1984

Nineteen Eighty-Four

Author: George Orwell

Publisher: Secker & Warburg

Genre: Dystopian, Science Fiction, Satire

First Publication: 1949

Language: English

Major Characters: Winston Smith, Big Brother, O’Brien, Emmanuel Goldstein, Tom Parsons, Syme, Julia

Theme: Totalitarianism and Communism, The Individual vs. Collective Identity, Reality Control, Class Struggle,

Setting: London in the year 1984

Narrator: Third-person omniscient

 

Book Summary: Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell

1984: A Novel, unleashes a unique plot as per which No One is Safe or Free. No place is safe to run or even hide from a dominating party leader, Big Brother, who is considered equal to God. This is a situation where everything is owned by the State. The world was seeing the ruins of World War II. Leaders such as Hitler, Stalin and Mussolini prevailed during this phase. Big Brother is always watching your actions. He even controls everyone’s feelings of love, to live and to discover. The basic plot of this historic novel revolves around the concept that no person has freedom to live life on his or her own terms. The present day is 1984.

The whole world is gradually changing. The nations which enjoy freedom, have distorted into unpleasant and degraded places, in turn creating a powerful cartel known as Oceania. This is the world where the Big Brother controls everything. There is another character Winston Smith, who is leading a normal layman life under these harsh circumstances, though hating all of this. He works on writing the old newspaper articles in order to make history or past relevant to today’s party line.

He is efficient enough in spite of hating his bosses. Julia, a young girl who is morally very rigid comes into the fore. She too hates the system as much as Winston does. Gradually, they get into an affair but have to conceal their feelings for each other, as it will not be acceptable by Big Brother. In Big Brother’s bad world, freedom is slavery and ignorance is strength.

 

Book Review: Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell

George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighr is an astonishingly good book which practically (almost single-handedly) created and defined the ‘dystopian novel’ genre. This is undoubtedly the definitive dystopian novel which stands astride the genre like a colossus – head and shoulders above the rest.

Written in the year 1948 and first published in 1949, George Orwell’s dystopian novel Nineteen Eighty-Four was originally designed as a satire of Stalinism. Like many of his contemporaries, George Orwell was distraught by the Soviet Union’s increasingly totalitarian interpretation of communism. The Soviet Union would collapse in 1991, of course, and communism plays a marginal role at best in today’s world. So how come Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell is currently enjoying a resurgence of popularity? How come it feels more and more relevant in a world dominated by capitalism rather than communism?

The fictional world of Nineteen Eighty-Four is under complete control of The Party and its mythical head, Big Brother. Privacy no longer exists: “Big Brother is watching you” – always. Data is collected, minds are molded, consent is manufactured. So-called “telescreens” monitor every facial expression and record every spoken word, tirelessly looking for “thoughtcrimes“ while simultaneously broadcasting a never-ending stream of propaganda. No other source of information is available, so the loss of privacy comes with a loss of history and political agency.

“Who controls the past controls the future; who controls the present controls the past.”

The Party is even in the process of developing what it calls “newspeak,” a stripped-down, ultimately impotent version of the English language that – through the reduction of grammar and vocabulary – renders subversive ideas unthinkable. Until “newspeak” takes over, “doublethink” ensures that those little inconsistencies between reality and the claims made by Big Brother (claims such as “ignorance is strength” or “freedom is slavery” or “2+2=5”) do not feel problematic in the slightest.

And even if they did, fabricated telescreen reports on what is portrayed as a brutal global war keep the masses in a perpetual state of fear that makes rebellion highly unlikely. Conveniently, this pseudo-war can also be used to justify the elimination of civil rights and liberties. And if there is someone somewhere who somehow manages to resist all this propaganda and surveillance (someone who, like our protagonist, manages to think an independent thought), Big Brother takes the old iron fist out of his pocket and enforces conformity through imprisonment and torture.

“Perhaps one did not want to be loved so much as to be understood.”

In today’s world, the scope, sophistication and effectiveness of propaganda and surveillance have long surpassed anything George Orwell could have imagined in 1948. It is not the Communist Party that controls those endeavours, of course, but largely commercial enterprise (with a little help from the politicians it buys).

1984 by George Orwell portrays, with what now seems like terrifying accuracy a near future extreme totalitarian society and it is a novel that is as pertinent today as never before. In an age of ‘fake news’ ‘counter-fake news’ where truth is increasingly in question, a commodity to be perverted according to need, George Orwell’s 1984 reads like an increasingly and frighteningly accurate portrayal of what was then – a possible future and now a possible present.

