❶I like to read books because new worlds and lives are created in each. The main reason I liked this book is because I think the tone and events in 1984 create a truly horrifying world and I have never read another novel like it. In the story, there is no hope for any of it to get better because concepts such as democracy already took thousands of years to appear and any knowledge of it is being eradicated. How long would it take for it to come back even if the government wasn't doing everything to stop that from ever happening? The Freedoms we take for granted are being erased from the minds of Oceania's population. Soon, the idea of doing anything about it would never occur to anyone because the past has been reinvented to seem like nothing ever changed and people are raised into believing with absolute faith in nonsense.
“To know and not to know, to be conscious of complete truthfulness while telling carefully constructed lies, to hold simultaneously two opinions which cancelled out, knowing them to be contradictory and believing in both of them, to use logic against logic, [...]to forget whatever it was necessary to forget, then to draw it back into memory again at the moment when it was needed, and then promptly to forget it again: and above all, to apply the same process to the process itself.” Doublethink
To live in that world would drive anyone insane... at least, by our definition. Their definition of sane is believing, seeing and experiencing a reality constructed by the party. Memories of events are meaningless because if they are not in agreement with the party (a big if considering doublethink assures the destruction of any memory of the kind and of any memory of destroying it) then they are false memories, dreams, an overactive imagination, anything but the truth because if The Party says so, they never happened. That concept is called “controlled insanity”. Of course, The Party isn't above using events like these when they need them and no one doubts they are right because doublethink happens again. It temporarily put the condratictory memory under lock and key in the mind of the population until it is needed again.
“It needs an act of selfdestruction, an effort of the will.You must humble yourself before you can become sane.” Controlled insanity
The Party is a terrifing force because it is honest with itself about his motives for ruling. If an army general becomes the leader of a revolution and succeeds in taking over but he probably believes he is doing what is best for the country when he becomes a tyrant. However, the Party wants power, plain and simple. But the real reason it is unstoppable is because it understands how to get away with anything.
“In the old days the heretic walked to the stake still a heretic, proclaiming his heresy, exulting in it.[...]In the Middle Ages there was the Inquisition. It was a failure.[...]Why was that? Because the Inquisition killed its enemies in the open, and killed them while they were still unrepetant [...]Naturally all the glory belonged to the victim and all the shame to the Inquisitor who burned him.[...]The dead men had become martyrs and their degradation was forgotten.” said by O'Brien
The first step is to take the “criminals” quietly away. This ensures that their crime, in other words any ideas they have that goes against the interest of the Party, are never known or thought about by anyone else who might have otherwise witnessed the arrest and been interested by it. The second step is to destroy them until their mind break (ironically, according to O'Brien, this is where they start to become sane). They eradicate any ordinary human feelings. Final Step: By that point, they have been slowly crawling their way into their minds by making them doubt themselves with firmly delivered logic. The final step is to continue with that until no shred of doubt is left and the only thing a criminals care about are the Party. They believe it and they love it wholeheartedly. In the end, they believe they are guilty.
“You will be hollow. We shall squeeze you empty, and then we shall fill you with ourselves. [...]All the confessions that
are uttered here are true. We make them true.”said by O'Brien
❷Another reason I like this book is because it was published a few years after the Second World War, at the start of the Cold War. George Orwell, a journalist, was probably aware of the political problems all over Europe in the wake of WWII. In my opinion,this book, a sneak peek of a world where freedom is non-existent, was a way to tell people that the outcome could have been worse and also a way to warn them of the concequences if another war is officially declared so soon. If you take into account the time period and the mind set of the readers of that time you can truly understand and agree with why it became such a famous book. It must have been controversal at the time.
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