Stop and Look around

After reading 1984 by George Orwell, I remembered one of the classes that we had about this book. In that class we said that Orwell in 1984 wanted to create a world in which there was no hope for human kind whatsoever. A world infested with war, with fear, with torture, with ignorance. So he wrote 1984 to prevent humans to follow any path that may sound or look similar to the one presented in the book.

Also, we need to consider the historical and social background of this book. When Orwell was writing 1984, World War Two had ended and the Cold War was about to start. The entire planet was affected by the consequences of a totalitarian system. So 1984 was a way that Orwell had to warn people, to warn humankind that what we were doing to ourselves was going to have consequences and those consequences were going to be terrible for our specie. It was his way of saying: Stop! Stop and look around, see what you are doing, people. Witness the atrocities you are committing to your own kind. Stop and think now before it is too late.

 

However, I think he failed to reach his message to the crowds. And I wonder why? We haven’t changed a bit since the release of 1984 about sixteen years ago. We probably, as a society, got even worse. Every day, we seem more selfish and less human. But were we that different at the beginning? Was Roman society different from the one in 1984? Were the Spanish when they invaded America that different from the book? Have we had the opportunity to live without a Big Brother? Is there such a thing as a free society? I don’t think so. It seems like we are already, and that we have always been, in a society in which freedom does not exist. Using the words of Syme “How could you have a slogan like “freedom is slavery” when the concept of freedom has been abolished? The whole climate of thought will be different. In fact there will be no thought, as we understand it now. Orthodoxy means not thinking — not needing to think. Orthodoxy is unconsciousness.” (Orwell 30)

So, maybe is not like we are getting less human and more selfish, it is that we are realizing now that the way we lived and that we are living is not how it should be.  We are realizing that we have never had the true opportunity to actually live and think in complete freedom.  That is why we need people like George Orwell to tell us that there is still hope to make a change, to live and enjoy things like writing or falling in love.  

 

Over the years, lots of writers have tried to show that same hopeful message to the dummies out there that do not want to open their eyes and truly see what is going on. I recall reading last semester, The Giver by Lois Lowry which is a children book that presents various themes that we can see in 1984. And although it is a children book, it is no less serious and life-altering. Which makes me wonder, are we really that bad that we need to teach our kids what really matters in life? teach them how beautiful the colors are, how beautiful nature is, how important it is for a person to have the right to make decisions and think and how grateful they should be to have the opportunity to experience life. 

In The Giver we can see perfectly what in the society of 1984, and our own current society, we are lacking:

            “ "But I want them!" Jonas said angrily. "It isn't fair that nothing has color!"

"Not fair?" The Giver looked at Jonas curiously. "Ex-plain what you mean."

"Well ...” Jonas had to stop and think it through. "If everything's the same, then there aren't any choices!

I want to wake up in the morning and decide things! A blue tunic, or a red one?"

He looked down at himself, at the colorless fabric of his clothing. "But it's all the same, always."

Then he laughed a little. "I know it's not important, what you wear. It doesn't matter. But —

"It's the choosing that's important, isn't it?" The Giver asked him.” (Lowry 97)

We lack the right to have choices and freely chose. We think we are doing it and that we can do so, but in reality we are not. We are just being told that we are free, however the moment we get out of the mold we are left aside. Maybe not in the same sense than in 1984 or in The giver, but still we are censored and tagged as the weird ones or the problematic ones.

1984, The giver, Brave New World, and other novels are what we need, and we will continue needing, to make ourselves aware of what the Big Brothers and Thought police out there do not want us to see. It is what we need to make the dummies less dumb and gullible and the intelligent more brave and powerful. 

References 

Orwell, G. (1949). Nineteen eighty-four, a novel. London: Secker and Warburg.

Lowry, L. (1993). The giver. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.