/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.4205561]

Hi /lit/, I'm a newfag and I just read pic related.

The ending hit me really hard.

What do you think of 1984? Can we please discuss it?

[Anonymous No.4205569]

>>4205561

Here you go, enjoy.
http://fuuka.warosu.org/lit/?task=search&ghost=&search_text=1984

[Anonymous No.4205580]

>>4205569
No! I want a discussion! This is a literature board for Christ sake.

[Anonymous No.4205587]

>>4205580
Exactly! A literature board, not a discussion board.

[Anonymous No.4205593]

>>4205587
Don't be mean man...

[Anonymous No.4205613]

>>4205593
Ignore the cunt.
It was good in setting the mood, as everything in the book is burdensome, just as you would expect a story set in the worst dystopia possible to be. That said, I think being obsessed with telling people that communist dictatorship is bad when everyone accepts it for a fact is pretty much of a waste of time, but if good books are the result of wasting time, then so be it.

[Anonymous No.4205618]

>>4205580
1984 isn't literature

[Anonymous No.4205634]

>>4205561
ok bro, so now you understand whats wrong with the NSA?.

good, browse /g often, join the resistance.

[Anonymous No.4205644]

>>4205613
Thank you.

Yeah, it did a really good job at making you feel uncomfortable. At some points I felt a pit in my stomach just reading about how miserable it was.

But I also think that some of the things in the book were very far-fetched. Like their slogans, who the fuck would have accepted that? Didn't people realize that something was up when the party was telling you that freedom was slavery etc.

Am I wrong to assume that Julia was supposed to be the only really likeable character? Sure Winston was not evil, but he didn't posses the same warmth and humanity that Julia did, and everyone else were just robots or psychopaths. When Winston got that letter that said "I love you" I immediately thought that she had what that world lacked, the sense of love and compassion that Winston said had been lost.

[Anonymous No.4205652]

>>4205613
>telling people that communist dictatorship is bad when everyone accepts it for a fact is pretty much of a waste of time
Meh, there is accepting constant surveillance is bad as a fact, and actually feeling indignant enough to do something about it.

The American people reaction to their government's surveillance is... mild at best.
Londoners are, on that point, completely apathetic.
1984 did an excellent job of crystallizing our fears of Big Brother.

[Anonymous No.4205669]

>>4205644
>But I also think that some of the things in the book were very far-fetched. Like their slogans, who the fuck would have accepted that? Didn't people realize that something was up when the party was telling you that freedom was slavery etc.
It was a satirical book, that kind of stuff was purposefully exaggerated, it was an allegory to represent the tyrannical governments' ability to lie, contradict itself, tell one thing and the opposite of it at the same time.
Just like them going at war with one country, then being allied to that country to go at wart with another country, and the people don't even remember when all of this happened (and if they did, they got reported by spies or their own goddamn children, how fucking bleak was that).
>Am I wrong to assume that Julia was supposed to be the only really likeable character?
I liked winston. He was just a frustrated guy who wanted to snap out of it. He knew in the back of his head that all of that shit was terribly wrong and it manifested in instinctive responses. He didn't even want to be a rebel, he just wanted to have his own little space.

[Anonymous No.4205684]

>>4205652
You have a point, but I feel that Orwell's work were more dedicated on criticizing the reds than anything else.
Still, the "big brother" is iconical for the reason you bring up, so I guess you're right.

[Anonymous No.4205706]

>>4205669
I guess you're right. But satire or no it still got me out of the tension when such things where happening because I simply couldn't believe it.

I'm not saying that Winston was unlikable, he was a good protagonist in the way that he always seemed to "think" the same thing you as a reader did. You could relate to him because he understood that something was fucking wrong. But I just don't think he was that beacon of hope which Julia was, she seemed to embody everything you thought that world lacked. I guess that's why it hit me so hard when Winston "sold her out", it was like Orwell telling me that all hope was lost and I should go fuck myself.

[Anonymous No.4205726]

>>4205706
>I guess that's why it hit me so hard when Winston "sold her out"
isn't it even worse when we're told that she did the same, much earlier than he did? I mean, you can think "he's just lying to make him cave in", but you know it's true.
She was more passionate than him and she still gave up.

[Anonymous No.4205751]

>>4205726
I didn't understand until the end where she actually admits to doing it that she did. By then I was already hit so hard that I couldn't feel anything. What I don't understand though is that if she sold him out, what was his punishment? She got the rat instead of him, but what did he get that was really intended for her?

BTW, now that you actually made me realize that it's very probable that she sold him out I'm very sad, even sadder than before.

[Anonymous No.4205784]

People keep saying that these perfect societies aren't perfect, I have no idea what they're talking about

[Anonymous No.4205815]

>>4205618
It's an instruction manual.

