Month / May 2017

by Ben

George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four is more than a work of fiction. It is a dire warning. Explore the means by which Orwell reaches through the decades and grabs us by the neck. What is he trying to tell us?

The aspect that i intend to explore through my study of “1984” and the relevance it has with todays society is the totalitarian government and its control through fear in our modern era.

Key moments for this include:

  • Within “1984” Big Brother (the governing body within airstrip one) is everywhere. On posters and walls as well as nearly every aspect of daily life, Big Brother controls what you do, think, eat and even feel. Big Brother controls everything – information, the past, the present and inevitably both physical and psychological needs. He is a friend and the enemy of your enemy. He will protect you and save you as he wishes. Within the book, Totalitarianism is big brother and vice versa. Examples can be seen everywhere throughout the text.
  • items including psychological manipulation whereby the party barrages its subjects with psychological stimuli designed to overwhelm the mind’s capacity for independent thought. The giant telescreen in every citizen’s room blasts a constant stream of propaganda designed to make the failures and shortcomings of the Party appear to be triumphant success. The telescreens also monitor behaviors; everywhere they go, citizens are continuously reminded, especially by means of the omnipresent signs reading “BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING YOU,” that the authorities are scrutinising them.
  • The Party undermines family structure by inducting children into an organisation called the Junior Spies, which brainwashes and encourages them to spy on their parents and report any instance of disloyalty to the Party.
  • The Party also forces individuals to suppress their personal desires, treating sex and forms of emotional contact as merely a procreative duty whose end is the creation of new Party members. An example within the text is Julia, Winston’s lover ironically enlisted within the Junior Anti-sex League. The Party then channels people’s pent-up frustration and emotion into intense, ferocious displays of hatred against the Party’s political enemies. Many of these enemies have been invented by the Party exclusively for this purpose.