Text Review-1984 By George Orwell

The book 1984 takes place in an alternate version of England. In this book, the world has been divided into three major superpowers who are all engaging in minor battles for trivial parts of the territory. We follow the protagonist, Winston, throughout the entirety of the book. Winston questions the society he lives in, the hyper surveillance, and censorship to which the government conducts. This book does an amazing job of covering themes that we have seen all throughout this year. One example that really stuck out to me was the existence of the Proles. The Proles are semi-citizens in this dystopian society who are not educated and are given few rights. This is a clear societal divide on many levels, the members of the proles view the members of the inner and outer party as completely different humans. To touch on the inner and outer party, the inner party is the inner ring that truly runs the government and is behind the severe government surveillance. The outer party is a group of people who are educated and attempted to be brainwashed by the inner party. These outer party peoples experience heavy surveillance and are given almost no privacy. These different and clearly defined social groups allow for many instances of “Self” and “Othering” to occur. All three of these groups view induvial in the other as a member of the inner party or a prole; instead of viewing them as another human being. I think this goes great with the work of Hegel and the danger of viewing someone else as another. I think the other wants to question the authority around and to question what true freedom is. I believe that 1984 does an amazing job of showing how othering can lead to mass amounts of injustice and great differences in power.