[Anonymous No.4205893]

Why did they give him the book? Was its only purpose to show the reader the fictitious history behind the three "countries"? It seemed quite out of place to me, at least the way it was presented

[Anonymous No.4205905]

Obligatory

[Anonymous No.4206009]

I love how people talk about 1984 as a horrible dystopia and everything. Think about it, if you analyse and "decode" the book's analogies, what do you get? The telescreens, the hate week, the versificator, the whole concept behind the Big Brother, and my favorite analogy, the Room 101. Everything I mentioned and many more other ideas that George Orwell put into the book are simply a more exaggerated version of our very own society. It was that way when he wrote it and it is that way up until this very moment. People live in a dystopia and don't even notice it, and the ones who notice someone deviating from normal and controlled behavior promptly makes sure that the deviants go to "Room 101" to revisit their ideas. Just like in 1984, there are also Wintons around, guys that start noticing how everything really is and try to change stuff, but as George Orwell points out in the book, it's VERY hard, if not impossible to manage to change anything at all. Anyways, I could spend line and more line explaining how genius George Orwell was and how 1984 isn't just a "dystopia", but you guys get the general idea. I only wish that Orwell's wrong about Winston's fate, because if nobody can fight against Big Brother, humanity is simply stagnated in this imperialist state.

[Anonymous No.4206022]

>>4206009

Quite possibly the edgiest post of all time.

We're LITERALLY living in 1984, guise.

[Anonymous No.4206036]

>>4206009
we're of the family Hominidae, we've been living in a dystopia since the beginning

[Anonymous No.4206058]

>>4206009
While I don't think we're at the point where 1984 is a mirror of society, I do think that we're headed closer and closer to what Orwell feared.

[Anonymous No.4206064]

>>4206009

Stop being existentialist, silly
.

[Anonymous No.4206100]

>>4206058
1984 will never come true. a good despot knows that their people want to be entertained, not being engaged in soul crushing activities 24/7.

[Anonymous No.4206146]

For some reason, I always found the proles and the party members the most hated characters of this book.

That they'd just *live* with this kind of shit life and ignore the most basic truths simply to live.

Big Brother is a problem sure, but my take has always been "God damn normal peasants being ok with being ruled" is the problem.

[Anonymous No.4206205]

>>4206146
I somehow imagine that much of /lit/ would feel this way.

[Anonymous No.4206215]

>>4206205
Eh, I've had an interesting life. The idea of forcing yourself into doublethink is abhorrent not just on a moral level but on one of those "i'd rather gnaw on the throats of homeless people than live with myself like this".

I'd love if other people thought like this.

[Anonymous No.4206472]

I think 1984 covers some interesting topics but is a pretty poor novel. Still liked it a lot when I read an do feel it is important just not for literary quality

[Anonymous No.4206483]

>>4206100

[Anonymous No.4206492]

I remember comparing the proles to my high school english class and the teacher got butt devastated but the rest of the class had no idea what I meant because they didn't actually read the book. Great times

[Anonymous No.4206871]

>>4206100
jesus christ dude. 1984 wasn't a warning. no dystopia ever has been a warning. no warning. none at all.

and if it was a warning,it got as many things right as brave new world, mostly about language though (if you haven't read the essay at the end of 1984 i suggest it).

[Anonymous No.4206876]

>>4205613
>obsessed with telling people that communist dictatorship is bad when everyone accepts it for a fact is pretty much of a waste of time, but if good books are the result of wasting time, then so be it.
were you really reading that book?
and anyway, not everyone accepts it for a fact

[Anonymous No.4206889]

>>4205561

1984 wasn't the book I expected. I thought it was all left-wing whining, but I found that not to be true.

The third act literally shattered me emotionally. All that torture shit hit me hard and more evil words could not have been spoken by Satan himself.

[Anonymous No.4206891]

>>4206472

This is the sort of comment that lets you know /lit/ is infested by shit readers.

You wouldn't know literary quality if it ejaculated in your face, fucking retard.

[Anonymous No.4207001]

>>4205751
No dude, she didn't get the rat. Winston shouting "do it to her instead" was just confirmation that he'd finally been broken, his love surgically removed.

[Anonymous No.4207013]

>>4205613
>communist dictatorship
>bad

[Anonymous No.4207021]

>>4207013
All Roads Lead To China

[Anonymous No.4207025]

>>4207013
*Communism with Chinese Characteristics.

