Nineteen Eighty-Four takes place in a futuristic, communist society. In this society, a mysterious Big Brother presides over every detail of the society by erecting telescreens- huge bright screens that function as video cameras for Big Brother's government- everywhere, including in people's homes. Everything in the society is wrong: their motto is: "Freedom is slavery, ignorance is strength, peace is war." Concepts such as love have been abolished, and people only get married to produce kids who serve as spies for the Party, or Big Brother's government. This society functions only because the population believes anything the party said, and if someone were to doubt that what the Party says is incorrect, the Thought Police kill them.
The book follows Winston, an independent thinker who defies the party, and his story of defying the party and eventually joining the rebellion before being captured and tortured. The book also subtly pokes at a romance story that befalls Winston and a rebellious woman named Julia.
Overall, I thought the book was great. What I liked most about the book is about how it makes you gawk at how terrible communism is. Darkness and misfortune is at every turn, and you learn to understand the badness of communism- how the badness created by muzzling free speech eclipses the equality of people.
It sounds like a really interesting book. I think that since we have democracy we don't realize what it would be like not to have things like free speech and privacy. It would be so wierd to have it be accepted for you to have camera's in your house and to have society controlled like that. I think it would be really interesting to read because there are places in the world that have dictatorships and communist governments and it would be interesting ot see how they live.
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