Video SparkNotes: Orwell's 1984 Summary

1984 is about totality anism a totalitarian government is one that tries to control every aspect of life how people spend every minute of their time even in private who they can associate with what they're allowed to say a totalitarian government even tries to control what people think and what they believe George Orwell wrote 1984 in the late 1940s what he knew about so Talat arianism was based on the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany those governments had come into being not that long before and they weren't very well understood yet what Orwell was trying to do with 1984 was to give his readers a clear picture of what life would be like if a free country like England were under totalitarian rule 1984 takes place in London the London in the book is a depressing place there's never enough to eat the food's disgusting there aren't enough clothes or shoes or anything to go around and the city is pretty dilapidated except for these giant pyramid shaped government buildings that rise above the landscape there's some sort of war going on who no one really understands what it's about rockets frequently explode in the streets and blow people to bits the worst part is that the government is always watching everything people do there are these posters of big brother who's supposedly the leader of the government that say big brother is watching you there are thought police who have hidden cameras and microphones literally everywhere the government can watch you in your home through your TV screen and you're not allowed to turn your TV off ever there are a lot of things you're not allowed to do in this society and if you do them the police might take you away and throw you into a forced labor camp you're not allowed to have close friends you're not allowed to be in love you can't date or have sex with someone you like you're basically supposed to save all your emotional energy for the party the party being the government then there are things you have to do you have to watch the government programming on TV most of its news some of its exercises you have to attend pep rallies including this one called the two minutes hate so it's hard to even have time to think your own thoughts because they're constantly filling your head with propaganda the main character of 1984 is Winston Smith he's 39 he has a job in the government and he lives this horrible dreary existence without any friends or anyone in his life at the beginning of the book he starts writing a diary to talk about how much he hates life in his society even though writing a diary is one of those things she'd be killed for doing if you were caught the diary is his place for thinking about his society it's a place where he tries to imagine if life could possibly be different from the way it is there's no way for him to know if things were ever different before because the government has changed all the records of the past and rewritten all the history books at the beginning of the novel there are two other people who matter to Winston and he doesn't even know either of them one of them is Julia Julia is this attractive young woman who works in the same building as him she's some kind of mechanic Winston basically hates her he hates her because she's pretty and he can't have her but he also thinks she's the sort of person who would turn him in to the thought police so he's afraid of her but also sort of fascinated the other person he's interested in is this portly guy named O'Brien who's a member of the inner party that means he's a boss much higher up than Winston Winston should be afraid of this guy but he gets the sense that O'Brien is intelligent so he has this yearning to be friends with him he thinks O'Brien would understand how he feels about life the book takes a turn one day when Julia slips Winston a note that says I love you this note completely rocks Winston's world of course he's interested he can't wait to get in touch with her but it's very hard for them to say two words to each other in private with all these spies and cameras everywhere finally they do manage to get out to the country and they start this mad love affair the love affair makes them both very happy it's dangerous because they could be killed or sent to labor camps if they get caught but that makes it more exciting at last Winston has someone who understand and who hates the party as much as he does but Winston needs to go that extra step he's rebelling against the party privately by having the secret affair now he wants to go to the next level and be an active rebel against the government he gets his chance one day when O'Brien invites him to his apartment to look at something work-related Winston takes a leap of faith and guesses that O'Brien must be part of the rebellion because no one invites people over to their home it just isn't done so he and Julia go to O'Brien's house and confess that they want to be rebels and O'Brien says yes I'm a rebel too and we all read this book that explains why things are the way they are Winston reads the book and he's blown away by it unfortunately right after he reads it the thought police bust in and arrest him and Julia and carry them off to the Ministry of love to torture them so we've learned that O'Brien wasn't a rebel after all he just wanted to catch Winston in the Ministry of love they torture Winston in all sorts of horrible ways they break his bones in his teeth they use electric shock they starve him and on and on he tells them everything he knows he confesses to everything they ask him and he tells them everything he knows about Julia after torturing him over and over O'Brien finally tells Winston what it is that the government really wants what they want is to have total power over the minds of people like Winston they want people like Winston to say 2+2 equals 5 and really believe it not just say it to avoid a beating for the government it's purely an exercise in power they're not trying to control his mind for some other purpose they just want to exercise total power over people's minds they finally do break Winston completely in this place called room 101 where they do whatever it is you're most afraid of they lock his face into a cage and threatened to let these rats eat their way through his face he has a phobia of rats so he loses it and says do it to Julia not me which is a complete betrayal of what's most important to him the government has taken his last shred of integrity after he does that they let him and Julia go the thought police don't care about them anymore the two of them meet on the outside but they can't love each other anymore Winston and Julia are basically broken people after they get out Winston has changed to the point that he doesn't even want to think about anything that might be rebellious he just sits in a cafe listening to the news and smiling the last words of the novel are he loved Big Brother so one of the points the book makes is that a human being can be broken down completely until he'll believe whatever you tell him even if it's that two plus two equals five at the same time the book has a positive message which is that it's really hard to get inside someone's head to that extent the government has to go to incredible lengths to brainwash the Winston successfully for more information about 1984 check out the spark no2 at Han sparknotes calm

Channel: VideoSparkNotes

Views: 3,546,434

Keywords: 1984 summary, 1984 analysis, understanding 1984, 1984 synopsis, 1984 summaries, 1984 video sparknote, sparknotes, 1984, george orwell, george orwell 1984, winston, julia, big brother, communism, proles, room 101

Id: h9JIKngJnCU

Length: 7min 37sec (457 seconds)

Published: Wed Oct 21 2009