1984 Journal #1

Orwell’s 1984 hypothesizes the future of London, 36 years from the day it was written. It describes the outcome of a revolution that, to the main character, Winston, is irresolution to what he barely remembers of the erased past.

Winston is an insignificant official in the Party, the totalitarian political regime that rules all of what used to be called England, part of the larger state of Oceania. Winston works for the Ministry of Truth, as an officer that alters historical records to match the Party’s official version of past events. Though Winston is technically a member of Party’s government, his life is still under its oppressive political control. In his apartment, an instrument called a telescreen is always on, spouting propaganda and monitoring the actions of citizens. He must wake up at the same exact time, every day, to perform age-specific exercises, despite the fact that he suffers tremendously from an injured ankle. He cannot have sexual relations for pleasure purposes, only for the purpose of creating new citizens, and the small ration of food he receives is so putrid that it must be preceded by a glass of gin to mask the flavor. Winston cannot speak to others about the regime controversially, and cannot even think in his head negatively about the Party, in fear of being arrested for Thought Crime.

Winston lives in constant fear of being caught for Thought Crime. In the very beginning of the book, he begins writing in a diary that he recently purchased; he doesn’t know whether he is writing to the past or the future. Ultimately, he decides that he is writing to his colleague, O’Brien, whom he recognizes will probably never get to read the diary. Winston presumes that O’Brien, like himself, opposes the Party, and wants to organize a revolution. However, because both would immediately be tried and ultimately executed, Winston can never know if O’Brien actually does want to revolt.

Additionally, Winston doesn’t even know if revolting is the right answer. According to the Party, the present is far superior to the past, before the Party’s revolution. And after having erased/ completely altered the past, Winston doesn’t know what the truth is anymore. He can vaguely remember bits and pieces here –and-there of his own past, but everything in the history books to newpapers matches with the Party’s desire of how the past events went. So Winston struggles to even believe himself. He, more than a few times, thinks of a memory, then argues with himself whether this was a true occurrence, simply something he dreamed, or the Party’s version of history that has brainwashed him. Winston claims he has one occurrence of solid evidence when he caught the Party in a lie. In the mid-1960s, a cultural backlash caused the original leaders of the Revolution to be arrested. One day, Winston saw a few of these deposed leaders sitting at the Chestnut Tree Café, a gathering place for out-of-favor Party members. A song played—“Under the spreading chestnut tree / I sold you and you sold me”—and one of the Party members, Rutherford, began to weep. Winston never forgot the incident, and one day came upon a photograph that proved that the Party members had been in New York at the time that they were allegedly committing treason in Eurasia. Terrified, Winston destroyed the photograph, but it remains embedded in his memory as a concrete example of Party dishonesty.

I honestly can’t understand why Winston is finding it so difficult to dispute history. He recognizes that what the Party tells the population on a daily basis is a lie (for example, they tell the citizens they increased the chocolate ration, when, in fact, they decreased it). Additionally, it’s his job to make up these lies for the party. He’s the person behind the false histories. Does he not realize that everything he writes is proving the Party lies. How could he ever believe that time before the Revolution was worse than the present. Clearly, the Party made up that lie to. I don’t understand why Winston is so set in finding proof—he risks everything to go to the “proles” (proletariat/lower class dwellings) to speak to older people to find evidence that time was actually better before the Revolution. Why doesn’t he just trust his gut on this one?

I suppose his main problem in trusting himself is that he doesn’t know whether others despise the Party as much as he does; he doesn’t know whether he is just being a “lunatic” or not. Orwell writes “Why should one feel it to be intolerable unless one had some kind of ancestral memory that things had once been different” (60). He’s demonstrating that everyone had been so brainwashed by the Party, believes all the lies they construct, so they can’t remember a time before the Revolution to know that the present is intolerable. So, as far as Winston knows, he could very well be alone in this battle.

It’s interesting, though, what the citizens don’t realize is that the history the Party does tell doesn’t demonstrate a time that is worse than the present, it demonstrates a time that mimics the present. The history book reads, “They owned all the land, all the houses, all the factories, and all the money. If anyone disobeyed them they could throw him into prison, or they could take his job away and starve him to death. When any ordinary person spoke to a capitalist he had to cringe and bow to him, and take off his cap and address him as “Sir.” The chief of all the capitalists was called the King…” (73). Although Party leaders aren’t referred to as capitalists, they certainly receive the treatment of one. They blatantly segregate society into Party officials and the proletariat, and treat the proletariat like crap. The capitalist: Party leader analogy also is functional because a) the Party controls every aspect of everyone’s life just like the capitalists own every aspect of everyone’s life, and b) “King” is analogous to Big Brother.

I’m hoping Winston will very soon get the guts to do something about this horrible situation. 104 pages in is enough description of how oppressed he is; it’s starting to get repetitive and I’m eager to read about action, about how a counter-revolution will occur, if it can occur at all.