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Peter McCusker

Mrs. Elkins

Honors English 2

11 November 2016

George Orwell: A Haunted man makes a classic

1984 by George Orwell is one of the top five classic books that is still being banned

today, 67 years after it was written. Over those 67 years, this book has been challenged many

different times and for many different reasons such as moral conflicts or the values of the book is

promoting or attacking. Part of the reason that it has been challenged so much was because of

the social climate that the book was published into and the ideals that were held by many

individuals at that time. 1984 by George Orwell was banned and challenged for the ideals that

the book seemed to be attacking oe promoting.

1984 illustrates a frightening depiction of a future totalitarian world where

freedom is nonexistent and there is no hope of the people to be free of tyranny. George Orwell

was inspired by the events that he witnessed and experienced. For example, Orwell was

convinced that in the Tehran Conference, a conference held between Winston Churchill, Franklin

D. Roosevelt, and Joseph Stalin in 1943 during World War 2 where these leaders discussed

strategies and plans of action that they would follow to win the war, was actually a plot where

these three world leaders were planning on divided the world between themselves (McCrum).

This was represented in the book as the three nations in the world in the book, Oceania, Eurasia,

and Eastasia. Also, the somberness of the book could possibly be explained by the unexpected

death of his wife. She had passed away during, what George Orwell had thought, was a routine
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operation. This was a hard blow to Orwell and most definitely had a part to play in the serious

attitude of the book.

Also the health of the storys main character, Winston Smith, was a reflection of Orwells

health at the time of the books writing. In 1984, Winston had multiple health problems like a

varicose ulcer, low stamina, and other health issues. These were manifestations of his health as

he wrote the book. While writing the book he was suffering from tuberculosis, and it later was

the cause of his death. The tragic part is that because George Orwell was pressured to release the

book on schedule, he neglected his own health and thus let the condition worsen. In order to get

a clear copy that could be sent to the publisher, and unable to find a typist to key the manuscript

he was forced to type over 4,000 words a day while he was confined to a bed and his health was

failing. Unable to find a local secretary, barely able to walk and sensing that his time was

running out, he was therefore obliged to type it himself - 4,000 words a day, seven days a week -

mostly done propped up in bed (Harris). He did eventually finish the book on his own and the

book was published on June 8th 1949. For Orwell though the celebration was short lived as he

would pass away in January of 1950, just six months after the publishing of 1984 after losing his

battle with tuberculosis. Within 12 months, it had sold around 50,000 hardbacks in the UK; in

the U.S. sales were more than one-third of a million (Harris). But the books widespread fame

also had its side effects because of its popularity, it was was well known and thus attracted the

attention of people who disagreed with the book.

1984 was one of the eras most challenged book and today it is still challenged by many

people. Due to the setting of the book being in a despotic regime and it seemingly criticism of

totalitarian governments, it was banned in the USSR soon upon its translation to russian. It is

possible to infer this because the government of Russia and the USSR had gain a reputation for
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being especially cruel and oppressive to peoples rights. That ban has since lifted but this shows

how powerful 1984s message is and also how popular the book was, to make a nations

government feel threatened and to ban the book and also how harshly people can react to their

way of life and beliefs being criticised. On the opposite side of the spectrum, in 1981 in Jackson

County, Florida, it was challenged by parents on the basis that it supported communist

government and so it should be removed from the school system. As with most books 1984 can

be construed in many different ways and the people that challenged and are still challenging this

book are interpreting the book in a different way, and the way in which they interpret the book

makes them believe that the books is either attacking a system of government that the believe in

or it is promoting a system of government that they do not agree with.

