1984 begins and ends in the mind of Winston Smith, a low level office clerk in the Minsitry of Truth, itself a
misnomer since the Ministry of Truth is prinicpally dedicated to lies and to altering the past. The Ministry of Love concerns itself with killing and torture, The Ministry of Plenty with scarcity and the Ministry of Peace with War. In any other setting this would be strange but in 1984 with the aid of Doublethink, it makes complete sense.
Winston has his own ideas about what happened in the past, before Big Brother and the Party came to power, before the revolution. He begins a very dangerous expedition in a world where every word, thought and deed is being scrutinized by the all seeing all knowing eyes of the Thought Police - he starts a diary. He trusts O Brien whom he is sure is like himself in his thoughts and doubts of the Party and finds a strange accomplice in Julia.
Much has already been written and said before me about the accuracy of 1984 since it was written, how much of it has come to pass etc and was Orwell's 1984 a prophecy? I refuse to think of it in terms so simplistic. The question I ask myself and which I encourage all readers of 1984 to ask is this. Was 1984 Orwell's warning to future genearations of what the future may become or was it his idea of utopia? Was it what he wanted the future to become?
It is my belief that it is the latter and I will explain why. At no point is a counter-argument to Big Brother and the orthodoxy of the Party offered, not even by the so-called opposition, the Brotherhood which in any case turns out to be fraudulent. If you want a picture, a clear picture of the writer's intention, look at the last scene in the book and examine it carefully. The devil's in the details. Orwell is saying emphatically, through Winston his narrator, this is the future, you cannot fight it, you cannot change it. Get used to it. If what he has written has come to pass it is not a measure of his accuracy as a writer but merely a sign that that those at the top and their thinking, their methodology, their aims are similar. Of the British writers in the early twenthieth century, from Orwell to Huxley to H.G. Wells, one fact is shared by all, they are all unremitting pessimists to the bitter end. So the future lies with you, the reader.
As for the idea that "The Party" can sucker in the whole of Oceania or any country for that matter with such lies I counter that with the wisdom of Abraham Lincoln. "You can fool some of the people all of the time and all of the people some of the time but you can't fool all of the people all the time."