I’m really not sure how I went to the age of 27 before reading George Orwell’s 1984. In high school, we did read Brave New World by Huxley; though Orwell was until now out of my education.
What I find most surprising about reading this book is how little I gave a shit about Big Brother. Most of the time I’ve heard the book referenced, it has to do largely with Big Brother watching over every aspect of our lives. Since we don’t see the cameras or telescreens around us; and since we aren’t corralled and tortured for thought-crime, it seems that people look on the novel mostly as pure fantasy, some awful prediction about a future which thankfully never has been realized.
I’m sure there are countless lists of analysis of this particular text on the Internet as well as just about anywhere else. Even so, I feel it important to re-inforce that Orwell, while drawing lines to a society which is certainly the epitome of totalitarian control, he much more importantly depicts the structure of politics and power which has played out and continues to thrive in our current society. We do have the right to think freely; though the efforts of double-think and news-speak as it has constrained our culture and discourse is all very real.
I urge anyone who has not yet turned these pages to please do so; and that for those who may have missed the meanings the first time, to try again with closer eye to the theory and to the text.