1984 Book Review
Everything faded into mist.
The past was erased, the erasure was forgotten, the lie became truth.
Synopsis
“The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command.”
Winston Smith toes the Party line, rewriting history to satisfy the demands of the Ministry of Truth. With each lie he writes, Winston grows to hate the Party that seeks power for its own sake and persecutes those who dare to commit thoughtcrimes. But as he starts to think for himself, Winston can’t escape the fact that Big Brother is always watching...
A startling and haunting novel, 1984 creates an imaginary world that is completely convincing from start to finish. No one can deny the novel’s hold on the imaginations of whole generations, or the power of its admonitions—a power that seems to grow, not lessen, with the passage of time.
REVIEW
George Orwell’s 1984 remains one of the most chillingly prophetic novels ever written—a stark warning about the dangers of authoritarianism, the manipulation of truth, and the erasure of history. More than 75 years after its publication, its themes feel eerily relevant, a testament to Orwell’s unsettling foresight. The novel’s bleak vision of a world where reality is dictated by those in power, where independent thought is criminalized, and where surveillance is absolute serves as both a cautionary tale and a mirror reflecting uncomfortable, but important, truths about our own society.
At the heart of 1984 is Winston Smith, an everyman struggling to hold onto his own perception of truth in a world that demands blind loyalty to an ever-shifting official narrative. The omnipresent Big Brother, the Thought Police, and the insidious concept of “doublethink” create an environment where words lose meaning and facts become whatever those in power decree. Truth is not an objective reality—it is something rewritten, distorted, and replaced as needed.
This, perhaps, is where the novel resonates most strongly with the present day. In an era of “alternative facts,” relentless attacks on free speech, and a political climate where reality itself feels increasingly malleable, 1984 feels less like fiction and more like a playbook in action. The novel’s depiction of state propaganda, performative loyalty tests, and the rewriting of history finds unsettling parallels in real-world events—where past statements are denied despite clear evidence, where words are twisted until they lose meaning, and where those who dare to question the “dominant” narrative find themselves vilified. Political leaders openly contradict themselves, yet their supporters embrace these contradictions without hesitation—a modern exercise in doublethink. Books are banned in schools, critical discussions of history are suppressed, and entire segments of the population are told that their lived experiences are invalid. The past, as Orwell grimly reminds us, only exists in the minds of those who control its narrative.
Beyond politics, Orwell’s warnings about mass surveillance and the erosion of privacy have only grown more relevant. The digital age has turned the tools of Big Brother into everyday realities—devices that track, algorithms that predict, and an endless stream of data that can be used to manipulate and control. What Orwell imagined as a dystopian nightmare is now an accepted, even normalized, part of life.
Even Orwell’s depiction of perpetual war, a means of maintaining social control and suppressing dissent, resonates today. The United States remains locked in ideological and cultural battles that serve to distract, divide, and exhaust its citizens, ensuring that power structures remain unchallenged. The Party’s ultimate goal was never victory but perpetual conflict, a means to justify oppression—a lesson that remains painfully relevant in an era of political polarization and social unrest.
Perhaps one of the most terrifying aspects of 1984 is its portrayal of psychological control. Winston’s slow, agonizing descent from quiet rebellion to absolute submission is the novel’s most devastating arc, a reminder that resistance is only possible when the mind remains free. The novel asks a haunting question: if truth can be rewritten, if history can be erased, and if people can be made to believe what they are told, then what remains of individual freedom?
Orwell did not write 1984 as an instruction manual, yet time and again, his dystopian vision proves disturbingly prescient. The novel serves as both a warning and a challenge—a call to vigilance against those who would control reality itself. As history is contested, as truth is reshaped, and as power seeks to cement itself through fear, Orwell’s masterpiece reminds us that resistance begins with the courage to see clearly, to question, and to remember. Because once truth is lost, everything else follows.
Original publication date was 8 June 1949.
Author Profile
George Orwell is one of England’s most famous writers and social commentators. Among his works are the classic political satire Animal Farm and the dystopian nightmare vision Nineteen Eighty-Four. Orwell was also a prolific essayist, and it is for these works that he was perhaps best known during his lifetime. They include Why I Write and Politics and the English Language. His writing is at once insightful, poignant and entertaining, and continues to be read widely all over the world.
Eric Arthur Blair (George Orwell) was born in 1903 in India, where his father worked for the Civil Service. The family moved to England in 1907 and in 1917 Orwell entered Eton, where he contributed regularly to the various college magazines. From 1922 to 1927 he served with the Indian Imperial Police in Burma, an experience that inspired his first novel, Burmese Days (1934). Several years of poverty followed. He lived in Paris for two years before returning to England, where he worked successively as a private tutor, schoolteacher and bookshop assistant, and contributed reviews and articles to a number of periodicals. Down and Out in Paris and London was published in 1933. In 1936 he was commissioned by Victor Gollancz to visit areas of mass unemployment in Lancashire and Yorkshire, and The Road to Wigan Pier (1937) is a powerful description of the poverty he saw there.
At the end of 1936 Orwell went to Spain to fight for the Republicans and was wounded. Homage to Catalonia is his account of the civil war. He was admitted to a sanatorium in 1938 and from then on was never fully fit. He spent six months in Morocco and there wrote Coming Up for Air. During the Second World War he served in the Home Guard and worked for the BBC Eastern Service from 1941 to 1943. As literary editor of the Tribune he contributed a regular page of political and literary commentary, and he also wrote for the Observer and later for the Manchester Evening News. His unique political allegory, Animal Farm was published in 1945, and it was this novel, together with Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949), which brought him world-wide fame.
It was around this time that Orwell’s unique political allegory Animal Farm (1945) was published. The novel is recognised as a classic of modern political satire and is simultaneously an engaging story and convincing allegory. It was this novel, together with Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949), which finally brought him world-wide fame. Nineteen Eighty-Four’s ominous depiction of a repressive, totalitarian regime shocked contemporary readers, but ensures that the book remains perhaps the preeminent dystopian novel of modern literature.
Orwell’s fiercely moral writing has consistently struck a chord with each passing generation. The intense honesty and insight of his essays and non-fiction made Orwell one of the foremost social commentators of his age. Added to this, his ability to construct elaborately imaginative fictional worlds, which he imbued with this acute sense of morality, has undoubtedly assured his contemporary and future relevance.
George Orwell died in London in January 1950.
