Nineteen Eighty-Four
First published 1948 · English · 336 pages
- Novels
- Historical fiction
- Science fiction
- Dystopia
This novel is set in a future Britain, part of a superstate called Oceania, where a ruling Party watches everyone through telescreens and controls the news, the language and even the records of the past. Winston Smith works at the Ministry of Truth, rewriting history to suit the Party's latest claims. Privately he feels doubt and longs for some kind of freedom, and he begins to take small, dangerous steps against the rules. The book explores surveillance, propaganda, the manipulation of truth and the fragility of personal loyalty. It is one of the most influential political novels of the twentieth century, and its ideas remain part of public debate.
Quotes
You had to live — did live, from habit that became instinct — in the assumption that every sound you made was overheard, and, except in darkness, every movement scrutinized.
It was always the women, and above all the young ones, who were the most bigoted adherents of the Party, the swallowers of slogans, the amateur spies and nosers-out of unorthodoxy.
On each landing, opposite the lift-shaft, the poster with the enormous face gazed from the wall. It was one of those pictures which are so contrived that the eyes follow you about when you move. BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING YOU' the caption beneath it ran.
He discovered that while he sat helplessly musing he had also been writing, as though by automatic action. And it was no longer the same cramped, awkward handwriting as before. His pen had slid voluptuously over the smooth paper, printing in large neat capitals — DOWN WITH BIG BROTHER...