Research

I thought I would do some research about George Orwell and what was going on in the world in 1948.

George Orwell

Orwell was a British journalist and author, who wrote two of the most famous novels of the 20th century 'Animal Farm' and 'Nineteen Eighty-Four'.


Orwell was born Eric Arthur Blair on 25 June 1903 in eastern India, the son of a British colonial civil servant. He was educated in England and, after he left Eton, joined the Indian Imperial Police in Burma, then a British colony. He resigned in 1927 and decided to become a writer. In 1928, he moved to Paris where lack of success as a writer forced him into a series of menial jobs. He described his experiences in his first book, 'Down and Out in Paris and London', published in 1933. He took the name George Orwell, shortly before its publication. This was followed by his first novel, 'Burmese Days', in 1934.


An anarchist in the late 1920s, by the 1930s he had begun to consider himself a socialist. In 1936, he was commissioned to write an account of poverty among unemployed miners in northern England, which resulted in 'The Road to Wigan Pier' (1937). Late in 1936, Orwell travelled to Spain to fight for the Republicans against Franco's Nationalists. He was forced to flee in fear of his life from Soviet-backed communists who were suppressing revolutionary socialist dissenters. The experience turned him into a lifelong anti-Stalinist.


Between 1941 and 1943, Orwell worked on propaganda for the BBC. In 1943, he became literary editor of the Tribune, a weekly left-wing magazine. By now he was a prolific journalist, writing articles, reviews and books.


In 1945, Orwell's 'Animal Farm' was published. A political fable set in a farmyard but based on Stalin's betrayal of the Russian Revolution, it made Orwell's name and ensured he was financially comfortable for the first time in his life. 'Nineteen Eighty-Four' was published four years later. Set in an imaginary totalitarian future, the book made a deep impression, with its title and many phrases - such as 'Big Brother is watching you', 'newspeak' and 'doublethink' - entering popular use. By now Orwell's health was deteriorating and he died of tuberculosis on 21 January 1950


(Source Two)


The story


Winston Smith is a member of the Outer Party. He works in the Records Department in the Ministry of Truth, rewriting and distorting history. To escape Big Brother's tyranny, at least inside his own mind, Winston begins a diary — an act punishable by death. Winston is determined to remain human under inhuman circumstances. Yet telescreens are placed everywhere — in his home, in his cubicle at work, in the cafeteria where he eats, even in the bathroom stalls. His every move is watched. No place is safe.


One day, while at the mandatory Two Minutes Hate, Winston catches the eye of an Inner Party Member, O'Brien, whom he believes to be an ally. He also catches the eye of a dark-haired girl from the Fiction Department, whom he believes is his enemy and wants him destroyed. A few days later, Julia, the dark-haired girl whom Winston believes to be against him, secretly hands him a note that reads, "I love you." Winston takes pains to meet her, and when they finally do, Julia draws up a complicated plan whereby they can be alone.


Alone in the countryside, Winston and Julia make love and begin their allegiance against the Party and Big Brother. Winston is able to secure a room above a shop where he and Julia can go for their romantic trysts. Winston and Julia fall in love, and, while they know that they will someday be caught, they believe that the love and loyalty they feel for each other can never be taken from them, even under the worst circumstances.


Eventually, Winston and Julia confess to O'Brien, whom they believe to be a member of the Brotherhood (an underground organization aimed at bringing down the Party), their hatred of the Party. O'Brien welcomes them into the Brotherhood with an array of questions and arranges for Winston to be given a copy of "the book," the underground's treasonous volume written by their leader, Emmanuel Goldstein, former ally of Big Brother turned enemy.

Winston gets the book at a war rally and takes it to the secure room where he reads it with Julia napping by his side. The two are disturbed by a noise behind a painting in the room and discover a telescreen. They are dragged away and separated. Winston finds himself deep inside the Ministry of Love, a kind of prison with no windows, where he sits for days alone. Finally, O'Brien comes. Initially Winston believes that O'Brien has also been caught, but he soon realizes that O'Brien is there to torture him and break his spirit. The Party had been aware of Winston's "crimes" all along; in fact, O'Brien has been watching Winston for the past seven years.


