Reading Memorial High School - Pioneer Yearbook (Reading, MA)

Page 10 text:

George Orwell’s momentous novel, 1984, de ■ ibes a world in which war, alienation, dehumaniza ion, and fear are the only constants. Society is hierar and consists of several echelons. Big Brother itely rules Oceania, one of the three nations make up the world. The story focuses on one ir Party member, Winston Smith. In illustrating both the monotonous lifestyle of Smith, and the furtive iduality of this man, Orwell provides the reader a duality of vision; we gain a comprehensive under- fo the rigid and limited life experience of the member, as well as insight to Smith’s coura- if unusual and ultimately suicidal, thoughts. ie point during Smith ' s childhood, the state of it and worldwide nuclear warfare had resulted creation of three separate nations, all headed by itor. London, where Smith lived, became a part mia. From that point on, life had become a of blurry past, fearful future, and endlessly id present. The Party’s motivation for con- life in such a manner is the statement: ’ho controls the past, controls the future: controls the present controls the past. ” The Party work, community are constantly eluded from this feel it necessary to ex them; it is believed rebel. All over Oceania, there are posters of Big Brother which read, Big Brother is watching you! ” This is sym¬ bolic of the way in which the Party members are under constant surveilance. There are four means by which the Party member is watched: he is surrounded twen¬ ty-four hours a day by telescreens, two-way televi¬ sions by which he can be constantly seen and heard; his peers are commanded to report any non-conforming behavior amongst them; the Thought Police, an undis- tinguishable member of which may be present at any time, discover and punish those who commit thought crimes’’; and finally, the Party member monitors him¬ self by participating in “doublethink , a process de¬ scribed by Orwell in the following manner: To know and not to know, to be conscious of com¬ plete truthfulness while telling carefully constructed lies, to hold simultaneoulsy two opinions which cancelled out, knowing them to be contradictory and believing in both of them, to use logic against logic, to repudiate morality while laying claim to it, to believe that democ¬ racy was impossible and that the Party was the guard¬ ian of democracy, to forget, whatever it was neces¬ sary to forget, then draw it back into memory again at the moment it was needed, and then promptly to forget it again, and above all, to apply the same pro¬ cess to the process itself — that was the ultimate subtlety: consciously to induce unconsciousness, and then, once again, to become unconscious of the act of hypnosis you had just performed. Even to understand ’doublethink’ involved the use of doublethink. Thus, by restricting the individual in his thoughts, emotions, and actions, the Party controls the pre¬ sent; it therefore controls the past, and therefore the future. All of the aforementioned is a thematic summary of the novel. In terms of plot, the story involves both Smith and a young girl named Julia. These two became lovers, despite the Party’s condemnation of such. Their lovemaking is both a romantic and a political act — the ultimate rebuttal of the Party. The pair seeks to become a part of the legendary underground move¬ ment, which hopes to destroy the power of the Party by introducing corruption from the inside-out. While the Party was aware of their thoughtcrimes , it chose to place Winston and Julia at a pinnacle of hope before apprehending them, thereby making their fall to reality all the more harsh. All of their apparently successful efforts to escape suspicion of thoughtcrime, there¬ fore, are to no avail. Indeed, their lovemaking, a politi¬ cal statement, becomes null, and their individuality is crushed when the Party decides to confront them. Once the Party has decided to act upon Winston and Julia’s thoughtcrimes, the pair is put on an extreme

Page 9 text:

Nature As a fond mother, when the day is o ' er, Leads by the hand hen little child to bed, Half willing, half reluctant to be led, And leave his broken playthings on the floor, Still gazing at them through the open door, Nor wholly reassured and comforted By promises of others in their stead, Which, though more splendid, may not please him more: So Nature deals with us, and takes away Our playthings one by one, and by the hand Leads us to rest so gently, that we go Scarce knowing if we wish to go or to stay, Being too full of sleep to understand How far the unknown transcends the what we know. — Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Page 11 text:

program of physical and mental torture. This process is geared towards forcing them into becoming typical, apathetic Oceania citizens. Ultimately, this entails to¬ tal adoration for Big Brother. Both characters are pre¬ vented from this end by their love for one another. Then, this too. is crushed. In room 101, the criminals are plagued by their worst fear Cfor Winston, this is of rats) and, in order to save themselves, betray one another. Julia justifies their betrayals of one another in the following manner: Sometimes, they threaten you with something — something you can’t stand up to. can ' t even think about. And you say, ’Don’t do it to me do it to some¬ body else, do it to so-and-so. And perhaps you might pretend, afterwards, that it was only a trick and that you just said it to make them stop and didn’t really mean it. But that isn’t true. At the time when it hap¬ pens you do mean it. You think there’s no other way of saving yourself and you’re quite ready to save yourself that way. You want it to happen to the other person. You don ' t give a damn what they suffer. All you care about is yourself. And after that, you don’t feel the same toward the other person any more. 1984 has been termed a ’negative utopia. ” This classification is the result of an omnipresent mood of powerlessness and hopelessness in Orwell’s modern man. Utopian novels, on the other hand, expressed the mood of self-confidence and hope which typified post-medieval man. In his afterword, Erich Fromm states, There could be nothing more paradoxical in historical terms than this change: man, at the begin¬ ning of the industrial age, when in reality he did not possess the means for a world in which the table was set for all who wanted to eat, when he lived in a world in which there were economic reasons for slavery, war, and exploitation, in which man only sensed the possibili¬ ties of his new science and of its application to tech¬ nique and to production — never-the-less man at the beginning of modern development was full of hope. Four hundred years later, when all those hopes are realizable, and when man can produce enough for ev¬ erybody, when war has become uneccessary because technical progress can give any country more wealth then can territorial conquest, when their globe is in the process of becoming as unified as a continent was four hundred years ago, at the very moment when man is on the verge of realizing his hope, he begins to lose it. ” It is imperative that one recognize this historical para¬ dox when one reads 1984. The book must not be misconstrued as merely a pessimistic or fatalistic perspective, or as merely another description of Rus¬ sian communism. Orwell ' s 1984 is foremost a warn¬ ing for modern man; it pertains to the emerging pro¬ cess of production and consumption which threatens to transform men into machines, and machines into men. This state of managerial industrialism has over¬ whelmed modern man, regardless of his myriad and differing ideologies. It is, however, the hope that Orwell communicates, which has struck the editors of Pioneer ' 84 as relevant to Reading Memorial High School. Orwell implies that to render man the pathetic being which his book de¬ scribes, to take from him his need for freedom, dignity, integrity, and love, would require an extreme and ruth¬ less means. In 1984, that means is the unrestricted use of fear, as objectified in room 1 01. Because he percieves human nature and human needs as integral parts of our existence. Orwell implies a certain amount of hope — of potential to avoid such disaster by the inevitable assertion of our needs. As your editors, we sought to illustrate the many ways in which our community has opposed the warning of Orwell. The various divider titles serve this purpose. In designating the senior class as the Party mem¬ bers , the underclassmen as Proles , and the faculty as the Thought Police , for example, we aspired to contrast Orwell’s ficticious world of 1 0B4, with our own world of 1 984. TABLE OF CONTENTS The Thought Police. p. S The Party Members.p. 26 The Proles ..p. 80 Doing the Physical Jerks.p. 96 The Ministries. p. 1 28