1984, Blog log 3 - The environment

To begin with, 1984 is taking place in London, which is the chief city of Airstrip One. Winston Smith, the main character, is convinced that people, including himself, is living in some kind of dystopia, even though many aren’t aware of that.

George Orwell is mostly using a language that is easy to understand with just enough adjectives when describing persons and buildings to invite the reader to freely envision those, as well as making the differences between different objects and persons clear. At times we are even told which smell that dominates a scene. The following quotation shows us a example of a description of a person Winston saw in a café.

He was a monstrous man, with a mane of greasy greyhair, his face pouched and seamed, with thick negroid lips. At one time he musthave been immensely strong; now his great body was sagging, sloping, bulging,falling away in every direction. He seemed to be breaking up before one’s eyes,like a mountain crumbling.(1984, 1949. George Orwell, P. 44)

In general Orwell only describes the most important buildings and persons, while he just mentions the common look of everything else in that area or on that office. For example, he describes the view from Winston's window as cold and colorless, despite the fact that the sky was intensely blue and the sun shining. This gives the reader the feeling of a city without life and hope. The mentioning of that the world looked cold adds a sightly creepy character to the story, especially during the night hours.

Outside, even through the shut window-pane, the world looked cold. Downin the street little eddies of wind were whirling dust and torn paper into spirals,and though the sun was shining and the sky a harsh blue, there seemed to beno colour in anything, except the posters that were plastered everywhere.(1984, 1949. George Orwell, P. 1)

What we get to know is what Winston sees, feels and thinks. The number of descriptive words are not few, but not that many either. Orwell might have chosen to limit the descriptive words in order to make his story apply to as many societies as possible. If the goal was to make people aware of possible future conflicts between interest groups, such as governments, and ordinary people, one can say he has done a good job describing the environment.

1984, Blog log 2 - The main Character

Victory Mansions were old flats, built in 1930 or thereabouts, and were falling to pieces.The plaster flaked constantly from ceilings and walls, the pipes burst in everyhard frost, the roof leaked whenever there was snow, the heating system wasusually running at half steam when it was not closed down altogether frommotives of economy.(1984, 1949. George Orwell, P. 11)

Winston Smith is a thirty nine year old man who works at the Ministry of truth. He lives in an decrepit apartment on the seventh floor in Victory Mansion, something he doesn't appreciate because of an injured leg and a seldom working elevator.

It appeared that there had even beendemonstrations to thank Big Brother for raising the chocolate ration to twentygrammes a week. And only yesterday, he reflected, it had been announced thatthe ration was to be reduced to twenty grammes a week. Was it possible thatthey could swallow that, after only twenty-four hours? Yes, they swallowed it.(1984, 1949. George Orwell, P. 32)

It is obvious that Winston dislikes the government and their way of treating the people. He is also stunned over the fact that virtually all seem to believe what's said by the party without asking any questions at all. One can only imagine the frustration he must be feeling when everybody else appear to only reflect about the present, ignoring the past as they actually remember it.

In any case, it is clear that Winston is mentally strong because of the ability to think outside the box and to think differently. A person like that can either be a society's greatest hero, or its worst enemy. For Big Brother, Winston ought to be the later one.

Nearly all children nowadays were horrible.What was worst of all was that by means of such organizations as the Spiesthey were systematically turned into ungovernable little savages, and yet thisproduced in them no tendency whatever to rebel against the discipline of theParty. On the contrary, they adored the Party and everything connected withit.(1984, 1949. George Orwell, P. 13)

This shows both wonder and contempt of Winston. An uncertain future lies ahead, but one thing can be taken for granted; that the grown up children won't make a bigger resistance against the party than their parents or grandparents did. This is one of the reasons he feels something need to be done before this whole thing has gone too far.

“The thing that he was about to do was to open a diary.” (1984, 1949. George Orwell, P. 4.)

To have a diary is something which is very inappropriate in a society where the past must be forgotten and rewritten, but it is a good way of organizing his thoughts. This is important, because if he doesn't do that he may end up remembering the made-up past, which wouldn't be that good in the fight against Big Brother and the party.