The world into which 1984 was published was a world that was recovering from a

massive conflict and was possibly on the brink of another one. In 1939 Germany began World

War 2 when it invaded Poland and this conflict spread throughout the globe and resulted in many

terrible things, it is estimated that over 60 million people were killed including military and

civilian deaths. Also, the first atomic bombs were created and used on the Japanese cities of

Nagasaki and Hiroshima, thus opening a giant can of worms and creating global paranoia about

the threat of global nuclear war and the destruction of society as we know it. After the

conclusion of World War 2, relations between the United States of America and the Union of

Soviet Socialist Republics, or USSR for short, rapidly deteriorated and the nations quickly came

into disagreement about the future of Europe and its countries and thus the Cold War was born.

The Cold War was a standoff between the former allies of WWII, the U.S. and democratic

European countries such as England and France and Russia and its socialist countries that

supported it. Throughout this conflict the were scares of oncoming nuclear war, such as the
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Cuban Missile Crisis, and this fear rooted itself deeply into peoples personal lives and it affected

many of the things that they did and the way that they behaved. Many people began to build

underground bunkers to protect themselves against the fallout, and also nuclear fear found its

way into public culture and literature, entertainment, and other creative outlets began to reflect

this fear into substance. Books were written about what could happen to humanity in the case of

an atomic apocalypse, movies were produced, songs sung, culture was strongly affected by the

Cold War. This was the world that 1984 was born into and what it was influenced by. In the

book 1984 there had been numerous nuclear attacks that had occurred before the totalitarian

regime had taken power. Also, the constant wars that the three countries were occupied in were

possibly influenced by the seemingly endless wars that the world was experiencing with World

War One and Two and the approaching Cold War. Now, times have changed in some ways

atleast, wars still are waging but no longer is the entire world engulfed in fighting and the world

seems to to be leaning to a more democratic or at least a more open society. Humans are still

going to be offended by books and other forms of entertainment that do not have the same

opinion as themselves but because of todays growing openness, the book will have a much

harder time being banned than it did at the time of its publication. It can be and will be

challenged but people ideals have changed and they are on the whole more willing to listen and

think on opinions that they themselves do not hold. Information and beliefs, whether facts or

someones opinion are important to the society that humans live in today.

In todays society it is important for as much information as possible to be presented to

the public so that they can stay informed and also form their own opinions and ideals. Once a

group decides to restrict the public from accessing books, you are limiting the publics

knowledge and changing their opinions because they no longer have the option to read the
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literature and evaluate for themselves whether it is something that is valid and whether or not

they choose to believe in the authors opinion. Most of the reason that 1984 was banned was

because it did not fall into line with what the challengers believed and they did not think of the

other people that would be affected by this removal of information from the publics view. Also

if the government began to limit information it is very possible that 1984s and Fahrenheit 451s

depiction of government could take root in our world today.

In Fahrenheit 451 the national government censored all written literature. They

claimed that it was done to take all of the sadness out of a persons life and to make everyone

happy. The side effect of this was that people lost the value of life, life became a joyride where

everyone was just looking for the next fun fix and they did not look any deeper into

themselves or think about how their actions would affect other people. In 1984, the governments

plan was the exact opposite, it wanted to remove all fun and enjoyment out its citizens lives so

that they would not rebel against the government if the times got rough because they made the

times always rough. The government put the citizens into a constant state of fear to discourage

rebellion, You had to live--did live, from habit that became instinct--in the assumption that

every sound you made was overheard, and, except in darkness, every movement scrutinized

(Orwell 3). But as in 1984 the government censored all the information that it fed to the citizen,

but in Fahrenheit 451 the government did away with written literature as its form of literature,

1984 just manipulated every piece of information to create an image of perfectness of the

government to create a wall to the citizens to discourage revolution, because to them the

government appeared as omnipotent and all powerful and no one wanted to challenge it. In the

end though both of the novels succeeded in removing all happiness from the lives of the citizens

through censorship.
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Over the 67 years that 1984 has existed, it has been challenged in many different way,

most though because of how controversial the government is in the book and how it can be

interpreted in so many ways that offend people. The history behind the book is nearly as

interesting as the book itself. Thankfully due to the knowledge hungry, freedom seeking society

that we live in, it is very unlikely that this masterpiece will ever be banned for long.