My favorite Book : 1984 George Orwell
The book
My favorite book is 1984. This distopia has been written by George Orwell in 1949, just after the war, in a context of increasing propaganda and political tensions.
The story
The story takes place in London, in 1984. We are in a totalitarian regime with a lot of surveillance, and Big Brother is everywhere. The main character is Winston Smith. He is working in the Ministry of Truth and, in a nutshell his job is to fake the media and rewrite documents to keep a good image of the regime. In fact this regime is very extreme : it controls information, it controls people’s lives, and it also tries to control what people can think. For example, they simplify the language with Newspeak, because if you have fewer words, it is harder to have complex ideas and to rebel against the regime. For example, in Newspeak, “excellent” becomes “doubleplusgood”. But Winston is trying to rebel, little by little, because he wants truth and freedom.
My Opinion
I really like this book because it raises philosophical questions about society, freedom, and what “truth” means when a government can change facts. It also makes you think about our world today and about the media, opinions, and how easy it can be to accept things if everyone repeats the same message. This book is scary, but in a good way, because it allows you to stay critical and to protect your own thinking. I discovered this book in my Euro English course last year, and I had the opportunity to study it again in philosophy later that year, and I found it very interesenting.
