Orwell masterfully describes the worst possible dystopia - mass thought control. The novel is divided into 3 distinct parts. In the first one, the main protagonist Winston Smith, an ordinary outer Party member, commits a "crimethink" - he questions the reality presented by the Party, desperately yearns to know the truth about the past and hopes that change is possible. He also goes as far as committing outward acts of disobedience: he starts a journal, falls in love and becomes a member of the "Brotherhood", a so-called underground dissident movement. In Part II of the novel, Winston, predictably, gets arrested and goes through interrogation and torture, the final goal of which is complete suppression of any independent thought and total brainwashing. In Part II, he wishes for death and expects to be publicly executed. However, sometimes death is not the worst end. In Part III, we see Winston as a shell of a man, completely emptied of any will, rational thought or human emotion. He is a picture of hopelessness, a person so thoroughly crushed by the system that the only way he can function is by getting drunk every day. He exists in a perpetual state of stupor.
I think Orwell's portrayal of this horrific "what-if" world is genius. It is a standing warning to always beware of any system that discourages freedom of thought/speech, rewrites history or tells people how to think. A must read for everyone.
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