Nineteen Eighty Four, written by George Orwell is a dystopian novel about a future in which his protagonist Winston Smith attempts to remain human. It is dismal and brutal. 'If you want an image of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face forever'. Winston, whose name is deliberately evocative of the wartime leader of Britain during WWII, realises that the world in which he lives, in which he has no personal freedom, is wrong and begins to write a diary in a personal rebellion. This is called 'thoughtcrime' in a society which does not allow privacy, as is evidenced by the ubiquitous telescreens, and is punishable by death. 'Thoughtcrime does not entail death: thoughtcrime is death."

Orwell created his novel as a warning to society about the dangers of totalitarianism after seeing current events in Russia. He said about his writing 'What I have most wanted to do throughout the past ten years is to make political writing into an art. My starting point is always a feeling of partisanship, a sense of injustice. When I sit down to write a book, I do not say to myself, " I am going to produce a work of art." I write it because there is some lie that I want to expose, some fact to which I want to draw attention, and my initial concern is to get a hearing. But I could not do the work of writing a book, or even a long magazine article, if it were not also an aesthetic experience. (Why I Write' 1944 article for The Tribune.)

Some of the key themes in the book to be aware of when you are reading are the following:

• The importance of memory.
•  The attack on privacy
• The destruction of history
• The attack on sex
• The appreciation of the past
• The fallibility of the human mind
   
  Make sure that you take notes on these themes and highlight them as you read.
  One of the first things that you will need to gain an understanding of is the historical background to the novel. This PowerPoint should help.

Nineteen Eighty-Four ppoint.pptx 

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