I was under the impression that this book will be strictly socio political with little deep charecter growth and/or romantic development. Now I might be right on the surface level it is a commentary on the socialism, censorship, murder of the self and more, but I saw the most value in it’s exploration of the Self and how it fits in society. I belive that the first part is world building, painting an amazing distopian herd like behevior of society. Exactly from here do i think that most people draw their conclusion that this novel is made to highlight the fall of man under the conditionsof the world forecast back in the late 40’s. They are undoubtedly relevant now, but I think that the book gives a more important lesson. The second part to me is a love story from the point of view of a useless, unhappy, and disposable part of society. I feel that Winston truly loved Julia (as revealed later), but the man that this cruel and lifeless world built. He could not show it at it’s fullest because of the hate towards the Party. He saw their love as sticking it up to the oppressor. This love was destined to fail as the charecters acknowledge, but they don’t really cherish the love in it’s finate moments, rather they go to O’Brien with hope of changing society. It is the fight of the Self for a “better” future, for freedom and justice. It’s is a clear cut choice of my happiness or the happiness of others. The third part is how society – the Party, chooses to act upon this dessision. It is ungrateful, angry, and hurt by this happiness that is proposed by “a minority” for the people. Conservativetism is not only being old fashioned and keeping what works, but rather punishing other approaches. This applied to happiness. The book approaches this issue with a more political view but I still think that it applies to societal norms and behaviour. To ramble a bit more, this book ripped all of my suicidal thoughts. I now realise that typical, literal suicide is pointless. Rather a more cruel, effective way to “dissappear” is killing your thought and emotion in society. Winston suffers this not on his own accord, but it still has the same effect. The bullet that he dreams about in rather symbolic.
In conclusion, I don’t think it’s a must read, but if one chooses to acknowledge himself in the presence of others it is the most basic and effective way of breaking your normal world view.
P. S. Thank you for reading this. I would really appreciate feedback on my thoughts. And just to and for a bit of context I am young, by no means the targeted audience for the book and I don’t belive I have enough life experience to truly understand it. I started reading recently and this is the first time I write down my thoughts after reading. To add I am politically active and I picked up the book just because of the politics, so I still do appreciate it’s aspects.
by ProzulNOCo