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Claudia K. Moreno
Ms. Castellano
English II Period 8
27 September, 2010
WAR IS PEACE, FREEDOM IS SLAVERY, IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH
Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell is a dystopia novel, the state of human misery.
In this novel the society is ruled by superior minds. Basically the theme is to show what happens
when power is abused.
George Orwell’s purpose of the book was to write about a setting that demonstrated a
government gone wrong. Where totalitarianism had dominant power in an imaginary world.
When this novel was first published in 1949, it was seen as a future event that could possibly
happen. The author reveals his government beliefs in this make-believe story by applying
ridiculous ideas in the novel. Many of the ideas have actually happened; it is often compared
with the Hitler period. The story is written in a third person point of view limited by the
protagonist Winston Smith where the he reader only gets what the protagonist sees and feels.
This particular novel attracts readers by its twisted plot and unexpected ending. It is a classic
story that has been banned in many places due to its many critical themes but still used in many
schools today.
The author uses foreshadowing through the story that lets the reader predict what might
happened next in the story. “We shall meet in the place where there is no darkness”, was a quote
at the beginning of the story that Winston heard from O’Brien, implying that they will in fact

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meet in a place where there is no darkness. The character doesn’t remember where he heard
O’Brien say that to him but he knew that he had told him that at some point. That actually
happened by the end of the novel when they encountered in jail, where O’Brien explained that
the lights were never out due to obvious reasons. Their encounter had been planned all along.
The author even rephrases the quote and explains the meaning of it during the novel by
O’Brien’s words. Also through the novel, the St. Clement’s song lyrics are repeated where the
last line foreshadows the upcoming events. “Here comes the chopper to chop off your head off”.
It also involves O’Brien, who played a major part in the plot, because of his plan all along. At
one point during the story, Winston even asked O’Brien if he knew what the last part of the song
was because he had forgotten. Later, the characters are found isolated from the world where they
are being troubled by their ways of thinking.
The story was about a controlled society where the habitants were watched twenty-four
hours a day. Winston Smith is the protagonist, a citizen who is against the government, called the
Party. Along with Julia, his secret lover, both go against the Party by doing prohibited things.
Their plans are very well thought but they know that they will sooner or later be found. The
readers discover that the Party has known what they had been doing through the story. A Inner
Party member, O’Brien makes a seven year plan to make them “sane”, where they are thought to
love Big Brother, who is a God to Party. The Party is what controls the people’s mind, making
them believe in things that might have never happened. The end is somehow predicted but
unexpected because it shows how the Party brainwashed them without even knowing it. The
society in this book is trying to change their citizens to speak Newspeak. It is actually a language
derived from English but in simpler words so that their citizens won’t have ways of expressing
themselves. Making the habitants impossible to overturn the organization with the lack of words.

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The novel is actually written in Old English explaining all of his feelings and how he is against
the Newspeak language.
Frustration is one of the character’s experiences. The way they are forced to do
something that they don’t want to and can’t do anything about it. This might relate to many
people today who are being controlled by a superior. Winston was a character that believed in
what he thought even when others were against it but was a hypocrite in order to survive.
O’Brien was one character that had the power to brainwash other’s mind just like he did with
Winston making him superior. Never would a human have so much power to control other
people without at the end fail. It happened with Hitler, where he tried to make a perfect society
but it failed. In the story, it is implied that the want to overturn the society was at the end
impossible.
The details in this book were very capturing .The way the Party controls everything and
everyone is astonishing. Not only does the organization achieves their goal but doesn’t fall in the
way. It is very frustrating to read about other’s suffering in silence. The worst part is knowing
that things don’t change at all in the end.
Personally, I liked the book even if it was creepy. The best part was its unexpected
ending where the reader is accustomed to “happy” endings. This novel is for those readers who
like imaginary worlds that might happen at one point in history. It describes a “future”, in its
time, and some people might find that attractive. But overall, this novel would be a good read for
possible outcomes.

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Society today wouldn’t have been the same if this had actually happened. Of course,
power is what rules people today, and it is often abused, but never with such extremity. There are
still possibilities that this might happened someday.