Orwell’s concepts of thoughtcrime, doublethink, newspeak, sexcrime, the thought police, along with the wholesale and habitual use of propaganda, the deletion and re-writing of the news/history (‘he who controls the future controls the past’) – historical revisionism, is all just so brilliantly conceived and executed and lest we forget,  George Orwell wrote 1984 in year 1949. If it had not been so brilliantly executed, 1984 by George Orwell would undoubtedly have become very clichéd, tired and dated over the subsequent decades – which quite clearly it hasn’t.

“If you want to keep a secret, you must also hide it from yourself.”

1984 is now so embedded at such a fundamental level in our culture, it is now almost impossible to imagine an absence of 1984 – itself a paradox considering the subject matter and themes of the novel Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell. The concept now so oft used as common parlance of something being ‘Orwellian’ – surveillance and control.

What George Orwell has created in Nineteen Eighty-Four (once again and along with Animal Farm) is simply one of the greatest short novels in the English language ever written, let alone one of the most influential – both in literary and cultural terms. The characters of Winston, Julia and O’Brien, Room 101, the surrounding events, the world of Oceania, Ingsoc and the Party remain seared into the readers’ memory with startling effectiveness long after the last page has been turned.

Nineteen Eighty-Four is an outstandingly (in every sense of the word) powerful, thought-provoking, compelling, engaging portrait of an all too feasible near future. Parallels in history are clearly there to see – the National Socialism of Hitler, the Communism of Stalin to name but two – showing us the absolute feasibility of such a world. The way that Orwell writes of the manipulation and creation / management of mass hysteria, the instillation and perpetuation of xenophobia and the unquestioning and blind allegiance to the ‘Party’ has such a feeling of authenticity and is all done so effectively and unbelievably well.

“Until they become conscious they will never rebel, and until after they have rebelled they cannot become conscious.”

I cannot overstate the brilliance of George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four, nor emphasise the power that this novel increasingly has, though perhaps to say that 1984 by George Orwell is quite simply a work of modern literary genius will go some way in conveying how truly great a novel this really is.

George Orwell’s 1984 paints a horrifying picture of a world that could so easily be – an intelligent portrayal of and warning against the evils of totalitarianism and extreme authoritarianism of any kind. But it is so much more than that, along with providing us with such a great central story – a story not solely about power, corruption and lies, but also about love, truth and the human spirit, Nineteen Eighty-Four works on so many, many levels. George Orwell’s 1984 is absolutely, unquestionably and unequivocally essential reading.

Dreams from My Father

Dreams from My Father

Barack Obama discusses his early childhood and how his parents met. Originally born in Honolulu, Hawaii, Obama lived in Jakarta Indonesia for a short time but moved back to Hawaii and was raised by his grandparents for better educational opportunities.

The autobiography discusses Obama’s upbringing and being raised mostly by his mother and grandparents because his father had to return to Kenya. After graduating college, Obama moved to Chicago where he worked for a non-profit as a community organizer for a housing project that was located in South Side. Working here prepared Obama for his future in politics as he dealt with resistance from community leaders and apathy from established bureaucracy.

Dreams from My Father book review

It is also during this time that Obama visited Chicago’s Trinity United Church of Christ as it became an important part of his life. It is also around this time Obama gets accepted into Harvard. But before he attends the esteemed college, he decided to visit his relatives in Kenya for the first time. 

This is an amazingly well written autobiography that holds nothing back. We get to see major events in Barack Obama’s life and how they shaped him. He is honest and open and comes as someone that is trying to discover his identity and place in life. Obama also opens up about trying to finally visiting his father’s side of the family and bridging the gap with that side of the family.

Dreams From my Father was published in 1995 when the former President was getting his feet wet in the political world. Before that, Obama had accomplishments on his resume that made him stand out. In 1990, Obama became the first African-American president of the Harvard Law Review.

The book was republished in 2004 when Obama won the Illinois Senate seat. The fact that this book precedes hispresidency makes it even better. We get to read Obama;’s thought before he became the most powerful person in the world. That is why this book feels more like a conversation and less like a cash grab. It also helps that Obama is very articulate with his words and doesn’t have any political intentions with the book.

Great Expectations

Great Expectations is generally regarded as one of the best novels by Charles Dickens. Written in the first person with local language and grammar, Great Expectations is an account of the growth and personal development of an orphan, Philip Pirrip, or simply Pip, from about the age of 8 until his 30s.

Using an interesting and well-constructed plot with no unnecessary details, Dickens traces the psychological and moral development of Pip to maturity from the rural marshes of Kent to London during the 19th century Victorian England period. From page one, Great Expectations is filled with interesting and unusual characters who will captivate your interest.

