AP Lit Blog Post #3

I started reading Nineteen Eighty-Four almost immediately after finishing Animal Farm. I intended to read Animal Farm before reading Nineteen Eighty-Four, and I am glad I did. Reading Animal Farm was an incredible background experience to reading the nightmarish prophecy Nineteen Eighty-Four. I think, with Nineteen Eighty-Four, Orwell continued from where he was in his message after finishing Animal Farm. One difference I made note of was how abruptly Orwell started Nineteen Eighty-Four. This especially caught me by surprise after reading Animal Farm, which had a relatively slow yet steady build up to the end when the pigs completed their transformation. In Nineteen Eighty-Four, Orwell wastes no time at all getting to the harsh details of Big Brother, the Thought Police, the constant surveillance, the distortion of information, or the generally uncomfortable living conditions. I also quickly realized Orwell used much more detail and imagery in Nineteen Eighty-Four as compared to Animal Farm. I imagine he did this not only because he intended Animal Farm to be read by a much larger audience of very diverse age groups, but also to make Nineteen Eighty-Four easier to imagine. The imagery in Nineteen Eighty-Four is meant to be captivating, blunt, and above all – frightening. Nineteen Eighty-Four was Orwell’s way of saying “or else.” In the first third of the book, this story has already consisted of constant surveillance, in the form of both video and audio; the sudden and utter disappearances of individuals by the hand of the Thought Police during the night, casually referred to as being “vaporized;” a language praised for its constantly shrinking vocabulary and elimination of ‘unnecessary words,’ which was called Newspeak; and the acceptance of information as truth, despite being constantly changed and having no legitimate basis in reality. Like Animal Farm, Nineteen Eighty-Four is meant to convey how thoroughly populations can be manipulated, suppressed, and exploited, regardless of intelligence. With regard to these stories, I believe Orwell agrees with Edmund Burke's quote "The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men should do nothing."