《1984》文学教育丛书.docVIP

1984 George Orwell [Eric Blair] Published: 1949 George Orwell was the pen name of an Englishman named Eric Blair. He was born in Bengal in 1903, educated at Eton, and after service with the Indian Imperial Police in Burma, returned to Europe to earn his living writing novels and essays. He was essentially a political writer who wrote of his own times, a man of intense feelings and fierce hates. He hated totalitarianism, and served in the Loyalist forces in the Spanish Civil War. He was critical of Communism but was himself a Socialist. He distrusted intellectuals, although he was a literary critic. He hated cant and lying and cruelty in life and in literature. He died at forty-seven of a neglected lung ailment, leaving behind a substantial body of work, a growing reputation for greatness, and the conviction that modern man was inadequate to cope with the demands of his history. Works: Burmese Days 1934 Down and Out in Paris 1933 The Road to Wigan Pier 1937 Homage to Catalonia 1936 Animal Farm 1945 1984 1949 Nineteen Eighty-Four was first published by Martin Secker Warburg, London, in 1949.The first paperback edition was published by Penguin Books, Harmondsworth, in 1954. Since then it has been reprinted in the Penguin edition twenty-six times. Summary The Story starts, as the title tells us, in the year of 1984, and it takes place in England or how it is called at that time, Airstrip One. Airstrip One itself is the mainland of a huge country, called Oceania, which consists of North America, South Africa, and Australia. The country is ruled by the Party, which is led by a figure called Big Brother. The population of Oceania is divided into three parts: 1.The Inner Party (app. 1% of the population) 2.The Outer Party (app. 18% of the population) 3.The Proles The narrator of the book is Third Person Limited. The protagonist is Winston Smith, a member of the OuterParty, working in the Records Department of the