1984 (blog one)

One thing that is repeated several times in this book is the fact that it's not necessarily 1984. The fact that so many things are under suspicion and the repetition of it means that it's pretty important. "A sense of complete helplessness had descended upon him. To begin with, he did not know with any certainty that this was 1984." (page 9).

I wasn't quite sure how far off Winston believed the year was. He's judging by the year of his birth what approximate year it is. "... he was fairly sure that his age was thirty-nine, and he believed that he had been born in 1944 or 1945; but it was never possible nowadays to pin down any date within a year or two." (page 9). The revolution supposedly happened recently enough that people are still alive from that time that were old enough to remember it. You can never be sure though since a government that's constantly changing the news from the past could easily stage those people and ideas.

If you follow the general idea though it seems that it is honestly around 1984. then the revolution would have happened somewhere around the thirties or forties. Winston prompts the old man about the time before the revolution and all the wars using the year 1925, "... you have lived half your life before the Revolution. In 1925, for instance, you were already grown up." (page 101).

Interestingly enough, the copyright date for 1984 is 1949. George Orwell seems to be suggesting that the ideas of this book and that form of government was already coming into existence at that point in time.

Going back a bit, Winston writes in his journal about all these changes to the past, "I understand HOW: I do not understand WHY." (page 89).

I believe that the government is doing this for several reasons. First of all, they want to appear all powerful and wise; overall a good leader. That point isn't really all that important since the people are already under their thumb. Next, This totally and completely discredits anyone who wants to speak out against the government. It also gives the government the power to twist that person's words and turn them into some kind of national enemy that they have a whole two minutes of hate directed towards. Finally, if the government was overthrown, the new government would have no history to base themselves off of and no tested plan. This last one seems to be mostly out of spite. The government seems to have everyone by the throat.