George Orwell's Big Brother Today
Big Brother Today
Big Brother is an idea created by the government known as the Party in the novel 1984 by George Orwell. This is the concept that every citizen is being monitored at all times. The novel proves that Big Brother is watching when the characters Winston and Julia are arrested after being surveilled for conspiring against the party. In 1984, the Party uses devices called telescreens to monitor citizens. Telescreens have a display and a speaker as well as a camera and a microphone to allow for two way communication. Telescreens are installed everywhere by the Party, even secretly. “The picture had fallen to the floor, uncovering the telescreen behind it” (page 227).The party does not allow citizens to turn these telescreens off
so that they can always watch them. “, there was no way of shutting it off completely” (page 2). The NSA’s methods of collecting private data is a real-life parallel of how the Party spies on its citizens. The NSA has been exposed to record phone calls and copy emails and instant messages. Edward Snowden is a parallel of the character Emmanuel Goldstein from 1984. Snowden leaked information that the NSA had collected from the public while he was working for them before fleeing to Russia to protect himself. Goldstein is similar because he was an early Party member before leaving and attempting to create a resistance to the Party. Additionally they share their use in propaganda. It is suggested that Goldstein is either made up by the Party or that the Party has spread lies about Goldstein to keep their citizens loyal. “The tales about Goldstein and his underground army, she said, were simply a lot of rubbish which the Party had invented for its own purposes,” (page 156). Recently, the UK Government leaked some documents under Snowden’s name to make it seem like the information that Snowden did leak is somehow harmful. George Orwell’s depiction of the world has some very interesting connections to events in the real world. The NSA and Big Brother act very similar to each other. Snowden’s actions mirror Goldstein. Sixty eight years after this novel was written we have still ended up in a world that George Orwell warned us about.
Big Brother is an idea created by the government known as the Party in the novel 1984 by George Orwell. This is the concept that every citizen is being monitored at all times. The novel proves that Big Brother is watching when the characters Winston and Julia are arrested after being surveilled for conspiring against the party. In 1984, the Party uses devices called telescreens to monitor citizens. Telescreens have a display and a speaker as well as a camera and a microphone to allow for two way communication. Telescreens are installed everywhere by the Party, even secretly. “The picture had fallen to the floor, uncovering the telescreen behind it” (page 227).The party does not allow citizens to turn these telescreens off
so that they can always watch them. “, there was no way of shutting it off completely” (page 2). The NSA’s methods of collecting private data is a real-life parallel of how the Party spies on its citizens. The NSA has been exposed to record phone calls and copy emails and instant messages. Edward Snowden is a parallel of the character Emmanuel Goldstein from 1984. Snowden leaked information that the NSA had collected from the public while he was working for them before fleeing to Russia to protect himself. Goldstein is similar because he was an early Party member before leaving and attempting to create a resistance to the Party. Additionally they share their use in propaganda. It is suggested that Goldstein is either made up by the Party or that the Party has spread lies about Goldstein to keep their citizens loyal. “The tales about Goldstein and his underground army, she said, were simply a lot of rubbish which the Party had invented for its own purposes,” (page 156). Recently, the UK Government leaked some documents under Snowden’s name to make it seem like the information that Snowden did leak is somehow harmful. George Orwell’s depiction of the world has some very interesting connections to events in the real world. The NSA and Big Brother act very similar to each other. Snowden’s actions mirror Goldstein. Sixty eight years after this novel was written we have still ended up in a world that George Orwell warned us about.