Introduction
This story takes place in a state called Oceania. The main characters introduced are Winston Smith who is a worker on one of the four branches of government in Oceania.
These four branches are “The Ministry of Truth” where they falsificate or remove all past documents such as books, newspapers, magazines, records, tapes and anything containing information about the past and are rewritten with the “accurate” meaning of whatever the Government (known as “ Big Brother”) wants it to be. All past records are erased and everyone must believe what the new ones say or else they are caught by the Thought Police.
The Thought Police are a group of modern people who are like the police of our time except that this police can see you every single second of your life through special devices that look like T.V.’s called Telescreens.
These Telescreens are placed in the houses of people, outside buildings, parks, walls, anywhere they could be put and are always turned on. The Telescreens are constantly giving you information of the wars won and also telling you what to do and always watching every movement you do, no expressions are admitted in Oceania other than hatred or the one “Big Brother” tells you to.
The second branch is called “The Ministry of Love” where people were punished, tortured, and were taught to hate each other. The third branch is called “The Ministry of Plenty” where economic affairs were handled, they decided who got how much of something almost always being too little of a ration.
The last branch is called “The Ministry of Peace” which handled all the war affairs such as where the next bomb they launched would hit and who they needed to destroy next. Big Brother had a slogan that read “WAR IS PEACE”, “FREEDOM IS SLAVERY” and “IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH”.
Winston worked in the Ministry of Truth where his job was to rewrite the news on the newspaper called the Times. Another character is O’Brien who helps Winston love Big Brother for Winston hated Big Brother.
Julia is the girl that falls in love (which is a very big crime) with Winston. Katharine is Winston’s wife though he hasn’t seen her for three years. Eastasia and Eurasia are the two other states fighting for power with Oceania.
The proles are the only people who are not controlled so much by Big Brother, they act as we do and can have their own beliefs, thoughts, feelings, or anything they feel like. Emmanuel Goldstein is the boss of an underground brotherhood that wants to destroy Big Brother.
Conflict
There are uncountable conflicts on this novel but the main one is the struggle of Winston to disobey Big Brother and try to rebel against it and destroy it trying to bring back the original past of mankind.
Climax
The climax of this story is when Winston and Julia join this secret brotherhood commanded by Emmanuel Goldstein whose sole purpose is to destroy Big Brother by opening the eyes of people by a secret book that didn’t have a name, it was just called “the book” which contained the beliefs of Emmanuel as to what Big Brother was doing.
Falling Action
The falling action here is when after Winston and Julia have sex in their own little hiding place which was a room who they rented from Mr. Charrington (who was really O’Brien in disguise) in a place where the proles lived, the Thought Police, commanded by O’Brien catches them and takes them to the Ministry of love where they are punished, humiliated and are made to confess everything and anything that they ever knew while being tortured by O’Brien.
Winston betrays everything he loved by punishment and is made to betray everyone and everything he believed in by facing his greatest terror which is rats.
Conclusion
The conclusion is that after a few months or years of rehabilitation, Winston is taught to obey Big Brother and love him even though his mind tells him otherwise and he also has to learn how to control his mind to suit whatever Big Brother says is true or not such as 2+2 being 5 and not 4, and he knew it was 5 because Big Brother said so and there was no proof of it being incorrect.
After he gets rehabilitated they send him off out of the Ministry of love and is killed by a bullet that enters his head and finally at the end he knows that he now loved Big Brother even though Big Brother had killed him for he never betrayed Big Brother after his rehabilitation.
