The Teen Zine 

A world where even a single rebellious thought is considered a capital crime, the government wages a never-ending war in order to keep its power, and the past gets rewritten every day until it is unrecognizable from today is a truly terrifying place to be. 
In his novel 1984, George Orwell explores this idea through the eyes of Winston Smith, an ordinary citizen in a dystopian society, whose job is to alter past news articles and reports to match the actual results, or what the government wants them to be, as a part of the government’s, or the Party’s, plan to manipulate its people’s minds. This ultimately leads him to doubt what he was taught about history and he starts to regularly commit the so-called thoughtcrime — the act of having thoughts that don’t align with the government’s beliefs. Eventually, he attempts to join a secret rebellion against the Party. That, unfortunately for him, turns out to be a trap that leads to a series of torture and interrogation sessions. The goal is to convince him to believe that the government is always right and to become loyal to the leader. It all ends with his bittersweet realization that he does love the leader, demonstrating that, in this world, the government truly always wins. And however disappointing that might sound, it must have been a relatively peaceful closure for him, especially after years spent questioning everything and unsuccessfully trying to deal with the fact he’ll never be free. But still, it is horrifying to witness the true scope of the Party’s power to alter a mind that was once able to resist it. 
   The book is, without any doubt, a masterpiece. Orwell’s description of how the world works in terms of social hierarchy, economy, power, war, and even human psychology, motivation and manipulation in combination with his surprisingly sophisticated and disturbing proposal of how the cycle could be broken for the benefit of those who wield power demonstrate his true genius. He raises questions about what existence and truth even mean and who determines what is real and what is not. However, while the book exceeds all expectations about world-building, it lacks in other areas. The story itself is perfect only for the purpose of illustrating the ideas that the author wanted to share with the world. With its questionable main character and long exposition, it would definitely not be satisfactory to readers who seek action and relatable characters, or those who read books mostly to immerse themselves in a story and not the world it’s set in. It was also hard to understand why the Party really wants power. This is a recurring question in the book but understanding the answer perhaps requires a different mindset because that they “are interested solely in power” “entirely for its own sake” just sounds incomplete (Orwell 263). The book is also interesting because of its non-traditional ending as it doesn’t end with a revolution or the character achieving his goal of resisting the government until the very end, but simply with another victory of the regime.
   One of the book’s main themes is how slow, systematic manipulation, especially on a large scale, can be so subtle yet pervasive that an individual won’t even notice a difference while still getting brainwashed and completely losing control over their own life. An excellent example of this is Newspeak — the new language invented by 1984’s government to suppress any possibility of free thinking and reinforce complete obedience of the people. When Syme is explaining the purpose of the language to Winston, he says, “Don’t you see that the whole aim of Newspeak is to narrow the range of thought? . . . Every year fewer and fewer words, and the range of consciousness always a little smaller” (Orwell 52). This is just one piece of the strategy to achieve absolute orthodoxy among everyone.
   Overall, the book is definitely a clever warning about what our society could, in one way or another, become. Many of the ideas that George Orwell describes, such as constant surveillance and propaganda, are disturbingly relevant right now. But the story still prompts a question that is left unanswered: What if the Party forgets what they are doing because they get rid of everything that allowed them to learn from the past?