Biography of Charles Dickens

Charles Dickens as a writer and social critic is one of the world's greatest novelists.

Dickens was born on February 7, 1812, in Portsmouth, Hampshire, England. He was the second of eight children. John and Elizabeth Dickens were his parents. The Dickens family was poor, and in 1816 they moved to Kent. Later, the family moved to a poor neighborhood in London in 1822.

After Charles Dickens' father was sent to prison for debt, Dickens went to work at a boot-blacking factory near the River Thames to help support the family. Charles Dickens was 12 at that time.

After John Dickens received an inheritance, Charles briefly went back to school, but at the age of 15, he was out of school again working as an office boy.

A few years later, Dickens worked as a freelance reporter for law courts, and then for a London newspaper.

His writing career then began with Sketches of Boz. During the period 1833-34, Dickens also published his first novel, Oliver Twist, a story about an orphan living in the streets.

In 1836 Charles Dickens married M. Colleen Hogarth and had 10 children.

After traveling to the United States and later publishing A Christmas Carol in 1843, Dickens published David Copperfield during the period 1849-50 and A Tale of Two Cities in 1859.

During 1860-61, Charles Dickens published Great Expectations which some critics claim is his best novel.

In the later years of his life, Dickens divorced and remarried a younger woman before dying of a stroke on June 9, 1870.

Setting and Characters of "Great Expectations"

Great Expectations is set among the marshes in Kent and the city of London in the early to mid-1800s of Victorian England.

The main characters in this novel are related to Philip Pirrip, Miss Havisham, and other acquaintances.

As the story begins, Philip Pirrip, or "Pip" is an eight or nine-year-old orphan living with his sister and brother-in-law. The brother-in-law, Joe Gargery, is a good-natured kind blacksmith married to Pip's much older sister who is hot-tempered and cruel to Pip. Another central character is Mr. Pumblechook, Joe Gargery's uncle, who is a pompous corn merchant.

Miss Havisham who Pip gets to know is an eccentric, wealthy spinster jilted by her fiancée on the wedding day. She has a beautiful adopted daughter, Estella, who is slightly older than Pip. Miss Havisham has a cousin, Matthew Pocket, who tutors young gentlemen in London. One of his sons, Herbert Pocket, becomes Pip's good friend and roommate.

Characters related to other acquaintances include the convict, Abel Magwitch; Mr. Jaggers, a London lawyer; John Wemmick, Jagger's clerk; and Biddy, Pip's former tutor who comes to care for Mrs. Joe, Pip's sister after she is seriously injured.

Significant minor characters in the novel include Mr. Wopsle, clerk of a church in Pip's village; Compeyson, a convict and professional swindler; Arthur Havisham, the half-brother of Miss Havisham; Orlick, a journeyman blacksmith who works for Joe Gargery; and Bentley Drummle, an uncouth, rich, brute of a man.

Plot Summary for "Great Expectations"

As the novel begins, it is Christmas Eve of probably the year 1812. Orphan Pip is visiting the graves of his parents in a Kent village churchyard. Pip suddenly encounters an escaped convict later known as Abel Magwitch who scares Pip into stealing food and a file for the convict.

On Christmas Day, soldiers capture the escaped convict while he is fighting with another convict (Compeyson) on the marshes outside of the village. Both convicts are returned to a prison ship.

A few weeks later, the wealthy spinster Miss Havisham asks Pip's Uncle Pumblechook to get Pip to visit her residence at Satis House in the village to play. When Pip gets to Satis House, he meets Havisham's adopted daughter, Estella, and falls in love with her.

Sometime later, Miss Havisham gives money for Pip to be bound as an apprentice blacksmith working for Pip's brother-in-law, Joe Gargery.

A few months pass, and one day when Joe and Pip are not at home, Pip's sister is attacked and beaten senselessly. She lives but has suffered a severe stroke. A young lady, Biddy who is Pip's former tutor, comes to live with Joe and Pip and takes care of Mrs. Joe.

Four years after the apprenticeship, a lawyer from London, Mr. Jaggers, arrives and announces that Pip has great expectations from an anonymous benefactor. The benefactor has funds in Jagger's possession for training Pip to be a gentleman in London.

Thinking that Miss Havisham is the benefactor, Pip goes to live with Herbert Pocket at Barnard's Inn in London. He then commutes to Hammersmith to be educated by Herbert's father, Matthew Pocket, who is related to Miss Havisham.

As Pip and Herbert build up debts living together lavishly, Mrs. Joe dies and Pip's disbursement from the benefactor is set at 500 pounds annually after Pip reaches 21.

A short while later, Estella comes to live in London.

