1984 Comparative Essay to North Korea
Big Brother Society
A Big Brother society seeks to control the hearts and minds of its citizen in order for many to be subject to the few. Three particular methods this society employs has no other purpose than to control how people think and behave: propaganda, censorship, and surveillance. Totalitarian states have employed these methods effectively in the past. Today, North Korea stands as a model of the dystopian society that George Orwell wrote about in his novel, Nineteen Eighty-Four. With a third generation leader now in ascendancy, North Korea is a testament as to how effective mind-control methods can be as Orwell warned us they would.
Propaganda can be used to instill constant fear on people to control their behavior. In Orwell 's Big Brother society, posters were designed to be imposing and intimidating. “The poster with the enormous face gazed from the wall. It was one of those pictures which are so contrived that the eyes follow you about when you move. BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING YOU, the caption beneath it ran” (Orwell 1). If somebody looked at you intensely, you would be uncomfortable. Make that face bigger and the effect is even more intense. Add a very specific message and you generate a very specific fear. This was the same technique used in North Korea today where they used large posters of their leader Kim Jong IL, to generate the same feeling of fear. In addition to designing large intimidating posters, there was no escaping the propaganda in Orwell 's Big Brother society. They were everywhere. “There seemed to be no colour in anything, except the posters that were plastered everywhere. The blackmoustachio’d face gazed down from every commanding corner. There was one on the house-front immediately opposite. BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING YOU, the caption said, while the dark eyes looked deep into Winston’s own” (Orwell 4). This message-everywhere technique was meant to condition the mind. Fear or any desired emotion has to be reinforced constantly and
A Big Brother society seeks to control the hearts and minds of its citizen in order for many to be subject to the few. Three particular methods this society employs has no other purpose than to control how people think and behave: propaganda, censorship, and surveillance. Totalitarian states have employed these methods effectively in the past. Today, North Korea stands as a model of the dystopian society that George Orwell wrote about in his novel, Nineteen Eighty-Four. With a third generation leader now in ascendancy, North Korea is a testament as to how effective mind-control methods can be as Orwell warned us they would.
Propaganda can be used to instill constant fear on people to control their behavior. In Orwell 's Big Brother society, posters were designed to be imposing and intimidating. “The poster with the enormous face gazed from the wall. It was one of those pictures which are so contrived that the eyes follow you about when you move. BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING YOU, the caption beneath it ran” (Orwell 1). If somebody looked at you intensely, you would be uncomfortable. Make that face bigger and the effect is even more intense. Add a very specific message and you generate a very specific fear. This was the same technique used in North Korea today where they used large posters of their leader Kim Jong IL, to generate the same feeling of fear. In addition to designing large intimidating posters, there was no escaping the propaganda in Orwell 's Big Brother society. They were everywhere. “There seemed to be no colour in anything, except the posters that were plastered everywhere. The blackmoustachio’d face gazed down from every commanding corner. There was one on the house-front immediately opposite. BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING YOU, the caption said, while the dark eyes looked deep into Winston’s own” (Orwell 4). This message-everywhere technique was meant to condition the mind. Fear or any desired emotion has to be reinforced constantly and
Cited: Burdick, Eddie. Three Days in the Hermit Kingdom: An American Visits North Korea. North Carolina: McFarland & Co, 2010. PDF. Gleason, Abbott, Jack Goldsmith, and Martha C. Nussbaum. On Nineteen Eighty-Four: Orwell and Our Future. New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 2005. PDF. Harrold, Michael. Comrade and Strangers: Behind Closed Doors in North Korea. England: John Wiley & Sons, 2004. PDF. Malkasian, Carter. The Korean War: 1950-1953. Oxford: Osprey Publishing, 2001. PDF. Orwell, George. Nineteen Eighty-Four. 1949. PDF. "