1984 by George Orwell

Could the world portrayed in 1984 ever really exist? This question haunts readers from the first to the last pages of Orwell’s novel. Sadly, the answer is ‘yes’; or at least Orwell hopes that readers will leave 1984 accepting the possibility enough to question government and tread cautiously into the future. Orwell intends to portray Oceania just realistically enough to convince contemporary readers that such a society has, in fact, existed and could exist again if …

…act of recording his present circumstances constituted extreme disloyalty to the Party because Winston was actually documenting history. Totalitarian rulers throughout history, including Hitler and Pol Pot (the leader of the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia), destroyed books and exterminated journalists and intellectuals because they understood the power of documentation and history. While Orwell clearly shows that history is mutable, he also proves that this type of mutation leads to the death of culture and freedom.