[Anonymous No.4207055]

>>4207013
>China claims to be going full capitalist just so it can go full socialist in a few years, in line with Marxism
>China actually does this, goes back to Maoism, and becomes a utopia and the world's most powerful nation
>China spreads glorious communism in all the countries the US fucked up with shitglorious capitalism
>The entire world becomes liberated, except for the savage lands of North America, which reverts to regional theocratic-legalist dictatorship that worships legendary heroes they call "the Fathers," who are believed to be emissaries of Jesus.

[Anonymous No.4207077]

>>4207055
I really want to believe the Party line is true and that they're going to come back to us one day and revive the socialist cause. It's a hard belief sometimes.

[Anonymous No.4207087]

>us

yeah, sorry son, this is the party leader now and forever

[Anonymous No.4207093]

>>4207087
A can of cola?

[Anonymous No.4207097]

>Chinchongs understanding anything about communism
>ever
Chinese communism can't work because Chinese would have to be individuals in the first place.

[Anonymous No.4207100]

>>4207097
>implying the notion of 'individual' isn't the biggest bourgeois fantasy

[Anonymous No.4207110]

I love the final paragraph. I think there's more to it than simple black pessimism.

>He gazed up at the enormous face. Forty years it had taken him to learn what kind of smile was hidden beneath the dark moustache. O cruel, needless misunderstanding! O stubborn, self-willed exile from the loving breast! Two gin-scented tears trickled down the sides of his nose. But it was all right, everything was all right, the struggle was finished. He had won the victory over himself. He loved Big Brother.

Isn't the tone so different from the rest of the novel?

>O cruel, needless misunderstanding! O stubborn, self-willed exile from the loving breast! Two gin-scented tears trickled down the sides of his nose.

This is straight up sarcasm. I think the message is ultimately the hollowness of Big Brother's victory. How does it reflect on the state when its citizens are all broken shells of people?

Let's also not forget that an appendix actually appears after the end of the narrative, and the final paragraph seems to subtly suggest that total state control over language is a futile task:

>A good deal of the literature of the past was, indeed, already being transformed in this way. Considerations of prestige made it desirable to preserve the memory of certain historical figures, while at the same time bringing their achievements into line with the philosophy of Ingsoc. Various writers, such as Shakespeare, Milton, Swift, Byron, Dickens, and some others were therefore in process of translation: when the task had been completed, their original writings, with all else that survived of the literature of the past, would be destroyed. These translations were a slow and difficult business, and it was not expected that they would be finished before the first or second decade of the twenty-first century. There were also large quantities of merely utilitarian literature — indispensable technical manuals, and the like — that had to be treated in the same way. It was chiefly in order to allow time for the preliminary work of translation that the final adoption of Newspeak had been fixed for so late a date as 2050.

So the book actually ends on a sentence suggesting the fallibility of the state, which is a rather lighter note than "He loved Big Brother."

[Anonymous No.4207170]

I got bored of it halfway through.

[Anonymous No.4207173]

>>4207097
>being this racist
>2013

[Anonymous No.4207226]

>>4207173

wow you must be american or canadian.

[Anonymous No.4207229]

>>4207013
You're exactly the kind of fucking idiot China is looking for. Totalitarian state with a capitalist economy does not equal out to heaven on earth, but that's exactly the image they're trying to push to anyone not living there.

Xi Jinping's dick has your name on it if you just get on your knees the right way to read it.

[Anonymous No.4207255]

>>4207229
Do you really think I was being entirely serious with that post and that image? I do live in China, though. It's not half as shit as you're probably assuming it is.

[Anonymous No.4207263]

>>4207255
I'm not assuming it's shit, I'm assuming there is a heap of problems that still have no clear solutions which are analogous to communism as our mountain of problems is to democracy and capitalism.

And I have actually met and spoken to raging idiots who think along the lines of what your post read like, and it's fucking ridiculous.

What China has achieved is incredible and you can't take that away from them. But given what they are you can't exactly just sit back and take everything about what they say with regards to their quality of life at face value.

[Anonymous No.4207276]

>>4207263
That's why I'm in China, actually (at least it's the only reason I have, I do kind of hate it here but that's a personal thing): to see what this purported superpower is like up close.

[Anonymous No.4207320]

>>4207276
Then I applaud you sir.

[Anonymous No.4207334]

>>4205618
#WordsExchanged

[Anonymous No.4207345]

>>4207110
Well,when I read the last paragraph telling everything in past tense I was pretty sure about what you mean.

Great book,by the way

[Anonymous No.4207555]

>>4206483
>a good despot
>good
He's a retard.

[Anonymous No.4208041]

>>4207013

That economist chart there in the middle of your image. Consider for a moment the enormous Japanese accomplishment in becoming 8% of world economy in fucking 1973, not even three decades after the entire country was reduced to a heap of rubble. I am in awe.

