Introduction
- written by British author George Orwell, published in 1949
- 1946 Orwell began writing the novel, and it took him a total of two years to finish the dystopia
- The British writer was born in 1903 in Motihari in India, as his father, a colonial official, was currently stationed there. Born with the name Eric Arthur Blair, the author later adopted the pseudonym George Orwell, under which he also published his literary works
- George Orwell was sent by his parents to England at a young age, where his education was left to boarding schools and elite schools such as Eton College in London. When Orwell was 8 years old, his family, previously stationed in India, moved back to England, but due to his intense education, the pupil spent most of his youth away from home. After the young man studied at the prestigious Wellington College, he decided to enter the police services in Burma. When he came back from his stay as a police officer, Orwell started working as a freelance journalist amongst various other jobs and wrote about his experiences in Burma. He also participated in the Spanish Civil War as he fought on the side of the Republicans
- The present work consists of 23 chapters, which in turn can be divided into three successive periods. The first part of the novel holds 8 chapters while the totalitarian state Oceana is presented and the living conditions of the protagonist Winston Smith are examined in more detail
- The second and middle part of the book consists of a total of 9 chapters and describes the love story between Winston and Julia. The lovers lose their battle against the merciless censorship of the surveillance state and are arrested by the police at the end of the second part
- The third and thus final section of 1984 represents the most brutal part of the work. In the course of 6 chapters, both Winston and Julia are subjected to a so-called re-education, which takes the form of brainwashing, accompanied by both physical and psychological torture
- The setting of the gritty novel is London, where the single Winston Smith works in the Ministry of Truth's documentation department
- 1984 has become an integral part of world literature to this day. The fact that the dystopian novel comes across as so real despite its fictional nature may be since Orwell based his work primarily on the dictatorships of National Socialism and Socialism that were in power at the time
Aus: George Orwell: 1984, HarperCollins, 2021, London