tos, book review
name of the book: '1984'
author: gege orwell
written in the year 1949 by george orwell, this book '1984' picks you up by your collar and drops you down into a world where you live no better than a toy soldier whose key is in the hand of one man known by the name of 'big brother'.
Big Brother is the leader of the ruling party, the dictator, who governs the people incepting in their mind his dark ideology which is very well put in the three slogans of the party,
'war is peace
freedom is slavery
ignorance is strength
with this he runs a country which is like a 'negetive utopia' , where you don't even have freedom of thoughts, where hatred is celebrated.
Though london is the name of the city where the author has established his imaginary world the city scape gives a grimy picture contrary to what we know london as. The streets on which you walk, stepped into the shoes of the protagonist, 'Winston Smith', are very dusty, lined by old broken houses, rather sick and dead buildings falling into pieces, one of which is yours, ironically named 'Victory Mansions'.
You enter your house, feel more sick by the smell of boiled cabbage and old rag mats in the hallway, and come face to face with the large face of 'Big brother' with eyes looking deep into you from the poster appropriately captioned 'big brother is watching you' and tacked on every other wall. You enter your own flat, oh sorry, there is no place which can be called 'your own' for on one wall a part is covered by what is called a 'telescreen' whose 'buckwaas' goes on for 24x7 for its not devised to be turned off completely. more over you could be seen as well as heard if he is in its field of vision which is practically the entire room.
"you had to live-- did live, from habit tht became instinct-- in the assumption that every sound you made was overheard, and, except in darkness, every movement scrutinized"
you look out of the window facing your back to the telescreen but still you wont be able to avoid the gaze of big brother. if not from the posters than it could be felt from the large pyramidal buildings, rather fortresses of the four ministries of the party -- named antonymous to their function, Truth, Peace, Love, Plenty-- which soared about 300m up in the air standing out in the horizon, overpowering the rotting nineteenth century surrounding architecture.
"... windows patched with cardboard and their roofs with corrugated iron, their crazy garden walls sagging in all directions. and the bombed sites where the plaster dust swirled in the air and the willow herb straggled over the heaps of rubble; and the places where the bombs had cleared a larger path and there had sprung up sordid colonies of wooden dwellings like chicken houses."
The architecture reflects that the quality of the life of people is not just neglected but has been brought to a full stop and that their life is controlled in every aspect by the party which is synonymous to the 'big brother'.
you work for the very party you hate and are adressed as 'comrade' as are all commoners who live in houses like 'victory mansions' in dingy flats under filthy conditions, with usual smell of boiled cabbage. a place where one would hate to live, but so it is, for the people live to love 'hatred'
"he felt as though he were wandering in the forests of the sea bottom, lost in the monstrous world where he himself was the monster"
"... the world outside looked cold... though the sun was shining and the sky was blue, there seemed to be no color in anything except the posters that were plastered everywhere"
BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING YOU.