Strange unexpected events then start to occur after Pip reaches his 23rd birthday, leading to the climax of the book.

Themes of "Great Expectations"

The major themes in Great Expectations include:

1. Wealth and Poverty

Pip and the immediate family of his sister and brother-in-law live in poverty compared to the wealth of Miss Havisham and that of Pip's benefactor.

2. Love and Rejection

Throughout the novel, Pip has an unconditional love for Estella. Estella, however, is very cold to Pip and doesn't accept his love.

3. Good Over Evil

In the book, good wins out over evil. This is reflected in the actions of the protagonists, Pip, Joe Gargery, and Abel Magwitch against the antagonists of Bentley Drummle, Orlick, and Compeyson.

4. Empire and Ambition

One of the themes of Great Expectations is the desire of Pip, Herbert Pocket, and Abel Magwitch to make a fortune abroad.

5. Social Class and Social Exclusion

Pip learns that as a young man of great expectations, he is readily accepted by high society but shunned when he is living in poverty.

6. Moral Development

Pip is transformed from being a selfish, proud, and ungrateful young man into a kind, generous, and humble person when older.

7. Hope

Throughout the book, Pip hopes to seek fulfillment in love, wealth, social status, and finally a return to his roots.

Evaluation

In my opinion, Great Expectations is an excellent book with mostly good qualities and only a few deficiencies.

Good Points

1. Plot

The plot of the novel is extremely interesting and exciting. It moves quickly with no twists or unnecessary happenings.

2. Imagery

Some of the imagery in this book includes light contrasted with darkness, crime and fighting, food, and fighting.

3. Style

Great Expectations is written in the first person with local language and grammar much like Mark Twain's novels.

4. Themes

The themes of moral development, hope, and good over evil will leave the reader with good feelings.

naga mandala

Naga-mandala is an excellent play by Girish Karnad. It revolves around a young girl, Rani who is newly wedded to Appanna. Appana treats her with aggression and contempt and also distrusts her. He visits concubine much often. It is then when an old lady, Karudava, gives Rani a portion, which according to her, will make Appana fall in love with her. Rani, at the last moment, changes her mind and spills the portion on an ant hill which deep down is a dwelling place of a King Cobra, a Naga.

The Naga falls in love with Rani, enters her room through the bathroom and reaches Rani, taking the appearance of Appanna. Their relationship becomes fruitful and results in getting Rani pregnant. Once Appanna finds her pregnancy news, he takes her for public trial where she is to perform the Snake Ordeal. This whole incident creates a turmoil in Rani’s life where she is left alone to fight the crisis.

The story has four part narration which is one of a kind. This kind of narration has three other stories, one inside the each previous one. In the first level, the frame story has an author who is given a deadline to produce an interesting story or else would be condemned to death. He goes out in search of the story where he comes across a village and takes shelter for the night. He later finds small flames coming out of different houses and gather in a temple on the outskirts of the village.

The second level has flames personified as women who gather outside the village every night and gossip. The third level has a flame who wants to be forgiven because of arriving late. The old woman says she knows a story but refuses to narrate it to other fellow flames. One fine night, she sleeps with her mouth open and that’s how the flame escape and tells us the story of Appanna and Rani. The fourth level has Rani as the narrator of her own story.

Karnad transforms two folktale into one. He adds various themes like superstition, fantasy, instincts, myth and magic etc. to connect the story with a much larger audience. He personifies Naga as a symbol of Shiva and Shakti. Throughout the play, the author tries to unify the three worlds. He tries to talk about a specific hindu tradition where the intersection of two triangles, one pointing upward and the other downward shows the union of male and female also known as the union of Shiva and Shakti. There’s also a third triangle which lies inside the other two which represents the end of the play.

The play mainly depicts man and woman who has to undergo several levels of doubt, uncertainty and failure before they become mature enough and live as husband and wife. Presented through a woman’s point of view, the play shows her need, struggles and problems within a patriarchal society.

The story covers multi layered issue, much common in Indian society. On one hand, it shows about male’s difficulty to trust and love woman and on the other, talks about the difficulties in socialising process of both man and woman after marriage.

Some of his famous works are

•Hayavadana

•Yayati

•Tughalak

•Agni mathu Male

•Anjumallige

•Wedding Album

• Tale Danda

Waiting for Godot

Introduction

Book’s Name: Waiting for Godot

Author: Samuel Beckett

Genre: Tragicomedy, Absurdist fiction

Original Language: French

Published: 1952

Waiting for Godot is an unconventional play by Samuel Beckett. It presents the conflicts between living by religious and spiritual beliefs. Living by an existential philosophy asserts the individual to discover the meaning of life. Through his personal experiences. Interpretations of this play have filled many critical volumes. 

