——07级科技英语（1）班    何宝欣 

  The writer, George Orwell, an Englishman, was born in 1903 in India, where his father worked in the British colonial government. His family, in his own words, is a “bottom middle-class family”. After graduating from Eton, he found the job as a policeman in Burma. There he witnessed the misery of local people under the colonial rule, which made him feel guilty. In 1928 he returned to Britain, and started his life at the bottom of the society. In 1933 his work about his life and experience “Down and Out in Paris and London” came out, and it’s the first time he uses “George Orwell” as his pen name. At this time, he began to care for the working class, the common people, and formed his political view of Socialism. In 1936, the Spain Civil War broke out. As an International Volunteer, Orwell went to Spain with his wife to fight against the Facist. He got hurt in the battle, and almost got killed in the internal struggle between his comrades. The experience and failure in Spain greatly influenced Orwell’s thought. As he said, he began to think about “defending the Democratic Socialism”, and this is just what he expressed in “1984”, his greatest masterpeice which was exactly written in 1948. Two years later, he died at the age of 47.

  This novel described a fictitious totalitarianist country----Oceania. This country has a three-sentence slogan:”War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength.” The language spoken here is called “Newspeak”, which is gradually replacing “Oldspeak”----Standard English. The country is made up of four parts: Ministry of Truth, Ministry of Peace, Ministry of Love, and Ministry of Plenty. Ministry of Truth, also called “Minitrue” in Newspeak, deals with only distorting history and deceiving, filling people’s life with rubbish propaganda full of crime, violence and erotica, and makes an illusion among people that “Our lives are better than before.” In fact, the purpose of “Newspeak” is just blind people’s eyes, for if they totally forget the “Oldspeak”, no one would understand the real history written in that language. As the saying goes, “Those who control the present control the future, those who control the past control the present.” Ministry of Peace, or say :Minipax, deals mainly with War----with the two other countries: Euro-Asia and East-Asia for resources in the boundary area. Ministry of Love is also called “Miniluv”, and its duty is to torture those who have individual thinking (that is called “Thought Crime” in the novel). And Ministry of Plenty, also “Miniplenty”, deals with economic affairs. The whole country is ruled by a “Party”, with a supreme leader “Big Brother”----so called “B.B.”, and a telescreen that exists everywhere----both as an inculcating tool and as a sensor for supervision. People are living under the deceive of Minitrue, in the scarcity made by Miniplenty, for the victory of war by Minipeace, and if anyone dare question this system or have individual thinking----which can be immediately detected by the telescreen----he would be sent to Miniluv and end up there.

  Winston, the hero of this novel, works in the Minitrue. Accidentally he reads of a banned book about totalitarian, and is immediately traced by Thought Police. After conflict, torture and betrayal, Winston finally gives in. In the Miniluv, saying “I love B.B”,he died.

  The novel describes a totalitarian society with an ultra-stable structure: deceive, inculcation, supervision and coercion. Some people think that Orwell insinuates the USSR in this novel. In fact, it’s not the truth. Winston himself is a Communist who fought in the anti-Facist Spain Civil War. It’s true that the behavior of USSR forced him to think about “defending the Democratic Socialism”, but his “1984” has a much wider range. We can infer from the novel that “Oceania” refers to the NATO countries, or say, the Western countries; “Euro-Asia” refers to the Warsaw Pact countries, and “East-Asia”refers to China. And the totalitarian described in this novel has evolved from those primary, low level to advanced, high level----below the surface it’s the cruel and cold rational thoughts that rules. This thought is exclusive, and much more powerful than those naive instigating words and empty ideals. In fact, though many words in his novel, like “Party” “Big Brother” and so on may remind us of the USSR, Orwell actually put the background of his novel in a society dissimilated by capitalism, in which the pursuit for profit, more exactly speaking, for the surplus value is the only “Big Brother”. Here is the essence of this book. A Communist himself, Orwell didn’t limit his thinking to certain social systems but widened it to a universal connotation. By criticizing totalitarian and emphasizing the importance of freedom, especially freedom of thought. Orwell and Communists reached an agreement. Because, as said in “Manifesto of Communist Party”,”No democracy, no socialism”, real communists (of course not including those “Big Brothers”) would never fear or suppress freedom----that’s what they fight for.

  In 1984, the hero finally died. It seems that it’s unable to destroy such a society system. But it reminds me of a movie called “Matrix”----also a Dystopia one. In that movie, the world is rulled by an accurate computer program called “Matrix”----the “Big Brother” of that world. But in that movie, or say, the Matrix series, the hero finally wins. It’s interesting to put “1984” and “Matrix” together, compare them and discuss the similarities between them, two from different aspect but both touch the depth of our thinking.

  “1984” is such a book, that you may not dare to read for the second time; but the thinking it rouses in your mind, as well as the cold it brings along your spine, will long exist.