’’The only certain thing about the future is that it will surprise even those who have seen the furthest into it’’- Eric Hobsbawm
When Nostradamus saw the future did he ever realise that he had set forth several centuries early would really come true?Orwell’s 1984 was written in 1948 was not just a soliloquy of a man harassed by the thought of things to come but a wake up call for the people to awaken to the need for rising above the didactic nature of those in authority vis a vis the ruled.A poignant tale of the rummaging of a mind in turmoil over the oppressive state of affairs is much relevant now as it was then.The novel set out in the background of war torn England zooming into the future three and a half decades later with a satirical opposing thoughts of the main protogonist Winston Smith, employed in the Ministry of Truth in a regime ruled by Big Brother.Winston’s childhood passes in deprivation after his father’s death & his mother sacrifices a lot to feed him at the cost of an ailing sister.In his boyhood ignorance he seldom cared for their needs while his greed knew no bounds.Images of their fights & his mother’s remonstrance come to haunt him in his dreams making him feel guilty of their death.The strakness in the situations prevailing in & after WW II & juxtaposed in 1984 , appears contrasting & contrite.The claustrophobic environment is enhanced by the face of the Big Brother, so much symbolic to the present day US hegemony, watching everyone from posters plasted all across the town & the Thought Police watching from two way telescreens keeping everyone under constant surveillance.The feeling is aggravated by what happens when there is a dissent.Every citizen is served with a regular drill of watching a Hate Program of a detractor called Goldstein much akin to the present day Osama Bin Laden.In a din to denounce the detractor & worship the oppressor Winston could momentarily identify a soulmate in O’brien, an inner party member & hoped that an underground brotherhood of revolutionaries existed againts the party.The protogonist’s yearning for denouncing the regime envelopes him completely while causing fears about consequences for what was referred to as the act of thought crime.The stifiling atmosphere is so engrossing , every act of the people is a forced drill, so much lie is floated around , records of the past were changed so often to such a ridiculous extent & on a sardonically daily basis-that truth has ceased of be of any significance.Ironically all this is done by the Ministry of Truth.Everything was sanitised with phlegmatic regularity, to orient itself to in the newspeak to the current situation.On the otherhand were the Proletariats, for whom it was not needed to ’’indoctrinate with the ideology of the party’’.The book is engrossing in its detail for the depth of human existence in its proletariat’s endless pittiness.Wisnton meets & falls in love with Julia, who surprises him with her nonchalance to the state of affairs except when it affected her personally -symbolic of the mindset of people generally in modern times.She actually draws his attention that the leadership itself could be creating war to suppress the proletariat & meet its end, something every present day citizen would be internally savouring about the war-mongering states.Winston is involuntarily drawn to O’brien, who pretends to be a detractor & makes Winston lose his caution.Consequently he imprisoned to be brainwashed according to the Party doctrine, making him incapable of feeling anything except what the Party wished him to be.He was converted to love the regime he so hated and in his defeat was his freedom.It was poetic justice for the Party.
To call Orwell’s novel a tale of a right thinking man caught in the vortex of a stifling socialist society would be too simplistic an analysis of a writer’s expression of righting a wrong either committed or to be committed by those in authority.It is a call to desist from ghettoism, fundamentalism or from forming a moral brigade denouncing any opposing stance in the futility of war.It is a call for peace & the need to guard against deceptive vandalism perpetrated by the state. Orwell’s novel written after WW2 fails to imagine that the bitter war & modern outlook made each of the super powers Oceania{US and its allies} and Eurasia{Russia and its allies} realise the futility of war.Yet is gives you a shuddering feeling that it was written to depict the wars of the mind not so much as that of a physical war between two nations.