Nineteen Eightyfour
Date: 1981
Region: North America
Subject: Political/Economic/Social Opinion Sexual/Gender Orientation
Medium: Literature
Artist: George Orwell (1903 - 1950)
Confronting Bodies: Widefield School District
Date of Action: 1981
Location: Jackson County, Florida, USA
Description of Artwork: Nineteen Eighty-Four (first published in 1949) is a novel about Oceania, a society ruled by the oligarchical dictatorship of the Party. Life in the Oceanian province of Airstrip One is a world of perpetual war, pervasive government surveillance, and incessant public mind control, accomplished with a political system euphemistically named English Socialism (Ingsoc), which is administrated by a privileged Inner Party elite. Yet they too are subordinated to the totalitarian cult of personality of Big Brother, the deified Party leader who rules with a philosophy that decries individuality and reason as thoughtcrimes; thus the people of Oceania are subordinated to a supposed collective greater good. The protagonist, Winston Smith, is a member of the Outer Party who works for the Ministry of Truth (Minitrue), which is responsible for propaganda and historical revisionism. His job is to re-write past newspaper articles so that the
historical record is congruent with the current party ideology. Because of the childhood trauma of the destruction of his family — the disappearances of his parents and sister — Winston Smith secretly hates the Party, and dreams of rebellion against Big Brother.
The Incident: The School Board challenged the presence of Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four in its schools and libraries, claiming that the book was pro-communism, anti-Semitic, and had sexual references.
Results of Incident: It was banned in 1981 but now it is no longer banned.
Source: forbidden library; http://www.geekosystem.com/power-grid/10+Banned+Science+Fiction+Novels/Nineteen+Eighty+Four/; Wikipedia
