A.C.E. ENGLISH II 1984 PAPER
In George Orwell’s novel 1984, the authoritarian government known as Big Brother controlled and watched the citizens via numerous types of technology. Through telescreens, microphones, cameras, and ‘thought police’, the government was able to keep complete dominance over the people. While Orwell’s ideas of technology were ahead of his own time (1948), they should not be dismissed. With the way our technology continues to develop, there is no way of telling how it will affect us in the future. Once you put the control of this new information and technology into the wrong hands, they can become very dangerous, as shown in 1984.
This essay will propose that George Orwell was a man ahead of his time, and may eventually be correct with his predictions for the future. Along with the dangers of technology the dangers of Totalitarianism is another major threat in the future. In 1984, Orwell gave hints to warn readers of the very real possibility of letting Totalitarianism go unopposed; a version of his novel’s world could take place in some way. Another topic that expressed some type of control of the people within Orwell’s novel was the language. Big Brother created Newspeak, which replaced English, with the goal of nobody being able to conceptualize anything that will question the Party’s power. An additional theme of the novel that also expressed a possibility to occur in society was the Psychological Manipulation. In the novel by Orwell, the party bombards its people with all sorts of stimuli that are designed to prevent any independent thought. Also, the use of technology to send constant streams of propaganda and also monitor behavior provides another sense of control. The party also undermines family structure by recruiting young children into the Junior Spies. Also the party suppresses individual’s sexual desires. The Party also controls every aspect of information, some much so that they are capable of re-writing all contents of histories. They do not allow people to keep individual records such as photographs and documents. Therefore memories become fuzzy and unreliable. Then people are willing do whatever the party asks them to do. Also by controlling every aspect of information, they are able to control the past, present and future. With this they can justify all of its present and future actions.
Technology is improving day by day. As the electronic eyes shrink in size, Big Brother grows even bigger. Cameras can turn into instruments of abuse, even to effectiveness of telescreens that did in Winston and many of his kind. The wired society is a creeping phenomenon because there are no regulations or laws to protect against video surveillance. Our poor character Winston was subject to a harsher type of surveillance when he found out that the owner of the store was giving Big Brother information about Winston when he and Julia were together. Even today there are no safe places were there isn’t some sort of surveillance listening to you.
In closing, George Orwell was able to provide futuristic look into technology and made you think about being careful about what you talk about concerning the government.
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