In this blog post, I’ll summarize the circumstances under which George Orwell wrote his novel “1984,” as well as its content and its significance for today.
George Orwell began writing the novel “1984” in 1946. At that time, Orwell was still struggling to recover from the shock and grief of losing his beloved wife a year earlier, and was enduring a painful daily life marked by poverty and illness. In particular, as his chronic tuberculosis worsened, he was virtually unable to engage in social activities and was forced to spend his time in sanatoriums and hospitals. Because the novel was written under such adverse conditions, its overall tone is bleak. Orwell himself once remarked, “If my illness hadn’t been so severe, this novel wouldn’t have turned out quite so dark.” Orwell completed ‘1984’ in 1948, two years before his death, and the general plot is as follows.
In 1984, the world is ruled by three totalitarian states: Oceania, Eurasia, and Eastasia. These three superpowers are constantly at war with one another, but these conflicts are mostly limited to small-scale skirmishes near the borders and serve merely as a means to strengthen their domestic regimes.
Oceania, the setting of the novel, exemplifies totalitarianism in its most extreme form. The Party, Oceania’s political control apparatus, maximizes its dictatorial power by invoking the fictional figure of Big Brother. To perpetuate the political system, it thoroughly monitors the private lives of Party members using telescreens, the Thought Police, microphones, helicopters, and other means. At the same time, the Party constantly fabricates the past to secure its legitimacy and exert ideological control over its members. In short, under the logic that “Whoever controls the past controls the future, and whoever controls the present controls the past,” the Party manipulates and alters all records of the past—including various documents, newspapers, books, recordings, and films. Furthermore, the Party creates a new language called Newspeak to replace the existing one, thereby preventing Party members from engaging in heretical thoughts or actions.
Focusing the public’s hatred in one direction by presenting the traitor Goldstein as a figure to be despised is also a deliberate policy for maintaining the regime. The Party does not stop there; it even controls sexual desire, a basic human need. To preserve the regime, it suppresses sex and demonizes sexual pleasure; sex is considered an act as repulsive as an enema. Sex is permitted only between married couples, and even then, sex for pleasure is strictly forbidden. The sole purpose of sex is to produce children who will serve the Party.
The protagonist, Winston Smith, rebels against this Party control and plots resistance. Assigned to the task of rewriting history to suit the Party’s needs, he becomes a dissident by engaging in the forbidden act of keeping a diary. He begins a romantic relationship with Julia, a colleague at the same office, and by seeking sexual pleasure under ironclad surveillance, he puts into practice what the Party forbids. Furthermore, he seeks out O’Brien, an Inner Party member, and even devises a plan to join the “Brotherhood,” an underground anti-Party organization, in an attempt to overthrow the Party. However, he eventually falls into a trap and is arrested by the Thought Police.
Imprisoned, Winston expects O’Brien to appear and help him. However, O’Brien unexpectedly tortures Winston, forcing him to confess to crimes he did not commit and to lie about having met the nonexistent Goldstein. After brutal torture and brainwashing, Winston betrays even his lover and accepts the Party’s will without resistance. Ultimately, having lost all human values, he comes to love Big Brother and quietly awaits his execution by firing squad.
In this way, “1984” is a novel that starkly depicts how an individual resists and is ultimately destroyed in the face of the vast system of totalitarian rule. “1984” was first published in 1949, and at the time, critics viewed it as a novel that criticized totalitarianism and foresaw the future. From the perspective of that era, it was clearly a work of futuristic fiction. However, as time passed and we entered the 2000s, it is no longer a story set in the distant future. Furthermore, we can confidently say that we no longer live in an era where people simply fear totalitarian regimes. But if that is the case, is “1984” a novel irrelevant to us living today? Absolutely not.
Above all, we live under constant surveillance today. Just as Winston lived under the surveillance of the telescreen twenty-four hours a day, today’s surveillance devices are more realistic and feasible. The telescreens in the novel are devices capable of both transmitting and receiving signals; they are designed to capture any sound or movement, and those being monitored are unaware of it. When George Orwell wrote this story in the 1940s, it may have sounded far-fetched, but today it is entirely possible.
If you look around for a moment, you’ll see surveillance cameras installed everywhere—in banks, department stores, and government offices. Someone is monitoring our every move: for example, when and how much cash we withdraw, what items we purchase, and what we’re wearing when we obtain official documents. Cameras dotted along roads monitor even the most minor traffic violations. We can never be truly free in front of these cameras. We’ve even entered an era where ultra-high-resolution cameras on satellites orbiting the Earth can capture what happens in our living rooms.
We are also under surveillance by various eavesdropping devices. When we make a phone call, someone can listen in on the conversation, and as long as our cell phones are turned on, our location can be tracked. Personal information can also be leaked against our will. The moment we pay with a credit card or access a website, our personal details are exposed, and as a result, we may receive calls from unknown campaign workers or salespeople, or receive emails filled with pornography or profanity from unidentified senders.
Today, we live in a cutting-edge information age based on highly advanced science and technology. While science, technology, and the information age are blessings that bring us convenience, we must remain vigilant, as they can easily lead to disaster. Above all, the information age threatens our privacy and can restrict our freedom. In particular, when combined with a highly centralized concentration of power, the information age can create a society even more bleak than the Oceania depicted in the novel.
In such a society, individuals are bound to become utterly powerless. Liberalism is stifled, humanity is annihilated, and instead of justice and peace, falsehood, manipulation, and terror run rampant. We do not wish to believe that history will flow in that direction, but such a bleak society could lurk in the future at any time. In short, we could find ourselves in Winston Smith’s predicament at any moment. In this regard, “1984” is a serious warning that Orwell issues to us.
The year 1984 has already passed, but ‘1984’ is not yet over. It is still unfolding. This novel does not describe a situation from the past or the distant future, but rather the reality of what we call the Information Age. The events that took place in ‘1984’ could very well happen in our own reality. However, there is no need to be afraid. This is because humans possess the will to defend their freedom. In the face of that will, any political power will ultimately be thwarted. As long as we hold onto that will for freedom, no political system—no matter how powerful—can completely dominate humanity. If there is one lesson we can learn from “1984,” it is precisely this.
