1984 Book Cover

1984

★★★★★ 5.0/5, 1 Reviews
Book by: George Orwell

Brief summary

Published in 1949, 1984 is the last book by Orwell before his death. The term "Orwellian" has come to describe actions or organizations reminiscent of the totalitarian society depicted throughout the novel. The novel is set in a dystopian future, where the world is divided into three nations that are constantly at war with each other. It presents a bleak future where every move you make is watched and your actions are directed by the ruling government.

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Lesson 1. Introduction.

The world in 1984 is separated into three states which have emerged from the ashes of the Second World War. Oceania covers the British Isles, the Americas, Pacific, Australia; Eurasia controls Europe and Russia; and Eastasia engulfs China, Japan, Korea, and northern India. Constant fighting between these three nations is needed to maintain peace and harmony. The story is set in London, a city in Airstrip One, a front line-province of the totalitarian superstate of Oceania.

The powerful state of Oceania is controlled by four Ministries.

  • Ministry of Love controls the law and order in the state.
  • Ministry of Peace deals with Oceania’s war with other nations.
  • Ministry of Plenty concerns itself with rations and goods.
  • Ministry of Truth which focuses on propaganda, monitors and controls the news, information, education, and art.

Orwell’s distrust of totalitarianism and betrayal of revolution can be clearly depicted in Homage to Catalonia and Animal Farm. This novel depicts what will happen if a freedom-loving city like London came under Stalin’s era of the Soviet Union. The world of 1984 additionally reflects different parts of the social and political existence of both the United Kingdom and the United States of America.

Our protagonist is 39-year-old Winston Smith. Winston is a member of the outer party, and lives in a demolished London. He grew up in an orphanage after his parents disappeared during the Civil War. The Ministry of Truth, which has unlimited authority over all media in Oceania, employs Winston at Ministry’s Record Department. His job is to alter the past by changing the newspaper, articles and other printed materials, so as to portray that the “party” had been right about everything. Since the present continually shapes the view of the past, the duty is a ceaseless one.

Orwell drew inspiration for the character of Big Brother, the leader of the ruling party, from Stalin and Hitler. He focused primarily on Stalin, even the physical appearance of Big Brother matched with Stalin more than Hitler. Big Brother controls every aspect of people’s lives whereby not only your moves are controlled, but your thoughts and feelings too.

Lesson 2. The Rebellion.

Winston, the protagonist in 1984, is a clerk in the Ministry of Truth where he rewrites the documents to imply that “the Party is never wrong”. He basically represents the common people or the ones that readers can easily relate to. He

