#écrit

Good and Bad, no matter how distinct they appear to be, they definitely are relative. They interrelate to one another, and more than that, they are complementary and interdependent. Good cannot simply be without the being of Bad.

Though, by human nature, we savor happiness and well-being yet loathe sadness and grief, we cannot go through one without encountering the other. One cannot interpret well-being without previously undergoing ill-being. We cannot fathom pleasure without already knowing pain.

O you who overflow with grief and sadness, do not despair and give in, there’s more in life than the mere actual moment, and along with every hardship lies relief.

Once born, the baby cries before offering smiles, for being sad is learning to be content.

After reading George Orwell’s book Animal Farm and his life-changing dystopian 1984, I happened to be struck with a very powerful and triumphant point; why it is important to read.

In general, the books  reflect  events leading up to the Russian Revolution of 1917 and then on into the Stalinist era of the Soviet Union. Orwell, a democratic socialist, was remarkably known to be a critic of Stalinism.

Anyways, why is it so important to read?

In the Animal Farm, Old Major – who symbolizes Marxism – was the oldest pig, he had assembled all the farm’s animals before he died. “Comrades, you have heard already about the strange dream that I had last night.” He had a dream of a world in which animals would live without the tyranny of the farm’s owner, Mr. Jones. – Who symbolizes Russia’s last tsar, Nicholas II.

Animalism – which symbolizes Communism – was a system of ideals that Old Major established, which were put into words and hung on the barn wall for all animals to see.

After the rebellion of the animals against Mr. Jones, pigs were the ruling class, and as time passed by, they had started taking excessive advantage of all of it.

Clover was a female horse – who symbolizes the working class people – and when the pigs begin sleeping in beds, she thought that she remembered a rule against animals sleeping in beds.

Like in the Animal Farm, countless people are currently living under tyranny and opression. They are being, on ongoing basis, disdainfully patronized, fooled, with their rights being abducted away from them with all complacency and indifference.

In fact, the female horse, Clover, was right. One of the ideals was “4. No animal shall sleep in a bed.” But how could she prove the pigs’ deviation from the authentic laws if she could not read?

Clover represents those people who are able to distinguish deviation, but are helpless to change anything.

Another important moment was that of Clover watching other animals being executed by the ruling pig, Napoleon. – who symbolizes Stalin. – “As Clover looked down the hillside her eyes filled with tears. If she could have spoken her thoughts, it would have been to say that this was not what they had aimed at when they had set themselves years ago…”

The key phrase is, “If she could have spoken her thoughts.” But could she? Clover was not so good in using her words. She could not read.

Like the Animal Farm,1984 also speaks of betrayed revolution. The ruling party, which led to the revolution (in a very particular way), started to change and to take advantage of the people’s hard work. People were living under a totalitarian tyrant system. There was no such thing as freedom. “Nothing was your own except the few cubic centimetres inside your skull.” For, “Big Brother [Oceania’s autocrat] is watching you.”

Until now, you may think just ‘knowing words’ might be useless. Well, that isn’t as futile and as simple as it might sound. In Orwell’s 1984novel, the totalitarian state Oceania had created a controlled language, the Newspeak, as a tool to actually limit thought. Yes, to limit thought! By reducing the vocabulary of the actual language.

The Newspeak had barely something new. It was English, but a more limited one. It attempted to eliminate personal thought by restricting one’s expressiveness.

By creating the Newspeak, Big Brother sought to tighten the range of thought through “the Destruction of words.” “It’s a beautiful thing, the Destruction of words.” Says Syme who works with Winston, the main character, at the Ministry of Truth.

Big Brother, who was all the time watching them through the Telescreen, managed to narrow the range of thoughts and concepts that would pose a threat to the regime, such as self-expression, individuality and freedom generally, in order for Thoughtcrime – the crime of simply thinking – to be “literally impossible.”

“Don’t you see that the whole aim of Newspeak is to narrow the range of thought? In the end we shall make thoughtcrime literally impossible, because there will be no words in which to express it.” For the less you express yourself, the less you’re likely to make change.

In conculsion, and in Orwell’s view, the deluded dominated people must seek for knowledge. They need to wake up, to be aware, to become “concious”. For it is by conciousness that Truth would result, and it is within Truth that lies freedom.

“Until they became conscious they will never rebel…”

The more I gave to others, the more I gave up on me. Giving is not always as good as greed wants you to perceive it. The more I got along well with others, the less I did with myself. I have traded my self-satisfaction for others’ phantom satisfaction of me. Since my arrival to where I am now, or think I am at least, life changed and I didn’t have to, I didn’t have to but I had. Life changed and even though I had changed accordingly, I was still the odd one out, it was I the stranger. I felt different and still do. But am I really different? Yes, I reckon. In accordance to my affiliations, my identity components and who I am, I am different. Different just like everyone else is, for everyone is different and that is what makes everyone the same.