Quotations and Literature Forum

I just finished reading 1984 for the first time as a history assignment. I made several observations as I lay in bed reading it (while, for good taste, listening to VH's album 1984... good stuff):

As I started out reading the book, I naturally saw Oceania as what I assume everybody else saw it for: an absolutely self-destroying, world of inefficiency (Ref. Minitrue) and unfair espionage. However, as I read on, while I was still shocked by the negativity of the situation, I realized I was more amazed by the level of efficiency hidden behind the model of oligarchical collectivism. I was particularly interested in that they stopped economic progress by remaining in perpetual war, which offers up the question of - Where would they be if they remained in perpetual peace instead? It states that the three nations stayed at war with no intent of victory, and only with the intent of spending surplus money. More interesting than the effects of the world of 1984 taking up perpetual peace, what would the effects be of this world if (A very big if, one might say) eternal peace were agreed upon?

The last four words, which I won't post for the sake of not ruining the book for others, left a very bad taste in my mouth. However, given the circumstances, I'd say that only made Orwell more effective.

If you've read the book, please give your insights on it. (P.S, like my signature?)

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You signature I hope is nothing to do with the TV programme, given your preamble I guess not.

I think it is scary to see how far we have come down the line that is shown in 1984. The monitoring that exists, the manipulation of the media, the fact that recently not only have lies been told but lies that appeared blatantly obvious I'm sure I heard some American politician claiming WMD's had been found in Iraq.

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"The Truth may be out there but the lies are in your head"
"I tend to think if God wanted us to believe in him he'd exist."

I think the book was a warning and, as Sigsfried says, in many ways it is fulfilled but somewhat more glitzy than dreary like the book which makes it more palatable and possibly more dangerous because many want to be part of it.

i think eric fromm's afterward, at the end of the book, summarize all book very clearly. as he said "1984 is the expression of a mood, and it a warning."

also media -manipulation is only a kind of manipulation, do you really believe everyday life conversations or relationships, values, etc. hadnt control by soem "brothers" ?! for example wright mills discuss this argument in conflict_interpreative perspective of sociology.

1984 is "a satire on the world Orwell knew" not a warning for future generations. Please do not forget that, when making anachronistic assumptions.

-fish are quick!

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"The proper study of mankind is man."
Alexander Pope

Why would he give it a future date such as 1984, if not an extrapolation of things he knew? Even a satire on the present if placed in the future can be a warning.

Farsix- The title is symbolic, and allowed himself to dettach his writing from contemporary politics although there are allusions to certain events. A satire by it's very definition means that the satirist must know the object of his satire, thus it is not a warning.

-fish are quick!

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"The proper study of mankind is man."
Alexander Pope

Satire: a literary work holding up human vices and follies to ridicule or scorn.

The human vices are held constant but the world as he knew it was very different and in the future compared to the time of writing.

According to one source, Orwell maintained that the book was written with the explicit intention “to alter other people’s idea of the kind of society they should strive after.”

there is a warning in book but the year of 1984 is a symbol as i know.

I read 1984 several years ago, and I liked it. Not a page turner, but it made you think. Wars naturally stimulate an economy. If there isn't war, then there are a lot fewer resourses being consumed, and therefore a lot less production and therefore not a healthy economy.

HOWEVER, if you'd like to see an example of how it would work w/ perpetual peace, try Aldous Huxley's Brave New World. I read that this year, and it was rather similar to 1984 w/ several pointed differences. Seriously, read that too. It's real good. Also read Animal Farm by Orwell. I actually preferred that in some ways to 1984.

I thought the ending of 1984 was very good, very appropriate... I think it is an accurate portrayal of what would happen to humanity under the intense pressure of a machine like Big Brother. The whole book I wished the proles would rise up or something, but, as in our society, that doesn't happen very often and in that society, it wasn't bound to. Wow, now I keep thinking of stuff from that book... it's so intense. Well, I should probably leave the symbolism stuff to sparknotes,

[quote="NoAlias
HOWEVER, if you'd like to see an example of how it would work w/ perpetual peace, try Aldous Huxley's Brave New World. I read that this year, and it was rather similar to 1984 w/ several pointed differences. Seriously, read that too. It's real good. Also read Animal Farm by Orwell. I actually preferred that in some ways to 1984. [/quote]

yes..
also "we" by zamyatin + "fahrenheit 451" by bradburry

i personally love "Nineteen Eighty-Four". i read it at the request of one of my friends last year and have read it no less than 25 times since then. every time i want a book to read i go get that book. one of the librarians at our library gave me one of the library's copies because i always had it checked out anyway. i did a report on it for my senior research paper and read why orwell wrote the book and what he meant it as. i believe it was a general warning as to what the world might one day become of things that we don't notice today (like the misuse of language and such) were to become more than they are. if i find the research on it, i'll post it later.
as much as i hate to admit it, peace forever would not work, for the very reasons brought up in the book and for some of the same reasons that communism will never work in the real world. people just aren't wired that way, as sad as it is. people on a whole can't except things being good, especially all the time, they wait for the "other shoe to drop".

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"In my time, nightmares walked among us, skewering victims in plain sight...This to make us laugh. And now nightmares are trapped inside the heads of humans...I wonder whom they angered so to merit such a fate?"