[Anonymous No.4210323]

>>4206009
I thought that was common knowledge.

[Anonymous No.4210725]

I recently strated reading again and this week I've read animal farm and 1984 and I really liked them
what are other similar books? I've already visited the /lit/ wiki and there were a hand full of books recommended, but there surely have to bemore
also how are orwells other books?

[Anonymous No.4210784]

>>4210725
His non fictions are great, and you should give his essays a go too. Some of them are really cutesy, like when he describes a perfect cup of tea or his favourite pub, others outlay the potential socialist revolution which he is planning.

[Anonymous No.4210894]

What really hit me hard was not being able to know if Goldstein, the Brotherhood or even Eurasia and Eastasia were real or if it all was made up by the Party.

[Anonymous No.4210940]

I somehow was expecting or awaiting a happy end
like halfway through the book I was thinking "ok now he joins the brotherhood and they start overthrowing the party"
later when O'brian was torturing/interrogating him I was thinking "this has do be some weird introduction ritual to the brotherhood, they are just testing him... ok this goes a bit far, when is O'brian gonna reveal it... oh shit he's really bad"
and close to the end when the news were reporting about the war I was hoping "the other countries are gonna defeat the party and that shit will be over"
needles to say that ending hit me hard, it - and the book in general - made me feel really uncomfortable and I really liked that

[Anonymous No.4211169]

>>4210940
dude the other countries were just like oceania

[Anonymous No.4212301]

>>4211169
According to a book written by members of the party

[Anonymous No.4213114]

>>4207013
I'm torn when it comes to my opinion of China. On one hand, it's a strong, smart country with a rich history and culture. A country I can respect.
And on the other hand, muh freedums.

[Anonymous No.4214031]

>900000 pages of torture
>I h8 u
>I luv u
?

[Anonymous No.4214043]

>>4212301
>2013
>suddenly realizing the other countries could have been fucking Utopian while people are stuck in this one

Oh shiiiit dude, mind fucking blown.

[Anonymous No.4215112]

>>4210894

Yeah, at one point Julia even outright ponders whether the world outside Airstrip One is how the party says it is. Second time I read the book it seemed most plausible to me given the vagueness of the whole 3-way conflict going on that the entire thing is just a propaganda story and that the bombs that get dropped on neighbourhoods are actually from the Oceanian army keeping citizens in fear. There's that scene with the hanging of the Eurasian soldiers in the square, but those could easily have just been Proles that got rounded up by the police and put in uniforms. Also, nowhere in the book is there ever any mention of a draft or conscription, so if the state is constantly embroiled in a massive perpetual world war, then where are all their soldiers coming from? Its more likely that even the story O'Brien tells Winston about producing arms purely for the sake of using resources is just another red herring, and the very most elite of the inner party just embezzle and launder money and keep them in off-shore accounts to keep the economy stifled.

[Anonymous No.4215204]

>>4214043
Just remember
Every information about anything in this book is controlled by the party
That means Oceania could be just London or Britain, cut off from the rest of the world
Or they could rule over the whole world
The other countries may not even exist

[Anonymous No.4215214]

>>4215204

If the other countries didn't exist it would seem pretty weird to do the whole changing of alliances thing.

[Anonymous No.4215218]

>>4205751
I don't think Julia got Winstons punishment and the other way round
I would say the true punishment of this was knowing you would betray your loved one in order to save your own ass

I think this is an even harder punishment than just torture because they only had each other in this cruel world

they also promised each other that they would never betray another and o'brain knew that

[Anonymous No.4215604]

Great book, I love it

[Anonymous No.4215603]

>>4205669
>their own goddamn children
My father lived in the GDR. It wasn't allow to view western television, but the government hadn't the technical equipment to stop it. Instead, the figured out something better. The goverment-loyal eastern new program "Aktuelle Kamera" had a Clock ticking before it started, with little stripes for the second. The western anti-communist news program "Tagesschau" had a clock too, but with points representing the seconds.

One day, Agents of the ministry of state security entered the Kingergarden and asked the children: "Does your tv clock have points or stripes?". It isn't so unrealistic as you think.

[Anonymous No.4215609]

>>4215603
*Kindergarden

[Anonymous No.4215746]

>lol OP had to read this book for his English class and is too much of a lazy cunt to read it himself.

[Anonymous No.4215815]

>>4215603
That sucks but in the book the kids actively rat out on their parents and are happy to do so.

[Anonymous No.4215860]

Giving up resistance and realising that life is shit and the best thing you can do is to get comfy and weather the storm as best as you can is the best thing I never did.

PS4 or XBOne guys? Fight Club should be played backwards to be profound.

[Anonymous No.4215865]

>>4215815
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pavlik_Morozov