Social Environment in and out of the book

Discussion about 1984 by George Orwell

In the book, three topics interest me most: how people like Winston lived in the year
1984, the intimate relationship between Winston and Julia under such an abnormal
circumstance, and the discipline and punishment when Winston was transformed from
a thought criminal to a believer of Party.

There is no doubt that it’s a dark age that you as a person but has no personal space
and even cannot think individually. In the book, under that kind of condition, most of
the comrades have been insane for the everyday two-minute-hatred training and other
various brainwashing activities. But everyone else insane sometimes equals that the
sane one can be regarded as a mad one by others due to his “differences”, and even
himself may suspect whether he commonly lives in a normal world. That’s why when
Winston first started to write the secret diary, he found it hard to write down a
reasonable and logical sentence, and he can only repeat the dangerous words under his
febrile imagination, in a hysteria scrawl. He was on the verge of being mad. Knowing
it was against the party’s beliefs, he still wrote it down, because “thought police” will
always catch you and make you commit. It was astounding and unbelievably horrible
when the picturesque English words first touched me as I was feeling part of
Winston’s mental condition throughout the paragraph. I think Mr. Orwell successfully
depicted a crazy world filled with fanatical crowds from the view of a figure whose
mind was more like readers like us. Therefore, readers can’t help wondering how
things will go if it’s he or she that was in 1984, and they’ll take themselves into the
same situation and even connect it to our real society especially the socialist country
so that the anomalous setting of the story gradually becomes more vivid in readers’
heart.

Although Mr. Orwell didn’t insinuate Chinese socialism as his actual critical target,
inevitably I made a comparison between the social environment in the book and what
is in the real world where we live today. It’s undeniable that how our world goes on in
the future worries me a lot since I continually recollected some absurd events that
happened in recent years. More and more people are forbidden to speak out their ideas
in the political field or to comment on some influential events in the public medium
platform. One of the examples is the movie Return to Dust has been removed from all
streaming services before the 20th party congress. It’s quite ridiculous and also useless
to cover the stain by pretending it never exists. Countless red banners hung in the
street, an avalanche of articles to celebrate the achievements done by the party
released by official accounts, and the continual emphasis on the high mark of GDP, as
well as the “red theme” movies shown in theaters, all of these, are the way to preach
our success but none of them truly depict the reality: great anxious caused by the
unemployment problem, unreasonable epidemic prevention policy, and multifold
restrictions and suppression in artistic creation field.
Winston worked to rectify the “mistakes” made by Big Brother and the party
members, and diminish all the “wrong” information about the “past” because the
party believes “Who Controls the Past Controls the Future”. It’s quite similar to the
coercive prohibition of some news or artistic creations which are negative for the
progress of the “advanced” party in nowadays society. Even students will be “invited”
to receive interrogation if they were found posting any “inappropriate” content on
social media platforms. People are not allowed to speak out for their own rights. I
couldn’t help wondering whether the “thought criminal” and “thought police” really
exist.

To some extent, they may protect us from being oriented by other countries’ spies or
some malevolent values. But I still hope proles’ living conditions will not be ignored
and our voices will call great attention. The government must know that the shadow
always lives with the light.

Then I want to talk about the intimate relationship between Winston and Julia. In any
topic of movies or novels, love is an eternal theme that can represent the multiplicity
of features of times. Here, writing the love stories between two “traitors”, the author
illustrated the proles’ life which is different from the first part of the novel. Winston
indicated more than once that he thought “If there was hope, it lay in the proles.” To
elaborate on the hope in proles, many emblematic symbols were mentioned in this
part, such as the glass paperweight, the makeup, the tea… These “useless” stuff are
the symbols of the real world, and more of a sort of hope and expectation to the “past”
society before the revolution happened. And the author created a dreamlike
atmosphere for their hiding place, the second floor of the inn, where they forgot the
party, the robot-like wife of Winston, the frenzy, and the hatred of the mad world.

All of these dreamlike things that belong to the past moved me a lot. That’s what
humans should own instead of the cold banners and countless screens or the thinner
Newspeak dictionary. Also, their embrace and intimate action out of love instead of
doing it for a pregnant mission is another significant feature to distinguish humans
from other species. The human emotional appeal should be attached with great
importance. Every sort of social system should respect human individual rights and
individual willingness, no matter socialism or capitalism. During the whole historic
process, what people appeal to is always the same: fighting against inhuman
oppression and obtaining human rights in nature.

Besides, I am wondering whether their love was true and normally developed with so
many obstacles. Is it because of the same powerful adversaries they fear and hate
together that they bond with each other more tightly? They were the only choice for
each other in a stage where people couldn’t communicate essentially. What’s more, as
long as Winston wanted to talk further or deep thought about the social construction
or the true “past” he witnessed, Julia would soon lose interest, thinking it’s none of
her business. Maybe it’s due to the age gap. For Winston, Julia is the new generation
who has no memory of the “past”. For Julia, the “past” never exists and is of less
importance.

“I hate purity…I want everyone to be corrupt to the bones.” (Selected from 1984)
Yelled by Winston. It confused me a lot. I speculate the reason why he said so is that
Ingsoc Party anomalously pursued correctness and absolute faith by monitoring all the
members and even peeping on their personal lives. The extreme measures pushed
Winston on a verge of madness, so he stands in the opposed position, abominating
purity violently.

“No emotion was pure, because everything was mixed up with fear and hatred. Their
emotion had been a battle, the climax a victory. It was a blow struck against the party.
It was a political act.” (Selected from 1984) Including this section, the third part of the
novel brings me egregious despondency. There is no Brotherhood, no Goldstein, and
no hope in the year 1984. Even their love is out of the political act, a way to vent their
rage and dissatisfaction to the party.

In consequence, 1984 is a trigger for me to ponder over the social system, love,
human individuality, and so on. There are still many questions left and plenty of
issues waiting to be discussed in the book. Therefore, after accumulating some more
experience about the world, I will turn back to read the book again from a brand-new
perspective.