Dark Irony: 75th Anniversary Edition Of Orwell’s 1984 Comes With Trigger Warnings

Authored by Steve Watson via Modernity.news,

A new 75th anniversary edition of George Orwell’s dystopian classic 1984 includes ‘trigger warnings’ in the introduction written by an American professor.

The College Fix reports that the warning comes:

Courtesy of Dolen Perkins-Valdez, who according to her website has “established herself as a pre-eminent chronicler of American historical life,”and teaches literature at American University.

According to the report, the introduction, authorised by the Orwell estate, makes note that “there are no Black characters at all” in the novel.

What? Why is this relevant to the book?

I’ll have to wait till I finish my read to see exactly what you are referring to, but I took a look at the introductory essay by Dolen Perkins-Valdez, and am in dismay at aspects of it:

“That sliver of connection can be difficult for someone like me to find in a novel that does… pic.twitter.com/NPMPaSmi51

— Mark Blair (@mblair) June 2, 2025

When Orwell wrote the novel in the late 1940s, black people made up less than 1% of the English population.

The report adds:

For a “contemporary reader” such as herself, Perkins-Valdez says this gives her “pause.” She also says a “sliver of connection” is difficult with a book that “does not speak much to race and ethnicity.”

Yeah, the novel isn’t supposed to be about race and ethnicity.

In your world where you have to make absolutely everything about race, this book isn’t going to connect.

It is all she knows how to do: look for herself in other people’s stories. Use her own racial identity as a lens through which to judge (not truly evaluate, but judge) everything she encounters. This sort of narcissism is endemic.

— Brian Patrick Eha (@brianeha) June 3, 2025

Perkins-Valdez continues, “I’m enjoying the novel on its own terms, not as a classic but as a good story. That is, until Winston [Smith] reveals himself to be a problematic character.”

Yeah. He’s supposed to be. But in what way do you mean?

“For example, we learn of him he dislikes nearly all women. And especially the young and pretty ones,” she further explains.

Faceplam.

“Winston’s views on women are, at first, despicable for the contemporary reader. He is the kind of character that can make me put a book down,” she adds. 

Imagine if Orwell had instead written Winston as a woke liberal policing his own thoughts. The Party wouldn’t even need Big Brother.

Journalist Matt Taibbi, along with his podcast host Walter Kirn pointed out how idiotic this all is, given that the book is a warning about the erosion of language and freedom of thought.

In which you will learn that the current leading paperback version of 1984, its official Orwell-estate-approved 75th anniversary edition, includes a 1984-ish trigger-warning introduction calling the novel’s hero “problematic” because of his “misogyny.”

I am not making this up. https://t.co/U9UAR3dsdQ

— Walter Kirn (@walterkirn) June 2, 2025

The 1984 part of the discussion begins at 1 hour 36 mins:

America This Week, Live on Monday 6-2-25 https://t.co/Lc1K4WEGC1

— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) June 2, 2025

The material in 1984 is supposed to be traumatising, that’s the entire point of the book. Putting trigger warnings on it is ludicrous and only proves Orwell was prescient.

Having this drivel as an introduction to one of the most iconic dystopian works of literature is like something out of Idiocracy.

It mirrors the novel’s own warnings about ideological conformity and the rewriting of art to appease dogmatic sensitivities.

It’s insulting.

Who on Earth commissioned it?

Perhaps the same people who agreed to a politically correct modern day re-write of 1984 from a feminist perspective.

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