The stifling horror world

中文简介

《1984》是一部极具预言性质的政治讽喻小说，描绘了一个令人感到窒息和恐惧的泯灭人性的极权主义社会。在这个被称为“大洋国”的极权主义社会里，“你说的每一句话，发出的每一个声响都会被监听；只要有一点光线，你的一举一动都会被监视”，人性被扼杀，自由被剥夺，思想被钳制，而历史每时每刻也在被伪造。那里的人类生存状态，永远警示着人们不要走进这黑暗的悲剧。（选自图书介绍）

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作者简介

乔治·奥威尔（1903—1950），英国伟大的人道主义作家、新闻记者、社会评论家。他一生颠沛流离，但始终以敏锐的洞察力和犀利的文笔记录着他所生活的时代，致力于维护人类自由和尊严，揭露、鞭笞专制和极权主义，并提出了超越时代的预言，因此他被尊称为“一代人的冷峻良知”。（选自图书介绍）

Plot Summary

In 1984, there were three superstates in the world --- Oceania, Eurasia and East Asia. The three countries were not peaceful together. There were continual outbreaks of wars and each country was controlled highly with centralized rules. Each country used extreme means like rewriting history and language, using monitoring screens to control people's thoughts and instinct and maintain extreme personal worship of leaders. 

Winston Smith, the protagonist, was a member of the Outer Party in Oceania where there was only one party, English Socialism (Ingsoc in Newspeak). He worked in the records department of the Ministry of Truth in the history of falsification. Smith had the spirit of independent thinking and believed in the existence of objectivity. He hated himself in the report of the Ministry in the event of tampering with history. He doubted his own real living conditions and the perception of people's thinking. In a sober environment, Winston dialogued and debated with himself in his diary to confirm his view of the world. 

Later he fell in love with another party member Julia, who doubted about the party's preaching too. So they became the prisoners of conscience. Ocean States' leader, Big Brother, let the police take Smith into prison. In the prison, he was severely tortured and eventually his brain was washed. Finally, Winston Smith had a purity thought.

Excerpts

1. Double think means the power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one's mind simultaneously, and accepting both of them.

2. But if thought corrupts language, language can also corrupt thought.

3. Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past.

Recommendation

This book described a totalitarian society "Oceania", where morals decayed, regardless of good and evil, thought was muzzled, history was tampered with, and freedom was forbidden. Life was poor and the whole world was hateful. Let us know something about the darkness of politics.  Although it is a fantasy society, it is like an alarm, knocking and shocking the world. It called on people to recover conscience, reason, and common sense, and with the resistance to wake up the world.