George Orwell was born named Eric Blair in Motihari, Bengal. He worked as a member of the Indian Imperial Police, and later fought in the Spanish Civil War. After World War 2 Orwell finished his two most famous works, 1984 and Animal Farm.

Winston is a middle- aged man who works in the Ministry of Truth, a government group which censors, alters, and rewrites information to always support The Party. He falls in love with a girl named Julia, and enters an illegal relationship with her.

O’Brien is a senior member of the Party who gains Winston’s trust by claiming to be a member of the Resistance against the Party and Big Brother. He eventually betrays Winston and sends him off to the Ministry of Love to be tortured.

Big Brother is the shadowy leader of the Party. His word is the absolute law of Oceania. The only dialogue Big Brother has is a speech heard by Winston. He is never seen anywhere but on the telescreen by any of the other characters. Despite doing little in the book, and quite possibly not actually existing, Big Brother’s presence is felt throughout the book. Everything that happens somehow comes back to Big Brother.

Julia is a member of many Party organizations and at first appears to be the ideal Party member. Despite this she loathes Big Brother and the Party, and is secretly in love with Winston. Julia goes on to sell Winston out almost immediately after being tortured, if O’Brien is to be believed.

Winston is an employee of the Ministry of Truth, and a member of the Party. Despite this he secretly hates the Party and their leader Big Brother, and writes his thoughts in a journal, a crime punishable by imprisonment and torture. O’Brien subtly implies that he agrees with Winston, making him believe he has an ally. Over time Winston notices that Julia, another member of the Party is following him. He believes she is an agent of the Thought Police out to arrest him for thoughtcrime.

One day at work Winston receives a note from Julia that reads “I love you”. Although it is illegal for Party members to get into relationships without permission, Winston and Julia start a love affair. O’Brien eventually approaches the two and claims he is a member of the resistance group known as the Brotherhood. He recruits the two of them. This recruitment was eventually revealed to be a trick to capture thoughtcriminals. Winston and Julia are arrested and sent off to be tortured.

During his captivity in the Ministry of Love Winston is repeatedly tortured until he gives up everything important to him except for Julia who serves as his beacon of hope. Winston is eventually taken to the mysterious Room 101 where he is tortured by the thing he fears the most, in Winston’s case being eaten alive by hungry rats. Winston begs for O’Brien to torture Julia instead of him.

Winston is later released from the Ministry of Love and meets with Julia one last time. They both admit that they sold each other out to avoid further torture. Their love for each other has been replaced with love for Big Brother, the only kind of love allowed. The torture in the Ministry of Love took it’s toll on Winston, making him accept that 2+2=5 if the Party says it does, even if he knows otherwise.

During a daily announcement of Oceania’s victory in a battle against the nation of Eurasia, Winston truly feels joy for the first time. Winston looks up and realizes that he loves Big Brother.

1984 may take place in the year 1984, Winston has stopped keeping track of the year and can only guess. The physical setting of 1984 is the city of London in the nation of Oceania, a nation ruled by the Party and their leader Big Brother. Within Oceania the Party maintains absolute control. No information exists that proves the Party was ever wrong because of an elaborate system of censorship put in place by the Party.

Totalitarianism-The Party maintains absolute control of Oceania, and do not recognize any rights of citizens. Even thinking is a crime to the Party, only mindless loyalty to the Party is permitted. Censorship-All news, writing, television, movies, and even pornography are carefully controlled by the Party to prevent any ideas that oppose them from existing. They even rewrite old records to show that they are always right, and everyone else is always wrong.

1984 is a truly great exploration of the dangers of totalitarianism and the loss of free thought. Although the year 1984 has come and gone, the threat that it presents is more real then ever. The plot is interesting, the setting even more so, and the characters deep and understandable. The writing is descriptive without being repetitive or overly complicated. Overall 1984 is a fantastic book that I would recommend to anyone who enjoys reading.

Censorship is defined as the “restriction by the government, special interest groups or individuals of what people may hear, speak, write, read or view.” The idea of censorship is nothing new, having gone on for over 2000 years and it continues even today. Books, magazines, newspapers, news reports, and the Internet are controlled by governments around the world, to remove information harmful to them.

Perhaps the most well known example of censorship today is the censoring of information on the Internet by the Chinese government. Any information that is controversial, or harmful to the Chinese Communist Party is blocked, and anyone attempting to get around these blocks can be fined or even arrested. Those that speak out against the Communist Party occasionally end up mysteriously dying of unknown causes.

For example, if you were to Google the Dalai Lama in America you would get a picture of the Dalai Lama. In China however, you cannot find a single picture. In fact the first image that appears is a protester protesting against the Dalai Lama. Because China does not recognize Tibet as an independent nation, nor do they recognize the Dalai Lama as it’s leader, they remove this information so that no one can know the truth of what’s going on.

Tiananmen Square was the sight of a massacre carried out by the Chinese Government. 100,000 protestors, who were mostly students and other young people, gathered to protest the murder of a pro-democracy official named Hu Yaobang. The protest lasted seven weeks, and resulted in the deaths of at least 7,000 protestors at the hands of Chinese soldiers, and tanks. Despite this there isn’t a single picture of the violence in Tianamen Square on Google China. You can only find pictures of the peaceful Tiananmen Square today.

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China is only one example of the dangers censorship presents. In America we the people elect our leaders, and vote for what our government should do. How can we make intelligent informed decisions if we don’t have access to truthful information? Censorship cannot be allowed to exist in any form. Any attempts to restrict access to free information must be opposed with all our strength. The people control the government, not the other way around.