1984- George Orwell - Part 4

1984 - George Orwell

2017 Reading Challenge - Day 10

 January 10, 2017 

Book 2 - Nineteen Eighty Four (1984)
by George Orwell (1948)

 Part 4 - Pages 217-294

Reading Time - 60 minutes

This section was like watching a slow-motion train-wreck. Winston takes Julia to see O'Brien, the Inner Party member whom Winston thinks is part of a conspiracy against Big Brother. At first, it looks like O'Brien is on their side. He even manages to get a copy of a heretical book to Winston that documents the history of the Revolution and the workings of the world and Big Brother. Winston reads the book to Julia who quickly falls asleep during it.

Turns out the world is in a state of perpetual war between three competing world powers - Eurasia, Eastasia and Oceania. The over-production of consumer goods which was a problem in the first half of the 20th century has been solved by War. "In principle, the war effort is always so planned as to eat up any surplus that might exist after meeting the bare needs of the population."

Sad to say that does not seem that far off from today's society where billions of dollars go to the Department of Defence in the United States with a mere pittance going to Education and Health Care. But as Victor Lebow, a Retail Analyst said in 1955 "Our enormously productive economy . . . demands that we make consumption our way of  life, that we convert the buying and use of goods into rituals, that we seek our spiritual satisfaction, our ego satisfaction, in consumption . . . we need things consumed, burned up, replaced and discarded at an ever-accelerating rate." It would appear, we aren't consuming fast enough if all that excess productivity needs to still fund the war effort.

Later in the book Winston is reading, the author notes "the consciousness of being at war, and therefore in danger, makes the handing-over of all power to a small caste seem the natural, unavoidable condition of survival". Not so far off from today and our never-ending War on Terror which continues to chip away at individual freedoms and civil liberty.

Alas for poor Winston, turns out that he has been under surveillance by the Thought Police for at least the last 7 years. Their little secret nest has a hidden telescreen and the man they rented it from is a member of the Thought Police. They are caught.