We Need to Stop Teaching 1984

George Orwell’s canonical classic fails to deliver in today’s English classrooms. 

Being one of the classics, George Orwell’s 1984 is often taught in high schools across America––I should know, I just finished reading it in my own English class. However, despite being highly-esteemed as “the great modern classic of ‘negative utopia’,” according to the back of my Signet Classics version of the book, I believe that it’s about time we stopped teaching 1984 in high schools. 

For one, 1984 is incredibly outdated in its values and portrayals, specifically of women. Orwell published 1984 in 1949, which was––as any year was back then––packed with incredibly sexist advertisements, stereotypes, and views. It’s no surprise that 1984 is a product of its time, and reflects those views in its story and they reflect the most regarding the book’s most prominent female character, Julia. The first time the protagonist, Winston, ever describes her (and almost every single time he describes her), he focuses on her body, and rarely anything else. Additionally, we see him later admit that “he disliked nearly all women, and especially the young and pretty ones,” and that “he hated [Julia] because she was young and pretty and sexless, because he wanted to go to bed with her and would never do so.” Essentially, Winston despises Julia because he feels a sense of entitlement towards sex with her, and gets angry when he can’t––so angry to the point where he starts having physically torturous fantasies about her. This sense of entitlement that, unfortunately, many men still have about women to this day shouldn’t live in the books we are being taught in school. And this isn’t the only example of misogyny in 1984. The media we consume has an effect on us, so it’s important to consume and teach the media that doesn’t perpetuate outdated and incorrect views on women. 

There may be arguments that the misogyny in 1984 isn’t plaid-old misogyny; that it serves a purpose, and helps further the themes of the book––that Orwell was a genius when implementing these snippets of sexism in his work. I say that’s highly unlikely. For one, as mentioned before, Orwell was a man living in the 40s, meaning he was surrounded by the aforementioned sexist advertisements and stereotypes, where the media grabs at the male gaze. It would be no surprise that he learned these views and carried them with him through his life, infusing them into his books. If that doesn’t seem convincing, in Gordon Bowker’s biography of Orwell titled George Orwell, he quotes Orwell’s friend, Stephen Spender, who said, “Orwell was very misogynist. I don’t know why. [He] was a strange sort of eccentric man full of strange ideas and strange prejudices. One was that he thought women were extremely inferior and stupid…He really rather despised women.” With a description of Orwell from his own friend as a misogynist, it’s fairly safe to assume that the sexism in 1984 is not a literary device. 

Additionally, terrible portrayals of women aren’t exclusive to 1984. Just scrolling through the subreddit r/MenWritingWomen (or reading a Stephen King book) will show how much apparent trouble a lot of male authors have when it comes to portraying women in their writing. Clearly, 1984’s misogyny isn’t a cleverly-planned way to further a theme. 

But maybe––just maybe––we can look past the misogyny in 1984. Maybe we can be sure to emphasize how outdated the book is when we teach it in English classes, and be certain to use it as a learning opportunity; as a way to tell people “this is how not to do it.” Maybe we can do all of that if 1984 truly has an important message, one that cannot be replicated with any other book. Only, it doesn’t. 

The main message of 1984 is that it is a warning against the dangers of totalitarianism. In theory, warning readers of the horrific and perilous outcomes of a government that surveils your every move and makes sure to keep you submissive and controlled would be a fantastic piece of literature to teach. The problem lies in that 1984 fell short of its purpose. 

Some people may raise an eyebrow, asking “how can you know that 1984 failed to warn us when we’ve never experienced a society like the one Orwell describes?” To those people, I offer: Trump’s presidency.

Not to sound like one of those preposterous, blue-haired, misandrist, “thug liberals” (quoting straight from Fox News host and proud Trump supporter, Tomi Lahren), but Trump’s presidency shares incredible parallels to 1984. 

My first example is the shared use of fear to control citizens. In 1984, the use of telescreens to monitor citizens’ moves and stories of the consequences experienced by previous people who committed “thoughtcrime” scares citizens into blindly following the directions of the Party. We can see this exact same use of fear throughout Trump’s presidency: where he made sure to hammer home the point of how supposedly-dangerous immigrants are and how anyone from the Middle East is immediately a threat to Americans’ safety––in order to get the public on his side when announcing plans to build a wall across the border between the United States and Mexico, and passed a travel ban on predominantly Muslim countries. He uses fear to rally citizens together, and pull them onto his side for support in whatever decision he makes to “defend America against all threats and protect America against all dangers”––as he claimed in his August 2020 speech at the Republican National Convention. 

