First published in 1949, Orwell’s 1984 is a cautionary tale about a society under a totalitarian government. The story is based in Airstrip One (the city of London renamed) which exists in Oceania, one of the three nations in the world. Life in this society is micro-managed to the point that every single person is under surveillance - all the time. There are screens and microphones inside houses and buildings which the government uses to spy on people. Big Brother - an unknown person/entity is the leader of the IngSoc party, which makes up the government. He is the saviour of the people and the one to be revered. Posters with the face of a man, whose eyes glare straight, exist throughout the city. The posters say - ‘Big Brother is watching you’. The government shows the same on T.V along with propaganda, government exercises, false news and hate speech throughout the day. It does not leave people with any emotional or intellectual energy to think about anything that the party does not preach. Any form of thought opposing the party’s construct is classified as “thoughtcrime”. The mere hint of disagreement or defiance results in torture and death. People have been indoctrinated to believe the party, accept their basis as the truth and bring those truths into normalcy.

The concept of friendship, love or loyalty does not exist amongst people. Display of affection has no place in the society and the only purpose of marriage is to produce offspring that will grow up to serve the Big Brother.

The city is in shambles with scarce resources. Every single thing is in the ultimate control of the party, yet the almost pathological reverence for Big Brother does not seem to stop. That is the kind of control the party has over the people, changing their entire perspective into believing what is fed to them.

Ingsoc controls the people using three principles - Newspeak, Doublethink and the constant alteration of the past.

Newspeak is a new language devised by IngSoc. It is concise, with a limited vocabulary, constructed to make the delivery of the party’s ideology effective and to constrain any hint of individual thought. Language is moulded and updated regularly. By removing words from vocabulary, the party makes conceiving ideas entirely impossible. They realise that ideas are communicated and discussed through language. An abstract needs language to become concrete in existence. The limited choice of words thus limits the range of free thought. If the word ‘free’ ceases to exist for the concept of liberty of thoughts and actions, so does the very idea of being free. The government makes it vital that old literature is destroyed and Newspeak constantly revised to make it as restricted as possible, slowing down advancement.

Doublethink is a way of holding two contradictory thoughts and believing in both of them. Amidst rampant poverty, Big Brother makes the people believe that they are financially stable and guarantees peace by raging a perpetual war. The party’s slogan says

                    War is Peace.
                    Freedom is Slavery.
                    Ignorance is Strength.

The government has 4 major ministries. The Ministry of Truth for continuous manipulation of the past, Ministry of Love for dealing with rebels through torture, Ministry of Plenty with making sure that there are never enough resources for the people, that they constantly depend on their government, and finally the Ministry of Peace which enables and drives the war.

Every day, records and newspaper articles are altered to say what the government wants to tell. The past is manipulated in the present. No flaw exists in the party because there are no records to prove it. Acts of defiance are painted criminal, violent, and loathsome. Records on Party’s performance, the economy, ration - everything is mutated to suit the party’s narrative, the people accepting it as the truth. To put the phenomenon into perspective, Orwell writes -

        One who controls the past controls the future.
        One who controls the present controls the past.

The protagonist of the story - Winston Smith is an outer party employee working at the Ministry of Truth. He alters records and newspapers, replacing one nonsense with another He lives a lonely, dreadful life with no friends and family. He has recurring second thoughts about the party and wonders how the people around him accept it what the party says with blatant ignorance. He has pity for a few and disdain for others. To escape Big Brother’s tyranny he secretly writes a diary - an act of capital punishment.

At work, there are only two people of interest to him - Julia and O’Brien. He is equally fascinated and abhorred by Julia. She’s young and beautiful. He believes that she is spying on him to turn him to the thought police and yet he secretly yearns to be with her. O’Brien is a member of the inner party. Winston believes that O’ Brien is like him, an ally who also seeks the party’s true motives.

One day Julia confesses her love to Winston. They meet secretly and defy the government by committing the crime of love and liberty - of only being together.

They are eventually caught by the Thought Police (dealing with thoughtcrime) and tortured. The third part of the book reveals the ideologies of the government. It depicts the nature of a person in captivity, the loss of personal identity and the drain of emotional energy. It questions if the truth is statistical and controlled or if it exists on its own. It compels the reader to think about the idea of freedom, integrity, love and royalty. To re-think the limitations of the human spirit.

The writer says through Winston - Freedom is the freedom to think two plus two equals five. While the statement in itself offers less to ponder, this is the essence that the book explores.