Book Cover of 1984

1984 (Nineteen Eighty-Four)

by George Orwell

It is set in a future society where the government, led by the Party and its enigmatic leader Big Brother, controls every aspect of people's lives and manipulates the truth to maintain power. 1984 is a dystopian novel written by George Orwell in 1949. The story follows the life of Winston Smith, a low-ranking member of the Party who begins to secretly rebel against the oppressive government. As he becomes more involved in the rebellion, Winston must confront the harsh realities of the society in which he lives and the ultimate cost of freedom. The novel is a warning about the dangers of totalitarianism and the need for individual freedom and autonomy. The tyranny is epitomised by Big Brother, the Party leader who enjoys an intense cult of personality but who may not even exist. The Party “seeks power entirely for its own sake. It is not interested in the good of others; it is interested solely in power.” The protagonist of the novel, Winston Smith, is a member of the Outer Party, who works for the Ministry of Truth (or Minitrue in Newspeak), which is responsible for propaganda and historical revisionism. His job is to rewrite past newspaper articles, so that the historical record always supports the party line. The instructions that the workers receive specify the corrections as fixing misquotations and never as what they really are: forgeries and falsifications. A large part of the ministry also actively destroys all documents that have been edited and do not contain the revisions; in this way, no proof exists that the government is lying. Smith is a diligent and skillful worker but secretly hates the Party and dreams of rebellion against Big Brother. Orwell based the character of the heroine of the novel, Julia, on his second wife Sonia Orwell.

Book Details

Language

English

Original Language

English

Published In

1949

Author

George Orwell image

Orwell's work remains influential in popular culture and in political culture, and the adjective "Orwellian"—describing totalitarian and authoritarian social practices—is part of the Engli...

More on George Orwell

Listen/Download Audiobook

Read by:
00:00
Playback Speed 1.0
00:00
  • Select Speed

Related books

The Man Who Laughs Cover image

The Man Who Laughs by Victor Hugo

The Man Who Laughs is a novel by Victor Hugo, originally published in June 1869 under the French title L'Homme qui rit. It takes place in England in t...

The Fifth Queen Crowned Cover image

The Fifth Queen Crowned by Ford Madox Ford

It is a thrilling historical fiction novel that follows the story of Catherine Howard, the fifth wife of King Henry VIII of England. This book, origin...

Captives of the Flame  Cover image

Captives of the Flame by Samuel R. Delaney

Chip Delany's 2nd novel - the first is The Jewels of Aptor (1962) -- published by Ace Books in 1963. Set in the 35th Century, the survivors of a nucle...

Cry Chaos! Cover image

Cry Chaos! by Dwight V. Swain

It tells the story of a group of terrorists who hijack a plane and threaten to detonate a nuclear bomb unless their demands are met. The book is a fas...

Barchester Towers Cover image

Barchester Towers by Anthony Trollope

Barchester Towers is a novel by English author Anthony Trollope published by Longmans in 1857. It is the second book in the Chronicles of Barsetshire...

Smoke  Cover image

Smoke by Ivan Turgenev

Smoke is an 1867 novel by the Russian writer Ivan Turgenev (1818–1883) that tells the story of a love affair between a young Russian man and a young m...

The Huguenot: A Tale of the French Protestants Cover image

The Huguenot: A Tale of the French Protestants by George Payne Rainsford James

The time of French king Louis XIV was a time of religious conflict. His father, Louis XIII had tried to suppress the teachings and followers of Calvin...

Once on a Time Cover image

Once on a Time by A. A. Milne

Milne created the story to contain believable, three-dimensional characters, rather than the stereotypes which will satisfy children. Hence the book i...

A Modern Utopia Cover image

A Modern Utopia by H.G. Wells

A Modern Utopia is a 1905 novel by H. G. Wells. Because of the complexity and sophistication of its narrative structure, A Modern Utopia has been cal...

Anthem Cover image

Anthem by Ayn Rand

At some unspecified future date, Mankind has entered another dark age as a result of what Rand saw as the weaknesses of socialistic thinking and econo...

Reviews for 1984 (Nineteen Eighty-Four)

ALL REVIEWS: Really Favorable (1)

Umer T.

Posted: 2 years ago

Recommended

Crazy Ending

"You take the blue pill—the story ends, you wake up in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe. You take the red pill—you stay in Wonderland, and I show you how deep the rabbit hole goes. Remember: all I'm offering is the truth."