One of the most shocking parts of 1984 is that, near the end of the book, Winston is tortured to the point where he admits that 2 + 2 = 5. It’s a shocking thing because, well, how could anyone deny math, the most basic principle and the most universally-accepted fact? Similarly, how could anyone deny science? Well, it’s been denied, alright. With the recent outbreak of COVID-19, many scientists and virus experts have released information on how the virus works, how it spreads, and the best ways to avoid it. Many vaccine developers have also explained how a COVID-19 vaccine, or any vaccine really, works. These are medical professionals who have majored in science and who, when using common sense, should be trusted when it comes to information on a medical issue. And yet, there are still people across the nation who deny this science, and who continue to insist that COVID-19 was a planned conspiracy; that wearing masks don’t protect anyone; and that vaccines are just a way to implant chips into us. Perhaps the 2 + 2 = 5 incident doesn’t seem absurdly dystopian now. 

This is a smooth transition to the aspects of 1984 that are related to rewriting history. Winston’s job is to destroy historical documents and rewrite them so they fit into what the Party wants. Now, although Trump wasn’t sitting at a shredder every day destroying history books and ripping out pages of Yuval Noah Harari’s Sapiens (at least, not to my knowledge), he was a big fan of denial. In 2018, Trump implemented an immigration policy that allowed federal authorities to separate children from their parents when entering the United States, and gave full permission to toss them in cages while their parents were prosecuted in an attempt to deter those in the future from immigration. After six weeks, this policy was repealed––but nearly 3,000 children were separated, and many minors are still in custody. What ensured when Trump was asked about this policy? Well, “when I became president, President Obama had a separation policy. I didn’t have it, he had it. I brought the families together. I’m the one that brought them together”––all claims from a 2019 interview. 2 + 2 equals 5 and history: what the government tells you now. 

Now, my point in all this isn’t to criticize Trump’s presidency: It’s to bring to light how we live in a society that shares far too many similarities to 1984. It’s to show that, despite the main point of the book being to warn us of a controlling government, we slipped into one anyways. The book wasn’t effective at preventing or warning us, so why continue to teach such a cautionary tale? 

It is my very strong belief that any good book should be at least one thing: above all, interesting. Donna Tartt, author of The Goldfinch, explains, “the first duty of the novelist is to entertain.” It is also my belief––something that is much more of a personal opinion than anything I’ve previously mentioned––that this is yet another area where 1984 drops the ball. 

The characters are flat, and to some, unlikable. If Winston’s horrific fantasies didn’t crush your fondness of him, perhaps his extreme lack of any definitive traits will. From there, it’s very difficult to enjoy a novel when you simply don’t care for the journey of the protagonist. Without wanting to root for his personal journey, reading the book feels like watching grass grow––and then simply shrugging when the grass becomes brainwashed by its government at the end. Everything in a novel has significantly less impact when its main character is someone you would only pay attention to if you were required to read it in an English class. Case in point. Aside from the characters, the plot just seems to drag on, and the writing is nothing stylistically special.

To put it plainly, the book is boring. And in a setting full of sleepy teenagers with constant deadlines looming over their heads, interest is an important aspect necessary in a book to help the purposes of entertaining and teaching them.

All in all, I don’t have a personal vendetta against 1984. I’m not an advocate for banning books (who am I to infringe on free will?) and I don’t think any less of people who do genuinely enjoy this book––to each their own. I know plenty of people, either personally or in Goodreads reviews, who say that 1984 is a book that they only started liking when they grew older, and believe that those who dislike the book will understand it when they’re older, and perhaps they’re right; maybe I’ll pick the book up one day in my future, and find that my entire view of it changes. But if 1984 is a book that’s best enjoyed with more life experience under your belt, why do we teach it in high school?

1984 serves no purpose to high schoolers––other than perhaps granting them the ability to understand the references of phrases such as “Orwellian” or “doublethink.” Otherwise, it’s a book with outdated views, a failure to fulfill its main message, and a lack of anything interesting––a book that we should keep out of our high school English curriculums.