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“1984,” written by George Orwell in the wake of World War II as a warning against totalitarianism, no longer serves the purpose it was written for. The novel is about how remaining complicit in society can lead to fascism; at its core, it condemns authoritarianism. That being said, “1984” is often used as an example of an anti-communist work by far-right conservatives in the United States. The idea that “Big Brother is watching you” — a famous saying from the book — is interpreted today as the ever-present threat to liberty and freedom that conservatives perceive will happen if leftists control the government. “1984” has, unfortunately, become fodder used to uphold conservative rhetoric.
Whether they like it or not, conservatives in this country are moving closer and closer to fascism the longer Trump is in office. Homophobic, transphobic, xenophobic and ableist laws are running rampant — and that’s just how fascism rose to power in Europe. Conservatives are often anti-socialist and pro-religion, and following the storming of the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, X, formerly known as Twitter, was in an uproar about how the banning of accounts related to the attack was “Orwellian.” I doubt that any of these people were adequately taught “1984,” because Orwell was a staunch socialist and mainly anti-religion.
George Orwell’s “1984” is often interpreted as a political manifesto, a fantastic piece of literature on the horrors of totalitarianism. I have to disagree. Yes, it’s about totalitarianism and is literature, but that’s where the brilliance ends. Winston, the protagonist, is one of the dullest characters I have ever had the displeasure of reading about. He has very little substance. Sure, he’s angry at the government, but so is everyone else. He’s not a unique character for having this anger — this half-hearted rage at Big Brother, which is just Orwell’s sorry excuse for worldbuilding. The plot of “1984” is linear, the characters and their beliefs are easy to digest and the dystopian aspect of it is caricatured. The vagueness of the plot and who Big Brother and that government are means that it can be read as both anti-fascist and anti-communist. This leads to misinterpretations like the ones on social media: the incorrect assumption that “1984” is supposed to be relatable to fascists.
When I had to read “1984” in AP Literature, I was appalled the entire time, and not just because I had to read it for school. Winston is, for lack of a better word, boring. He’s a middle-aged white man, written as a victim who tries to fight the government and is ultimately broken down. Even in his totalitarian society, Winston is privileged. He has a job and a wife and a place to live. This doesn’t downplay his struggles, but it removes some of the struggles of contemporary reality from the challenges he faces. Winston’s complacency is excused because, of course, no one could survive in a system that hated them, wanted to keep them down and tried to oppress them. Orwell writes Winston as if his place in society is unheard of, as if no one else has experienced an oppressive government. His status as white-male-victim makes him relatable to the conservatives of today who are using “1984” as a platform to voice their fascist ideas. Orwell’s portrayal of Winston is painfully two-dimensional and completely disregards those who have been fighting against “the machine” for centuries to survive. The argument I see so often regarding this is that that’s the point — he is a product of his society, and his society is cruel. News flash: every society is cruel. Orwell’s is just disturbingly so, full of self-indulgent hate speech that reflects on the author more than anything else.
Winston openly admits to hating women, even going so far as fantasizing about raping and murdering them. The women in his life only exist in the periphery. His mother is controlling. His wife is complacent, meek and brainwashed. Every other woman he sees he is disgusted by, or he labels them as prostitutes. The woman he hates most, Julia, he miraculously falls in love with when he realizes she wants to have sex with him. Again, the argument is that he’s simply a product of his environment. Except, he’s not; not in this instance. In this Orwellian world, sex is seen as a means to an end. There’s not meant to be any pleasure in it because it is only meant to carry on the human race. If this aspect of Winston’s thinking was included to show that he is not brainwashed, it insinuates that men have a right to a woman’s body. His masculinity is supposed to be subversive, yet it’s the same masculinity that exists today: the kind that takes away women’s autonomy and reduces them down to a body. That’s what Julia is — a body, a sex object.
According to a biographer of Eileen O’Shaughnessy, Orwell’s wife, the misogyny and sadism interwoven into “1984” reflected Orwell’s personal beliefs and were not just a writing choice. He was full of contradictions. He was a socialist, yet he was complicit in British imperialism during his time as a police officer in Burma (now Myanmar). He was anti-intellectual, though he was well-educated. He was antisemitic, though he wrote “1984” as a direct criticism of Nazism and Stalinism. His politics depended on the fact that the society warned against in “1984” maintained traditionalist and racist ideologies.
I often see the claim that Orwell was a product of his age and environment and that criticizing him through a modern lens isn’t helpful. What I say to that is this: “1984” no longer challenges us. Often, it’s easy to look at the novel and think that we, the United States, could never get that bad. Big Brother, Nazism and Stalinism have no hold on us because fascism isn’t an issue anymore. 75 years ago, I know that wasn’t the case. Orwell wrote a novel that was, for his time, revolutionary. But “1984”’s society is so grandiose, so far removed from the nuances of modern threats of fascism, that it’s no longer beneficial.
The tale of a privileged man broken down by the evil government is not a story we need. We need intersectionality, perspective, women, people of color, queer people. As a society, it is okay to turn our attention to the works of those who understand marginalization, silencing and government interference. “1984” and George Orwell have served their purpose. It’s time to move on.