O'Brien spends the next few months torturing Winston in order to change his way of thinking — to employ the concept of doublethink, or the ability to simultaneously hold two opposing ideas in one's mind and believe in them both. Winston believes that the human mind must be free, and to remain free, one must be allowed to believe in an objective truth, such as 2 + 2 = 4. O'Brien wants Winston to believe that 2 + 2 = 5, but Winston is resistant.


Finally, O'Brien takes Winston to Room 101, the most dreaded room of all in the Ministry of Love, the place where prisoners meet their greatest fear. Winston's greatest fear is rats. O'Brien places over Winston's head a mask made of wire mesh and threatens to open the door to release rats on Winston's face. When Winston screams, "Do it to Julia!" he relinquishes his last vestige of humanity.


Winston is a changed man. He sits in the Chestnut Tree Café, watching the telescreens and agonizing over the results of daily battles on the front lines. He has seen Julia again. She, too, is changed, seeming older and less attractive. She admits that she also betrayed him. In the end, there is no doubt, Winston loves Big Brother.

(Source Three)

Useful book review:

nicolebasaraba.com/book-review-1984-by-george-orwell/


The Year 1948



1948 Events & Facts

MAJOR EVENTS:

• Mahatma Gandhi assassinated in India
• House Un-American Activities Committee accuses Alger Hiss of spying for the Soviet Union
• Communists seize power in Czechoslovakia
• U.S. Congress ratifies Marshall Plan, approving $17 billion in European aid
• State of Israel created; admits over 200,000 European war refugees
• Soviet Union seals off land routes to Berlin; West responds with massive airlift of provisions
• President Harry S Truman re-elected in upset over Thomas E. Dewey 
• President Truman integrates the U.S. Armed Forces

BUSINESS & ECONOMY:

• U.S. continues to cope with severe postwar inflation while rocked by labor unrest
• United Auto Workers succeed in linking wage increases to cost-of-living index in contract with General Motors
• Congress enacts federal rent controls

SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY:

• Alfred Kinsey’s Sexual Behavior in the Human Male is the first large-scale study of individuals’ sexual habits, with stunning revelations about infidelity, homosexuality and other issues
• U.S. government conducts extensive missile tests in New Mexico desert
• 200-inch telescope at Mount Palomar begins operation
• Cortisone introduced as an arthritis treatment
• "Big bang" theory of the universe’s origin postulated
• Orville Wright dies

SPORTS:

• World Series: Cleveland over Boston, 4-2
• Olympics held in London
• "Citation" wins Preakness, Belmont and Kentucky Derby
• Boxer Joe Louis retires
• Babe Ruth dies

ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT:

• Movies: Hamlet, Macbeth (Orson Welles), The Naked City, Oliver Twist, The Fallen Idol
• Songs: Nature Boy, Buttons and Bows, All I Want for Christmas is my Two Front Teeth
• TV Shows: Howdy Doody, Philco TV Playhouse, Toast of the Town, Kraft Television Theatre, Meet the Press
• Books: The Big Fisherman, Lloyd C. Douglas; Crusade in Europe, Dwight D. Eisenhower; Cry, the Beloved Country, Alan Paton; The Ides of March, Thorton Wilder;Tales of the South Pacific, James Michener; The Naked and the Dead, Norman Mailer
• Long-playing (33-1/3 RPM) record invented
• Boxing and wrestling are TV’s prime attractions

EVERYDAY LIFE:

• Selective Service inaugurated, providing a continuous peacetime military draft until repealed in 1973
• New York’s Idlewild Airport opens (renamed JFK Airport in 1963)
• Swiss outdoorsman George de Mestral invents Velcro
• Noted food critic Duncan Hines founds a company to make prepackaged cake mixes

FUN FACTS:

• Popcorn sold on a mass scale for the first time
• "Scrabble" introduced

(Source Four)