Orwell, George: 1903-1950
Nineteen Eighty-Four, 1949 - Information about the Book
- General Information
- The story takes place in an imagined future in an unspecified year believed to be 1984, when much of the world is in perpetual war. Great Britain, now known as Airstrip One, has become a province of the totalitarian superstate Oceania, which is led by Big Brother, a dictatorial leader supported by an intense cult of personality manufactured by the Party's Thought Police.
- Information from Wikipedia
- Facts
- The book was finished in 1948 and published in 1949
- Glossary
- Vocabulary
- Words and phrases
- A list of terms used in 1984
- Articles
- Introduction to Nineteen Eighty-Four: "As satire Nineteen Eighty-Four has been hard to place. Some have seen it as an attack on Stalinism, or on totalitarianism in general." Ben Pimlott, The Orwell Foundation
- The first reviews: A collection of reviews from when the book first appeared. Dan Sheehan; June 8, 2023
- Review from Time Magazine; June 20, 1949
- Nothing but the truth: "The book has infiltrated the consciousness of countless people who have never read it. The phrases and concepts that Orwell minted have become essential fixtures of political language." The Guardian; May 19, 2019
- The Destruction of Language in “1984”: "The Ministry of Truth prohibits free thought, sex, and any kind of self-expression. And every day the workers attend was is called the two-minute hate." The Essential Encounter; May 2, 2017
- George Orwell and the Dystopian World of Nineteen Eighty-Four: "Leftist critics put in question Orwell’s intellectual and literary achievement and tried to diminish the importance of his statements on politics by pointing out that Orwell was already terminally ill when he wrote this book." Richard Saage; July 2000
- Manipulation of language as a weapon of mind control and abuse of power in 1984: "Orwell believed that totalitarianism and the corruption of language were connected." October 28, 2010
- Exchanging Glances with Big Brother: "Surveillance is intrinsically related to propaganda in Orwell’s fictional world. For instance, the novel’s most important catch phrase “Big Brother Is Watching You” is a piece of propaganda and also a reference to the fact that there is extensive surveillance in Oceania, the totalitarian state where the protagonist Winston lives." Julie Alev Dilmaç, Sciences & Actions Sociales; 2019/2
- Totalitarian lived skepticism, and unlearning how to love: "Orwell’s novel offers a nightmarish vision of a form of perverse totalitarian “pedagogy.” The purpose of that “pedagogy” is not only to obliterate truth, independent thinking, and individual judgment. The purpose is also to destroy our very capacity to feel, express, and understand our own inner, emotional, lives." Ingeborg Löfgren;, Uppsala University; April 2022
- A Legal Analysis of Nineteen Eighty-Four: "While inequalities do, indeed, exist within the democracies of the free Western world, they are “[t]he only systems that have produced some modicum of wealth,” and which “emphasize above all the essential dignity, divinity and ultimate responsibility of the individual." Tracy Reilly, Chicago-Kent Journal of Intellectual Property; January 5, 2022
- Impact on Today
- Passages In 1984 That Relate To You Right Now: "Orwell’s novel offers a nightmarish vision of a form of perverse totalitarian “pedagogy.” The purpose of that “pedagogy” is not only to obliterate truth, independent thinking, and individual judgment. The purpose is also to destroy our very capacity to feel, express, and understand our own inner, emotional, lives." Emily Temple, Literary Hub; January 27, 2017
- An Analysis of the Relationship between Orwell’s Nineteen EightyFour And Modern Politics in the United States and Europe: "There will always be a need for a novel like Nineteen Eighty-Four, because neither the threat of totalitarianism nor the urge to combat it will ever leave humanity." Edward Pankowski, University of Connecticut; May 4, 2018
- Why Orwell’s 1984 could be about now: "A book published on 8 June 1949, written out of the battered landscape of total war, in a nation hungry, tired and grey, feels more relevant than ever before, because Orwell’s 1984 also arms us." Jean Seaton, BBC; May 7, 2018
- How 1984 helps us understand tyrannical power today: "One of Orwell’s innovations is to introduce us to a new political lexicon, where he shows how words can be used and abused as a form of power." Robert Hassan, University of Melbourne; April 29, 2019