1984 - The Book!!!1!

"Winston began reading." p. 184

What's that? Winston began reading The Book! The Book is everything! All that once was and all that will be! The Book controls time and space! Love and Death! The Book can see into your mind! The Book can see into your soul! Really? The Book can do all that? Heh...no.

This blog post essentially concerns Orwell's stylistic device of the book within a book. Orwell essentially uses The Book to illustrate the world of 1984 and how it came to be. The entire point of 1984 is that it's impossible to gain any knowledge concerning the past and the real way that things were before the Party as well as the truth about the Party. However, by creating this illegal book of truth, Orwell is able to explain how the Party came into power and how it can maintain this power indefinitely. The focus of The Book is centered around the Party's maxim of "Ignorance is Strength, Freedom is Slavery, War is Peace." Through The Book, Orwell is able to explain the true driving force behind the perpetual war. The goal of the war is not global conquest but a means to control the products manufactured by the economy. Everything that the economy produces that is considered excessive simply gets put into the war in order to consume the resources and keep people working, because when people have jobs and the bare necessities, they generally will not revolt. The Book also reveals the way that the Party manages to control and maintain the three classes of society, Upper, Middle, and Lower, or Inner Party, Outer Party, and Proletariat, through ignorance. The Proletariat are kept ignorant and are worked hard for their entire lives and thus never realize that perhaps life would be better without the Party. The Outer Party is controlled by the constant surveillance which can root out any potential unorthodoxy. The Inner Party is controlled because they are so deeply engrossed in the Party doctrine and are so addicted to the power that they wield that they will never let it go. Furthermore, they have learned from the mistakes of previous totalitarians, and thus have perfected the art in order to ensure that the classes do not ever shift. ever. Basically, The Book is used just to confirm the "how" of the Party. The Book also, probably, goes on to explain the "why" of the party, their ultimate motivation for seizing power and running the whole show. However, Winston conveniently stops reading literally just words before the book reveals the motive. Now that's just rude.