1984 by George Orwell - Free Book Summary
Introduction The once futuristic world of Orwell’s 1984 has always provoked discussion and controversy and with today’s all-encompassing web based surveillance, it’s more relevant than ever. Winston Smith, a simple bureaucratic in a nation dominated by the totalitarian Party that monitors all acts and thoughts, attempts a small time affair and contemplates rebellion. Together with his love Julia, they find out – the hard way – that the Big Brother has his ways of correcting people’s mode of thinking. "Ruth, 1984 Thanks for the wonderful free summary!" Executive Summary In the future year of 1984, in a totalitarian nation controlled by the Party, Winston Smith works for the government, altering news articles to correlate with the reigning propaganda and “truth”. Under the ever watching eyes of the Big Brother, Winston starts seeing Julia intimately, which was not illegal, but could be punishable by death. Together, they contemplate rebellion acts, but are soon caught by the government and sent to correction. After facing the ultimate horrible in Room 101, Winston’s mode of thinking is fixed into loving Big Brother, and all goes back to “normal”. It is the future, the year is 1984, the place is London, the largest population center of Airstrip One, which is a province of Oceania, one of the three super-states (alongside Eurasia and Eastasia). Oceania’s people are divided into three classes: the Inner Party, the Outer Party, and the Proles. Winston Smith is an Outer Party member, a bureaucrat working at the Ministry of Truth, where he rewrites news articles to fit better into the reigning propaganda and truth of the moment as dictated by the totalitarian ruling Party. As Winston entered his apartment building, he passed one of the posters that cover the city with the caption: “BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING YOU”. Upon opening his flat door, a voice greeted him from the “Telescreen” – a two-way television device that you could never shut off, through which the Party broadcasted ongoing government propaganda and monitored everyone’s behavior for any possible deviation from acceptable thought or action. Then, Winston sat down in the only corner in his flat which was out of site for the telescreen to write in his diary, an act that was not officially illegal, but if detected was probably punished by death. As he was writing, Winston thought of a recent memory – the “Two Minutes Hate” – a work break encouraged by the government, during which every worker at the Ministry of Truth was required to express rage and scream at a telescreen that showed images of the enemy – Euroasian soldiers and Goldstein, the Party’s traitor. “A hideous ecstasy of fear and vindictiveness, a desire to kill, to torture, to smash faces in with a sledge hammer, seemed to flow through the whole group of people like an electric current, turning one even against one's will into a grimacing, screaming lunatic.” Earlier that day, Winston had noticed a “bold-looking girl”, about 26-years old, who worked at the Fiction Department. He had the feeling that she was watching him. A few days later, Winston went to the antique shop where he had bought his diary, in a “Prole” neighborhood. Mr. Charrington, the owner, welcomed him and showed him the old-fashioned upstairs room, where there wasn’t even a telescreen. When he got out of the shop, he passed the same dark-hair girl from the Fiction Department and he became sure she was an informant. Back at the office of the Ministry of Truth, as Winston was walking to the lavatory, the girl appeared in the hall in front of him and she stumbled and fell. When he gave her his hand to help her up, she slipped him a piece of paper. He opened it back at his desk and read the short message: “I love you.” He was now intrigued, but also terrified, as although an affair between party members was deemed legal, it was still punishable by death. This free book summary of 1984 is complimentary from the www.free-book-summary.com website. Want to say Thanks? Tell about the book summary to your friends, link to it from your blog, or include it in a forum. Cheers! At last, Winston and the girl managed to arrange a meeting out in the country, where they felt safer, but still there was the possibility of concealed microphones. To avoid those, they met at a selected place, and walked in silence until they reached a remote forest area. Winston didn’t even know her name, when he started apologizing for being thirty-nine and other issues, when she interrupted: “I couldn’t care less.” They shared some blackmarket chocolate she brought and then they made love. After that, when the girl fell asleep, Winston thought about their love making. “You could not have pure love or pure lust nowadays. No emotion was pure, because everything was mixed up with fear and hatred. Their embrace had been a battle, the climax a victory. It was a blow struck against the Party. It was a political act.” Her name was Julia and she and Winston started seeing each other whenever they could. Julia had a survival philosophy of blending. “Always yell with the crowd, that’s what I say. It’s the only way to be safe.” They rented Mr. Charrington’s room above the antique shop for their secret meetings, but although it gave them privacy, they both knew that in the