1984, SSR 2nd Quarter Blog Post

During the second quarter, I read George Orwell's novel, 1984. The novel is set in a totalitarian state known as the Oceania. The head of the totalitarian is known as The Party, they absolute control over everything, including people's lives and their minds. the protagonist of the novel is Winston Smith, who has a job at the Record Department store in the Ministry of Truth city. His work is revolved around making record of events that take place in The Party, such as doctoring photographs and writing newspapers to meet with The Party's demands. From the very start of the novel, it becomes obvious that Winston is a curious person, he is curious to why The Party is going through all the pain to ensure that history is rewritten just to favor it. He is the only character to sense that something must be wrong somewhere and as result he feels an intense disliking for his employers. Luckily, since he comes across these documents from ancient times, he is able to see how previous powers ruled. He then gains knowledge of how democratic institutions were laid out, that enabled people to select the leaders of their choice and the rights along with freedom. He then makes it his number one priority to avenge the past fallen leaders, which makes him rebellious. He begins to owe to the fact that he was aware of the regimes goal to destroy humanity completely. He keeps a diary, and writes all of his thoughts and hatred against The Party, where he constantly scribbles the words "DOWN WITH BIG BROTHER". Keeping a diary or any other literary device is forbidden by The Party.

I feel like that I connect with Winston because sometimes I feel as if I am trapped in a endless cycle of going to school, work, and then home everyday. That's what he feels like in his own world, except his circumstances are far worse than mine. I am almost out of my trapped bubble because soon I will be getting ready to leave for college, but Winston will be trapped in his forever because The Party just has total control over everything, making it almost impossible to attempt rebelling.