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Famous quotes from 1984

  1. We know that no one ever seizes power with the intention of relinquishing it.
    2. -George Orwell
  2. The consequences of every act are included in the act itself.
    3. -George Orwell
  3. Power is not a means; it is an end. One does not establish a dictatorship in order to safeguard a revolution; one makes the revolution in order to establish the dictatorship. The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object of power is power.
    4. -George Orwell
  4. It was curious to think that the sky was the same for everybody, in Eurasia or Eastasia as well as here. And the people under the sky were also very much the same--everywhere, all over the world, hundreds or thousands of millions of people just like this, people ignorant of one another’s existence, held apart by walls of hatred and lies, and yet almost exactly the same--people who had never learned to think but were storing up in their hearts and bellies and muscles the power that would one day overturn the world.
    5. -George Orwell
  5. He felt as though he were wandering in the forests of the sea bottom, lost in a monstrous world where he himself was the monster. He was alone. The past was dead, the future was unimaginable
    6. -George Orwell
  6. In the face of pain there are no heroes.
    7. -George Orwell
  7. If you loved someone, you loved him, and when you had nothing else to give, you still gave him love.
    8. -George Orwell
  8. I enjoy talking to you. Your mind appeals to me. It resembles my own mind except that you happen to be insane.
    9. -George Orwell
  9. The masses never revolt of their own accord, and they never revolt merely because they are oppressed. Indeed, so long as they are not permitted to have standards of comparison, they never even become aware that they are oppressed.
    10. -George Orwell
  10. The essential act of war is destruction, not necessarily of human lives, but of the products of human labour. War is a way of shattering to pieces, or pouring into the stratosphere, or sinking in the depths of the sea, materials which might otherwise be used to make the masses too comfortable, and hence, in the long run, too intelligent.
    11. -George Orwell
  11. It’s a beautiful thing, the destruction of words.
    12. -George Orwell
  12. Reality exists in the human mind, and nowhere else.
    13. -George Orwell
  13. We do not merely destroy our enemies; we change them.
    14. -George Orwell
  14. Of pain you could wish only one thing: that it should stop. Nothing in the world was so bad as physical pain.
    15. -George Orwell
  15. The end was contained in the beginning.
    16. -George Orwell
  16. Perhaps one did not want to be loved so much as to be understood.
    17. -George Orwell
  17. Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past.
    18. -George Orwell
  18. War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength.
    19. -George Orwell
  19. If you want to keep a secret, you must also hide it from yourself.
    20. -George Orwell
  20. Doublethink means the power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one’s mind simultaneously, and accepting both of them.
    21. -George Orwell
  21. Power is in tearing human minds to pieces and putting them together again in new shapes of your own choosing.
    22. -George Orwell
  22. Orthodoxy means not thinking--not needing to think. Orthodoxy is unconsciousness.
    23. -George Orwell
  23. Confession is not betrayal. What you say or do doesn’t matter; only feelings matter. If they could make me stop loving you-that would be the real betrayal.
    24. -George Orwell
  24. The best books... are those that tell you what you know already.
    25. -George Orwell
  25. It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen.
    26. -George Orwell
  26. If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face—for ever.
    27. -George Orwell
  27. But if thought corrupts language, language can also corrupt thought.
    28. -George Orwell
  28. Until they become conscious they will never rebel, and until after they have rebelled they cannot become conscious.
    29. -George Orwell
  29. The Ministry of Peace concerns itself with war, the Ministry of Truth with lies, the Ministry of Love with torture and the Ministry of Plenty with starvation. These contradictions are not accidental, nor do they result from from ordinary hypocrisy: they are deliberate exercises in doublethink
    30. -George Orwell
  30. Sanity is not statistical.
    31. -George Orwell
  31. Your worst enemy, he reflected, was your own nervous system. At any moment the tension inside you was liable to translate itself into some visible symptom.
    32. -George Orwell
  32. Your worst enemy, he reflected, was your own nervous system. At any moment the tension inside you was liable to translate itself into some visible symptom.
    33. -George Orwell
  33. In general, the greater the understanding, the greater the delusion; the more intelligent, the less sane.
    34. -George Orwell
  34. Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four.
    35. -George Orwell
  35. To die hating them, that was freedom.
    36. -George Orwell
  36. There was truth and there was untruth, and if you clung to the truth even against the whole world, you were not mad.
    37. -George Orwell
  37. What can you do, thought Winston, against the lunatic who is more intelligent than yourself, who gives your arguments a fair hearing and then simply persists in his lunacy?
    38. -George Orwell

Reviews for Summary of 1984

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March 22, 2024
Nice summary, it helped in reading this book in 15min,love wizdom app..

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About the author

George Orwell Image
George Orwell

Renowned as the prophetic mind behind classics like Animal Farm and Nineteen Eighty-Four, George Orwell, born Eric Blair in 1903, emerged from the tapestry of British colonial India into the harsh realities of an imperialist world. From his early days as a ...

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Published Year: 1949
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1984 Book Cover
Chapter List
  • Lesson 1. Introduction.
  • Lesson 2. The Rebellion.
  • Lesson 3. The girl who longed for sexual pleasure.
  • Lesson 4. The Party.
  • Lesson 5. The Illegal Love Affair.
  • Lesson 6. Privacy, Reality and Humanity.
  • Lesson 7. Conclusion.
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FAQs

In the summary of 1984 book, there are 7 key lessons. These lessons include:

  1. Lesson 1. Introduction.
  2. Lesson 2. The Rebellion.
  3. Lesson 3. The girl who longed for sexual pleasure.
  4. Lesson 4. The Party.
  5. Lesson 5. The Illegal Love Affair.
  6. Lesson 6. Privacy, Reality and Humanity.
  7. Lesson 7. Conclusion.

1984 by George Orwell was published in 1949.

Once you've completed 1984 book, We suggest reading out Pride and Prejudice as a great follow-up read.

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