end, they would be caught. From time to time, Winston and Julia would discuss active rebellion against the Party; they considered joining a mysterious subversive group called the “Brotherhood”, but didn’t know if this legendary underground group even existed. Except for Julia, Winston felt he there was one more person he could trust, an Inner Party member named O’Brien, who also worked at the Ministry of Truth. They did not talk to each other, but only exchanged glances that created a strange intimacy, sharing the same rebel spirit. One day, O’Brien asked Winston for his opinion of the revised “Newspeak” dictionary, and since Winston hadn’t seen it yet, he invited him over to his house later that weekend to pick a copy. When Winston and Julia arrived at O’Brien’s home, O’Brien asked his servant to turn off the telescreen – a special privilege extended only to Inner Members of the Party. With this privacy, Winston revealed why they had really come. He told O’Brien that they want to join the conspiracy against the Party. “We are enemies of the Party.” O’Brien nodded his head, lifted his glasses and raised a toast to Emmanuel Goldstein, the reputed leader of the Brotherhood. When Winston and Julia agreed that they would do anything to weaken the Party, he gave them a copy of Goldstein’s book, the “Bible” of the Brotherhood. The following week was “Hate Week” at the Ministry of Truth during which hatred towards Oceania’s enemy Eurasia was stirred up. On the sixth day of Hate Week, Oceania also declared war against Eastasia, so now Winston had to go back and re-edit news articles to reflect the change of enemies. Winston got very busy, but finally he and Julia managed to sneak away to Mr. Charrington’s shop to read Goldstein’s book. It explained how the Party used the threat of outside aggression to control the people, diverting their attention away from governmental corruption and food shortages. Suddenly, and iron voice echoed behind a picture in the room and commanded: “Remain exactly where you are.” The Thought Police burst into the room and took the two away in separate vehicles. This free book summary of 1984 is complimentary from the www.free-book-summary.com website. Want to say Thanks? Tell about the book summary to your friends, link to it from your blog, or include it in a forum. Cheers! Winston was taken to a tiny cell in the Ministry of Love, where he saw other prisoners, some beaten up, pleading not to be taken to “Room 101”, where there’s the most horrible thing in the world. He didn’t see Julia there. After a while, O’Brien came to Winston’s cell. At first, Winston thought that O’Brien was caught too, but O’Brien answered: “They got me a long time ago.” It turned out that O’Brien was assigned to be Winston’s interrogator with the task of making Winston “love Big Brother.” Winston was then tortured for weeks. He was beaten, starved, deprived of sleep, and hooked to a machine designed to teach him a new mode of thinking. O’Brien controlled the lever, inflicting higher and higher levels of pain on Winston, and then releasing it. He showed up four fingers and asked Winston how many were there, expecting Winston to answer there were five without a lie. He had to believe that sometimes four is five, sometimes it’s three, and sometimes all of them at once. O’Brien explained: “It’s not easy to become sane… You must love Big Brother.” Then, O’Brien sent Winston to the feared Room 101 in which he had to confront his greatest fear. In Winston’s case, Room 101 had a cage full of hungry rats that were about to be released on his head. In his terror, Winston understood that there was only one way to save himself – betray his love and put her between him and the rats. “Do it to Julia!” he screamed and thus completed his “training”. After his release from the Ministry of Love, Winston went on with his life, waiting for the time “they” will put a gun to his head and pull the trigger. He saw Julia from time to time, but there was really nothing to say between them. He spent a lot of time in the Chestnut Tree Cafe and remembered a sinister refrain from the time at the Ministry of Love: “Under the spreading chestnut treeI sold you and you sold me.There lie they, and here lie weUnder the spreading chestnut tree.” At the end, “it was all right, everything was all right, the struggle was finished. He had won the victory over himself. He loved Big Brother.” "Ruth, I liked the book summary of 1984. Thanks!"
George Orwell published Nineteen Eighty Four, later shortly named 1984, in 1949. There are different explanations to the chosen year of 1984, but the important fact is – it was far in the future, and Orwell was warning society against cold-war acts that could lead to tyranny and to thoughts control. Throughout the decades that passed, 1984 provoked discussion and controversy and was recommended reading for high school students in many countries. But even Orwell could never have guessed how relevant his novel could become so many years after 1984. Between the Internet and Homeland Security acts, it is possible today to monitor everyone’s behavior and even thinking. The question then remains, will we be smart enough to avoid such power being used by dictators to restrict our freedom? The Complete Book Orwell, George. 1984 (Penguin).
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