Questions tagged [1984]
A dystopian fiction novel written by George Orwell in 1949, it describes the world of the year 1984 as a nightmarish authoritarian state where "Big Brother" is always watching.
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In Orwell's “1984,” what was the motivation of O'Brien, and other members of the Thought-Police, in spending so much time and effort on Winston?
According to O'Brien, Winston was followed and closely watched for about 7 years, before their meeting took place.
In a society like the one depicted in the book, where people from all walks of life ...
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In Orwell's "1984," why did Winston take Julia with him to the meeting with O'Brien?
Winston understood pretty well that Julia, in many aspects, held the opposite view to himself, regarding the party and their overall life situation -- her way of rebelling was way different than his, ...
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Why does Winston say "The more men you've had, the more I love you" to Julia?
In these lines, why does Winston hate goodness? Why does he want everyone to be corrupt? Why does he say "The more men you've had, the more I love you"?
He pulled her down so that they were ...
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Why was Winston not afraid of being caught with Julia after he was released from Ministry of Love?
These lines in chapter 3:
He had seen her; he had even spoken to her. There was no danger in it. He knew as though instinctively that they now took almost no interest in his doings.
How did he ...
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Why does the Party care to inform the people about the current war situation?
It takes so much energy and time for the Party to change every piece of information retroactively about the war situation. But since they are already the only source of news, why do they care so much ...
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What was the ultimate objective of The Party in 1984?
While it is well understood that The Party had a goal of
what was the longer objective after that goal had been achieved?
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Did George Orwell know Ronald Syme (and/or was his character Syme in 1984 in some way based on him)?
This is a question I have for those trained in the classics and have read the novel, 1984.
One of the minor characters in the novel is a man called Syme, who works on Newspeak. He waxes eloquently ...
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Why Are The 1984 Ministries In London?
In the book Nineteen Eighty-Four, Winston Smith works in the Ministry of Truth, a ministry
whose primary job was not to reconstruct the past but to supply the citizens of Oceania with newspapers, ...
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Why does the Party allow playing chess in Orwell's 1984?
At the end of Orwell's 1984, Winston was a regular customer of the Chestnut Tree Café. He would go there every day, and the waiters would always bring him a chessboard and the current issue of the ...
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Why does Oceania not want to achieve victory over Eurasia and Eastasia?
The novel stresses that while all three powers (Oceania, Eurasia and Eastasia) are in a perpetual war against each other, none of these three powers believes that victory is possible nor wants to ...
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Is Ender's game inspired by 1984?
I read Ender's Game recently and found that Ender reminded me of Winston in 1984. I was wondering if this was a coincidence or not.
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How can Winston edit people's personal copies of books?
In George Orwell's 1984, if my understanding is correct Winston Smith's job is basically to find items in printed works that disagree with the Party's current ideology and edit/remove them - (e.g. ...
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In Orwell's 1984, why does 'the book' even exist?
During the third part of 1984, O'Brien states that he is in fact one of the authors of Goldstein's book (I think we can assume this to be true). I don't understand why the book was even created. At ...
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How do you compare two things in Newspeak? [closed]
Let's say one thing is good, but the other thing is better. In Newspeak they would be would be "good" and "doubleplusgood".
So how do you compare two things in Newspeak?
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Is there any evidence George Orwell intended the ending of 1984 to be ambiguous?
In this other question I ask about what happens to Winston Smith at the end of 1984. Without going into spoilers, arguments can be made for two different endings. Much of that is based on a ...
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