Short Story Club


  1. Dreams Do Come True
  2. Endless Game
  3. Ready To Die
  4. The Risk


In My View


  1. Living A Value Based Life
  2. Self-Care In A Crisis
  3. Baby Girl Expectations
  4. My Feminist Journey
  5. The Experiential Diary


Fragments


  1. The Importance Of Basquiat
  2. Get To Know Steve McCurry
  3. The Passage That Changed Me
  4. Let’s Talk 1984
  5. Literature So Black
  6. Dave The Storyteller
  7. 10vs10 A Lockdown Tale of Enjoyment
  8. Views
  9. An Ode To Insecure
  10. Michaela Coel Is The Goal
  11. The Elite Desperate Housewives
  12. Ugly Betty: Was It Really Love?
  13. 90s Black Cinema


Poet’s Corner


  1. Breakdown
  2. Delusions Of Grandeur
  3. Helen Of Troy
  4. Crush
  5. Truest Self
  6. What Do I Want?
  7. Rise
  8. Best In The Multiverse
  9. A Complex Affair with Misery
  10. I Did The Love Game Wrong

Let’s Talk 1984



Love and disappointment. If I had to say what I felt at the end of the book I would say it was that. I fell in love with this story and had hope that maybe the future could be bright for the protagonist but there was no happy ending, so I was disappointed. There was no liberation, a revolution did not occur. Futility lingered long after I read the final page and closed the book.



1984 was a journey with many stops, some similar to the ones before. I journeyed through similar streets, went through many dark tunnels, drove around many roundabouts and I finally reached my destination. The ending destroyed me initially, I probably crashed at the bottom of a pit as the story’s ending hurled me over the edge of a cliff. It destroyed my soul, my spirit and my hope. After everything we went through with Winston, it all came to ‘stomping on a human face, over and over again’. The resistance to the ideology in the end was in vain; the torture prevailed.



At first I felt it as a loss, but after dwelling on this book days after, I feel different. I have an understanding that’s changed the way I feel towards the ending. However, hopelessness still resides within me, fragments of being powerless have stained my outlook.



Before I explain my emotions toward the story, I might as well give the simplest of summaries I can. Like I said to a friend of mine; George Orwell penned a story about a dystopian future of 1984, all the way back in 1949. Now we’re well past that but if we imagine being in 1984, Orwell paints a picture of a future where the people live in a dystopian society – always under the watchful eye of Big Brother. There are several aspects of society all tailored to a certain ideology, one that restricts human consciousness. Assimilation is the game and the majority of society is plugged in, there is no room for free thinking in this world.



So, for a real summary, the story follows the journey of Winston, a member of the party who gets an awakening. Initially his life is changed through acquiring a diary which he fills with his innermost thoughts and expresses a loathing for Big Brother and The Party. His partaking in ‘thought crime’ is the first step he takes towards awakening. His life changes once more when a woman he loathed at first sight –  because she was beautiful – declares her love for him. That eventually leads to the development of a relationship; one this society would forbid, but the love that blooms from it is one that is crucial for the storyline. Lastly, Winston’s sad, pathetic existence is changed when he feeds into an alternate ideology – one of the Brotherhood, the ‘secret’ rebellion against the Party. He becomes an even more conscious member of society and starts to question what society has fed to him. His involvement in the Brotherhood, leads him to the hands of O’Brien, but not all is as it seems…



Orwell is a genius!  I mean once you discover that the brotherhood is all a hoax created by the party to expose those against them, your sense of what’s real and fake is obliterated.  You start to wonder about the constructs of society and ideology all together. If the ally is the enemy, then only the enemy exists. And if the enemy says your ideology makes you sick and the true enemy, then all hope is lost and eventually you are worn down to what they want you to be. So yeah, our poor Winston is taken on this journey and we too feel it with him, only to have it all shattered. Crazy equals genius and the bizarre story is truly brilliant.



When you as a reader realises Winston stands out and starts to fight against the current, you are overcome with joy and you develop the same hope he does. You feel with him, you hope with him, you fight with him. Despite the bleak existence and the odds stacked against our protagonist, we hope and a part of us believes that there is a way out. And when it doesn’t come; when our dear Winston is not special in the end, we are disappointed. We are left wondering why we went through it all anyway, when it wasn’t going to end well because let’s face it we all love a happy ending. As a fan of happy endings, I was disappointed, but then the reality of life was the solace I needed. Life ends in death; death isn’t happy. Most of the stories we read end happily at points that would not be the end. The journey doesn’t stop when you close the book.



*SPOILER ALERT*























*SPOILER ALERT*







Our dear Winston dies. The story has him tortured, broken down and withered into accepting society as it is. He denounces the only love he ever had and accepts love for something he never liked. He lost it all, but did he even have it? His existence was futile, but after all he lived in a dystopian society. In a world where being yourself isn’t an option then death probably is the one real out to true freedom and that’s pretty depressing.



So, as it goes, my love stems from the deep connection I formed with Winston as a character and his attempt to fight. Ultimately when he gives up, I’m disappointed, but I guess one man cannot fight the good fight alone. A message that we can all take on.



There’s so much more I could say, but I don’t think I could do this book justice. This is just a glimmer of what I think about it. There are other themes one could explore and a mere review could turn into pages and pages of an essay. I know very little about Mr Orwell, but I’m a fan of this gripping tale.



Nineteen Eighty-Four is truly a masterpiece embroidered with ideology and a fascinating examination of humanity from many angles. If you haven’t read it already, I truly advise you to.



War is peace.
Freedom is slavery.
Ignorance is strength.