It suffices to say Waiting for Godot concentrates on the themes of dependency, compassion, and ignorance. It also deals with impotence as well as exploitation and humiliation in human relationships. Beckett demonstrates these aspects of human life in the sparse laboratory of an almost empty stage with only four men.

Summary

Waiting for Godot is a landmark in modern drama. When it premiered in Paris, the audience was stunned. No one had ever seen or heard anything like this before. Some were puzzled, some disgusted while others were enthusiastic. The title Waiting for Godot describes the action exactly. Vladimir and Estragon, two educated but homeless unemployed men, have an appointment to meet Godot on a country road. 

We do not know anything about this Godot. Instead of meeting Godot, they encounter another bizarre couple of males: Pozzo, a tyrant, and his servant Lucky, whom he drags along a rope. The play consists of dialogues between each or both of these pairs. They joke to pass the time and have deep reflections on the problems of human existence. There is hardly any other action in the play. A boy appears at the end of each act to inform them of Godot’s continuing absence while Pozzo’s second entrance reveals him to have been blind.

 Nothing happens, nobody comes, nobody goes, it’s awful 

“Nothing happens, nobody comes, nobody goes, it’s awful!” This phrase stunningly sums up the whole play. The play is devoid of any action or incident or any kind of development. Even the characters are unconventional along with the plot that has no beginning or end. Estragon and Vladimir address each other as Gogo and Didi. After the boy informs them of Godot’s absence they decide to leave and come back the next day. 

Yet they don’t move as the curtain falls. A similar scene happens in Act II. The strangeness and nothingness fascinate the readers as they hope for a situation or problem to happen. It seems the tramps live in a twilight state full of forgetfulness. They are incapable to live or end their life clinging to each other with dependence. They portray the act of waiting as an essential aspect of life. We as humans throughout our life are always waiting for something to happen.

Source: pilateskildare

Characters background

There is a reason behind the lack of character background and the dramatic plot. Beckett in Waiting for Godot deals with a subject independent of plot or character since it is the same for everyone. The best, as well as the worst aspects of humanity, are dealt with and talked about in the play. Other elements such as triviality, success, and failure play their part too. Nothing happens twice in the play even when the characters love, diverge, live, die, and disappear. 

Godot never arrives and the characters’ hopes are never fulfilled. Their words do not lead to action. The paralyzing beauty of inaction in the play can be seen in real life when we believe, “ Monsieur Godot will not arrive, but will be here tomorrow.” The play with its funny and poetic dialogues reveals human companionship and stoicism. The play speaks about humans when they are at the most animal level. The lessons are as subtle as a piece of music reaching audiences’ hearts beyond the horizon.

Godot and Beckett

About the Godot figure, we could say everything and nothing. He makes an appearance only by mention yet he is the dramatic reason for the play itself. Waiting for the mysterious Godot is humankind waiting for redemption from an otherwise unbearable life. Beckett denied that Godot was God in Waiting for Godot, as the object of the characters’ ultimate hope for salvation. 

But he serves a similar function to God. Campus describes Absurdity in The Myth of Sisyphus that the “divorce between man and his life, the actor and his setting, truly constitutes the feeling of Absurdity”. Beckett is the most influential writer. He projects irrationalism, helplessness, and absurdity of life in dramatic forms. Rejecting realistic settings, logical reasoning, or a coherent evolving plot, Beckett plays us. 

What do I think about the play?

Beckett called his play a ‘tragicomedy’. It's a genre in which the work obeys in its concern with the need for humor when confronting an unconcerned ‘fate’ that revises through humanity and its anti-dramatic technique. Beckett gives artistic expression to the irrational state of unknowingness wherein we Exist. 

The tempo is a Caged Dynamic where the characters are caged in time but moving. It's imprisonment dynamic with long hanging pauses where nothing is to be done. The absence of everything and the presence of silence are beautifully crafted. He uses various biblical allusions, symbolism, parables, allegories, and articulations of classical myth. Everyone should read this play at least once in their lifetime. 

Bottom Line

The Irish critic Vivian Mercier in his The Uneventful Event in The Irish Times, February 1956 described Waiting for Godot as ‘a two-act absurdist-tragicomic piece in which “nothing happens twice”. Waiting for Godot has been performed all over the world; from California’s San Quentin Prison (1957) to war-torn Sarajevo (1993). 

Even the survivors of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans had performed Waiting for Godot in 2007. Mary Bryden, the former President of Samuel Beckett Society, writes that Godot “seems set to continue evolving alongside us, for the unforeseeable future.”