1984 Post 1: First Thoughts

I first heard of 1984 in 8th grade, we were given an excerpt of the book and analyzed it. We were told it was a higher level book, and after analyzing I was told it was about living in a world where you are constantly under surveillance by the government. And 4 years later I find myself reading the book, I did not expect the topic to be such a heavily controversial concept. I expected the book to be a completely different storyline than the one that took place. When I first heard of the book, I expected a highly advanced utopia where everything is clean and tidy and superficially perfect. But the government is corrupt and secretly hiding something from the public and the protagonist would find the problem, expose the government, and saves the day. Instead, at this point in the book, I am proven wrong in almost every way. The protagonist, Winston Smith, lives in “Victory Mansions” which ironically reeks of “boiled cabbage and old rags”. Winston is not only watched by cameras, but also can be heard, and constricts the freedom of thought. Thinking, which is something that should be allowed for self expression, creativity, and individuality, gone. Smith came to his cabbage scented home and went away to a corner of his home where the surveillance system, the “telescreen”, cannot see him. He began to write in a journal where everything he wrote basically defied what the government said and what they stood for. The book alone would have been a death penalty if he was caught in it. The idea of conformity in the same place where imagination is supposed to thrive is entirely ironic, and the concept behind it is simply mind blowing. This book is a unique novel that challenges the traditional approach to a story.