compare it, because since chapter five they started to talk about how Big brother in his eagerness of power was killing all those who thought different and who didn’t support his ideas, as in 1984, people who did not support Big Brother revolution were called ‘The rebels’ and those rebels where vaporized in any moment because they were consider enemies. That was a strategy to force people to follow, support and be part of something does not matter how bad idea it was, seeding fear in them for never abandoned the Party.

Orwell wanted to show that knowledge was a power transformed into a curse, because those intelligent people who know that it was not normal to be treated like they were treated, those who know how to write, those who do not obey those that were called ‘REBELS’ that do not wanted to be part of any Party were manipulated by their fear of been killed some day, or even worst, they were really killed.

Orwell (1949) In 1984:
“Syme will be vaporized, he is too intelligent, he sees too clearly and speaks too plainly. The party does not like such people. One day he will disappear, it is written in his face” ( Pg 53c)3

It is hard to explain how pushed and how manipulated were being all those who belonged to any Party, as is hard to explain the Nazism epoch, thousands of stupid deaths, stupid revolutions, the eagerness of power, the need of a savior, someone who take out people form that movement, who make people conscious about what they were doing, but as in the book, people who stopped listening to Hitler’s (Big Brother) voice. No one else but Winston was learning another way of seeing the world and understanding it by itself, he knew people that was very intelligent just as ‘Syme’ but as fast as the Party knew that he was intelligent he would have been killed, so, he was intelligent but he did nothing for changing, he was just coupled to the system and to the manipulation of the telescreen, his fear of dead growth every day more.

Orwell (1949) In 1984:

““The eleventh edition is the definitive edition” he said. We’re getting the language into its final shape-the shape it’s going to have when nobody speaks anything else. When we’ve finished with it, people like you will have to learn it all over again.” (Pg50d)4
The manipulation was everything and it was shown in different means, they formed and planed many strategies for which workers of the party to convince them and to make them engage, they can’t even say something against the revolution. In the book, things were changing for Winston, he noticed that there existed another way of manipulation, it was called the Newspeak or Ingsoc, that was in charge of damaging the language by making the words shorter with the objective of making the communication easier. It was a rule for everyone to communicate the way as the Big Brother imposes it even when people realize that by the passing of years anybody was going to understand what they talk about.

The most of the rules were communicated and spread by the telescreen, which in my personal opinion represents the technology to which we are tied and slaves, that technology that manipulated us more than anything, and I am so sure that I can say that advanced technology that it is supposed to have the most of the advantages for us, is just our own weapon, since the creation of social media our children are committing suicide because of internet challenges, our children pay more attention to internet and social media than to read or to know about their countries in political, cultural, scientific, or technological aspects, the bullying have never been as popular as today, nowadays everyone had suffer from bullying, nowadays dying because of bullying is a typical thing, in television we are not listening more than the same news every day, we are not learning more than to watch soup operas in which the only topics are violence, death and again the “hard” life of some famous. We are watching the same thieves in the same place; laughing of the police and killing others just for steal them, the same hungry kids in the poorest places of the country, the same needs around the world, all the Protestants that want to be heard. We are costumed to see how other countries are suffering while we think we have never been that happy. Television is the way you get out from the real world; television is how others earn money selling fallacies, Television is the best mean for lying, television  has the power of making everyone believing anything.

Orwell (1949) In 1984:
“In the end the party would announced that two and tow make five and you would have to believe it” (pg80e) 5

I support the idea of being living in the world that Orwell wrote for us, because every manipulation seeing there is somehow committed here because every law imposed in Colombia has to be approved by us without our feelingly. ‘The rebels’ in Colombia die or are threatened just as, Pablo Garzón who was killed because of showing the reality of Colombian government, for showing the way we were considered slaves or ‘Pirry’ who is a journalist that also wanted to show by interviews the reality of Colombian and find the reasons why we are not considered as intelligent as politicians believe they are. Orwell wrote in his book the different ways people are subjected to bad treats and to stupid and unfair justice.

Another case in which I compare the text with the real life, is how Winston’s case in his country and having to live together with Big Brother and his laws is the same case as in Venezuela, the bad dictatorship of Nicolas Maduro make him take bad decisions, the way he managed a country at his whim is what do not permit their developed, do not permit their freedom, they are depending on an human being that do not even know how to manage his own life, they are victims of the biggest manipulation, they have a constant fighting that seems to never end, and that can be the result or the ending that the book 1984 is going to have from my point of view, because the actual state of Venezuela is the accumulation of bad decisions and a man whose objective is not clear even for himself. The forbidden but necessary things make things harder, trying to obligate people to do not even follow their natural instinct is the worst, as in 1984 it was very hard to eat something different because you have to earn certain amount of points, you can’t even change your clothes, men cannot shave because they had just one blade and just when they have get the enough points they can change their clothes, and did everything they want to. In Venezuela you must earn money enough to buy food, water, general cleaning tools, you have to have money for having life quality. But is not something about just Venezuela, there are thousands of countries suffering the same, not that hard, but suffering.

Living in this world is harder every day, you do not know where to life because every country has a defect, in any place you are not going to be comfortable because that is human life, there is nothing fair, there is nothing good, there is nothing bad, we came to the world as animals that produce, we are not being different to animals, we are the biggest specie that do not go extinct, the base of our food chain is the betrayal, dishonesty, disrespect.

As a conclusion, 1984 is a book full of surprises, is a book capable of taking you from one place to another, makes you analyze each movement, each word, is a book in which page by page there is something to learn and to highlight, I have found some part of me and my present in the book, and I have asked myself what I have to do then? How can I stop being part of the slaves of the country?, is it very easy to judge and judge everything but how hard is to think about the possible solution for our endless problem, how can you teach someone about good or badness when those concepts are invented by someone in the world who decided to classify actions and words as good or bad. I personally recommend the book, because in every person there is a different analysis of the same text and perhaps is different the situation they live in their country. I’ll classify this text as a mandatory book to read, not just because of the vocabulary it has but because of the content and the pureness of the text and the amount of keys it has for us to discover.
Juliana Torres Guerra
11B

Bibliography:
1 English, 1984, Orwell, George. 1949, signet classics

2 English, 1984, Orwell, George. 1949, signet classics

3 English, 1984, Orwell, George. 1949, signet classics

4 See mark # 1

5 See mark #1

References:
o Orwell, 19.49.1984. United kingdom: Signet classics