1984

My only 5/5. 1984 is a book that feels so personally impactful in a way that I can't describe, and the fact that it feels this way despite being written almost a century ago in the wake of the end of World War II gives me a perspective on humanity that I never have had before, and this perspective is only magnified and echoed by the narrative of the story.
Below are spoilers. PLEASE don't read them unless you have read the book, or you have absolutely no interest in doing so (which if so you should really reconsider!!)
Winston lives in a society robbed of humanity, and to me, this is something exemplified more than anything else in the story. Yes, there is more of an emphasis on perpetual surveillance for citizens in the descriptions of Oceania (the country that Winston lives in), but the root of not only the problems, but every aspect of the state of their whole world is rooted from an absence of humanity. During the second half of the book, when the state of the world is spelled out to Winston through a black market book written by an enemy of the Party, it is explained that the current state of Oceania (and all societies in the world) came about as a result of class struggle for power. It explained how as people became conscious of the cycle of power being handed from one class to another, there was a widespread need to defeat said struggle by the higher class. The higher class then came up with the Party, which intentionally starves the lower and middle class and keeps them just barely alive and barely educated so that there is no chance of a revolution, and to combat overproduction, which could not be avoided, a state of war that is by design never ending was enacted to spend resources on. The Party crushes any and all opposition, not by simply killing opposition, but by truly convincing them of wrongdoing. Someone convicted of a thoughtcrime (a high offense, I should add) is not left alone until they have truly been convinced otherwise, and the Party gets their way with this. In theory, this system should work, and in practice, it does- but in all of this, every ounce of humanity is lost. It is stated by O'Brien, a Party member, that the object of obtaining power is power. Power is the ultimate goal of the Party, and that is the only end that the Party seeks, and this simple fact articulates the lack of humanity within the Party. So does the narrative of the middle of the story, where Winston falls in love with a woman, and the goal is to keep this fact hidden completely from the government, all while keeping the knowledge that things would definitely end with the both of them being captured and murdered.