Title: 1984Author: George Orwell
I chose this book because I have read or watched or seen a lot of piece of works influenced by this novel. For Example, "A clockwork Orange" a famous novel written by Anthony Burgess, "BIG BROTHER" a song composed by Stevie Wonder, and further more. Contents of this book became a well known motif of Distopia novels, and I was interested in this novel, so I thought it is good chance for me to read this book in this summer.
It's rough story is that, If I say very shortly, the main character, Winston, living in a totalitarian country once decided himself to against the power, but he arrested and he was changed his mind to believe what dominant party say. The time is 1984, the place is London. In there, people were controlled by dominant party. Structure of society is completely hierarchy, the top of which is BIG BROTHER, a guise of party. The next rank is Inner Party, Outer Party, the worst class is Proles. It is said "Proles and Animals are free". On the contrary, Party members are strictly controlled by Party. There is the telescreen: two way television, in each member's room and they are observed by Party in anytime when they are awake and sleep. They are not allowed to thinking by themselves and also to memorize practice. Their thought, and memory, is governed by Party using some modern instruments.
This novel was written in 1948-1949, expecting the future ironically. The author actually lived in the age of WW and civil war, and saw the totalitarianism and socialism. When I read this book, I was surprise to author’s deep insight in the posture of world. This book takes the form of novel, but I think I can not clearly say that these incidents written in this book happen only in the imagination. This novel has a lot of meaningful note for danger lies in modern society. Reading this book give us a chance to think about these problem, and we can that because we are not controlled our thought and memory by dominant power yet.
Title: 1984
I read this book, too, but I didn't know that there are a lot of pieces of works that are influenced by 1984.
返信削除And I agree with you in the point that this book has a lot of meaningful notes for danger which lie in the modern society.
Nice book reaction, Karin! Well-written and insightful. I agree with your point above (and your ideas in your journal, which is very insightful) that even our current society has the risk of including elements of the 1984 society and we need to be alert to this.
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