It gives the viewer hope (and is not the only one of Orwell’s novels to have a challenging ending significantly changed for the big screen to make it less bleak). For those familiar with the novel, this is a significant textual variation which completely changes the meaning conveyed about Winston’s own mental freedom and the omniscience of the regime that controls Oceania. Radford had apparently taken the liberty of having Winston tracing 2+2 = rather than adding the 5. Please view the final scene at the Chestnut Tree Café for thirty seconds or so before reading on. Hurt, whose physical appearance was not dissimilar to Orwell’s, gives a memorable performance. Michael Radford cast the late John Hurt as Winston for his superb film adaptation of the novel (released in 1984). Orwell, who was extremely ill while drafting the novel, died shortly after it was published from pulmonary tuberculosis. This is symbolised by the disturbing image of Winston tracing 2+2=5 with his finger in the dust on the table at the Chestnut Tree Café as he plays a solitary game of chess. The first British and American editions of Orwell’s great satirical novel, Nineteen Eighty-Four, published in June 1949, conclude with the protagonist, Winston Smith, intellectually and physically broken by an oppressive totalitarian regime. Which edition of George Orwell’s most famous novel is on your shelf and why does it matter?
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