Book Review: '1984' by George Orwell - Perception, Reality, Politics and Power

Cover of '1984' by George Orwell

War is Peace. Freedom is Slavery. Ignorance is Strength. Sounds true in reality too. The book cleverly explores themes of society, power, dictatorship, oligarchy, and the weakness of individualism in the face of collective ignorance. While the story actively epitomizes socialism/communism as the poster boy of intellectual, social, and individual obliteration, it serves as a broader warning against any ideology where power is monopolized, whether under a dictatorship, a single-party state, or even an extreme democracy that suppresses dissent. The novel doesn’t just criticize a system; it dissects how power structures manipulate truth, rewrite history, and condition people to love their own servitude, how billions can be herded like cattle through the control of memory, information and reality itself.

The book's mood is gloomy, with occasional spurts of optimism, but it never strays far from reality. We already see echoes of Orwell’s world in countries like China, Russia, North Korea, and Ethiopia. Even extreme leftist or rightist democracies are inching toward similar fates. It offers a chilling projection of what could happen if the world were divided into just a handful of political entities, each feeding its people a carefully curated version of truth.

The novel explores its three paradoxical slogans in great depth, explaining the logic behind each with extreme interest. While it is tempting to discuss this in detail, I will not ruin your first-hand experience of the Ingsoc Party's strangling grip on Oceania's throat. The way they systematically break Winston and Julia’s spirits sends chills up your spine if you truly grasp its philosophical weight.

What’s really good is that Orwell keeps it real, no forced hope, no last-minute miracle. He doesn’t insert an impossible escape or revolution because that’s not how reality works. The individual spirit and intelligence cannot defeat collective submission and ignorance, not because individuals are weak, but because the system is designed to erase defiance before it can ever grow.

If you think this book is just fiction, you haven’t been paying attention to the world. A must-read. Short enough to finish in a week, but its impact will last a very long time.