1984: The Graphic Novel

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Winston and Julia are taken to the Ministry of Love, where prisoners are shown begging not to be sent to Room 101, creating suspense about what could possibly happen in it, before Winston is called up and discovers that O’Brien was a faithful member of the Party all along. Through psychological intimidation and physical torture, O’Brien breaks Winston’s will until he cannot answer for certain whether two plus two makes four or five. He concedes that two and two might sometimes make five in certain philosophical or theoretical concepts. Then finally he gives in to accept that the answer to two plus two is whatever the Party says it is. Entre lo que olvidé (el ambiente deprimente del Londres de 1984, la nuevalengua y el término Socing), encontré pasajes y términos que todavía recordaba: el concepto de Hermano Mayor (Gran Hermano en la actualidad); el libro de la hermandad cuyos títulos son los lemas del partido, "la guerra es paz, la libertad es esclavitud, la ignorancia es fuerza" (que yo estaba convencida que era más como "la ignorancia es el poder"); el prota que tiene la certeza de que los proletarios se rebelarán en un futuro contra el partido se me quedó grabado a fuego desde la primera lectura, así como la escena de la tortura con ratas, o el reencuentro del protagonista con su antigua amante. Only by making sure the population was loyal and too stupid to realize it, the real focus, therefore the pressure, is on the members of the Party itself —especially the Outer Party ( the hands) controlled by the members of the Inner Party ( the brains); who work for the Big Brother on the head. Julia serves as a character foil to Winston, as Orwell compares and contrasts their political philosophies and their styles of resistance. For example, Winston believes that the Party must be resisted and overthrown, but Julia thinks it’s better to evade its authority while pretending to acquiesce to it. Winston, frustrated, tells her she’s “only a rebel from the waist down,” which she takes as a compliment.

Je n'ai pas encore lu le roman (mais ce sera fait car c'était la seconde partie de mon Noël), je découvre donc l'histoire avec cet album (bon bien-sûr j'en ai beaucoup entendu parler et connaissais le contenu dans les grande lignes vu le grand classique que c'est). Anyway, it’s a very recent book (published first in Brasil in 2020 and then in the UK and USA in 2021, so I suppose people will start talking about it soon). I very am glad I discovered it among the first readers. Anyhow, Winston Smith connects with a female from the Fiction Department named Julia in a way that we may view as strange, but this society is abnormal. They join the Brotherhood that revolts against the tyrannical establishment, but we soon learn what happens when residents of this society go against this tyrannical establishment and what the ultimately punishment happens to be. And at the end of the day, hope is all that you are entitled to possess; everything else, belongs to the party. In a world where emotions are limited, discouraged, and even eliminated, the note changes everything for Winston, and ultimately leads him down a wonderful, but ultimately dark and devastating path...This is not “an adaptation” or “re-interpretation” or some other unorthodox representation of the classical Orwell’s book. It’s more or less Orwell’s book itself, only in a graphic form. The illustrator (a Brasilian artist Fido Nesti) made a drawing of everything that can be drawn (rather than described with words) but left almost everything else from the original novel. Some editorial changes and corrections, if any, are very slight, and I personally had an impression that this book contains about 80% of the original text word by word or very close to it. So it was like a re-reading of the original Orwell’s book, only now we also have a very interesting visual representation of the described events and just a cool design of graphic novel art. But then you read to the end and think, well a sequel would certainly ruin everything, wouldn't it? Por una parte, que el protagonista Winston en una sociedad distópica ha jincao más que yo en una sociedad pandémica.

GEORGE ORWELL (1903-1950) was born in India and served with the Imperial Police in Burma before joining the Republican forces in the Spanish Civil War. Orwell was the author of six novels as well as numerous essays and nonfiction works. Each of the three super-states is an oligarchy, set up with a single, all-powerful figurehead for the masses to blindly worship. The story takes place in Oceania, whose figurehead is known as Big Brother. No one has ever seen Big Brother; he may not even exist. And yet he is completely ubiquitous, present everywhere in posters bearing his moustached face and the ominous slogan "Big Brother Is Watching You". The iron rule of Big Brother is enforced by the Party, which is effectively the government of Oceania. I was very happy to get acquainted with this very interesting artistic representation of the classical book and simultaneously refresh my memory about the original text (because, as I said, it is repeated in this book almost word by word to a large extent).

After being deprived of all his morality by betraying Julia, in the very last chapter, Winston is totally surrendered to the party, losing his ability to love and his faith in his own humanity. He slips his days away by sitting in the Chestnut Tree Cafe, where political criminals gather and wait for their execution. He is psychologically broken, so he finally starts to think in Newspeak. He doesn’t feel the same towards himself or Julia anymore; nor does she. Winston whispers he loves big brother. And that, is the last state of self-regulating. He ceases to be an individual and becomes part of the collective mass of the cult, being proof of true power is power over human beings, over the body, but above all, over the mind —to the point that you believe, with your whole heart, that two plus two makes five. In 1984, London is a grim city in the totalitarian state of Oceania where Big Brother is always watching you and the Thought Police can practically read your mind. Winston Smith is a man in grave danger for the simple reason that his memory still functions. Drawn into a forbidden love affair, Winston finds the courage to join a secret revolutionary organization called the Brotherhood, dedicated to the destruction of the Party. Together with his beloved Julia, he hazards his life in a deadly match against the powers that be.

Im letzten Jahr durfte ich bereits "Farm der Tiere" und "1984" von George Orwell auf meinen Kanälen vorstellen, woraufhin ich viele Nachrichten von Lesern erhalten habe, die sich anschließend die Weltklassiker gekauft, gelesen und meine Gedanken geteilt haben. Seems like Orwell himself was frightened by the ending his novel had, worrying for posterity and warning them to not pass by easily. La verdad que de mi lectura conjunta distópica Orwell-Huxley, creía que no dejaba tanto poso de desesperanza Orwell, y sí más Huxley, pero releído el primero desde luego no lo calificaría de una lectura optimista y agradable, aunque sí muy instructiva, pues te muestra cómo se sustenta un régimen totalitario, y lo que se cuece dentro de éste.Major Thematic Topics: mutability of the past; the existence of fact through memory; memory; history; language; oppression of writers When George Orwell wrote 1984, the year that gives the book its title was still almost 40 years in the future. Some of the things Orwell imagined that would come to pass were the telescreen, a TV that observes those who are watching it, and a world consisting of three megastates rather than hundreds of countries. In the novel, the country of Eastasia apparently consists of China and its satellite nations; Eurasia is the Soviet Union; and Oceania comprises the United States, the United Kingdom, and their allies. Onto the book itself; 1984 is written to be dreary, depressing and mind numbing read, by design. Life under the watchful eyes of Big Brother is not a pleasant thing. It's a world of war, scarcity, lies, deceit where every aspect of life of controlled. Even the few scant inches of space inside your noggin is not free from interference from the man.