1984 by George Orwell is a story of a man’s strugle against a totalitarianstic government that controlls the ideas and thoughts of its citizens. They use advanced mind reading techniques to discover the thoughts of the people and punish those who show signs of rebellion against the government. The novel is supposed to be a prophetic story, however, it was somewhat wrong in the date. Although some of the things described in the book are going on today, several things are not going to happen for some time to come.
I believe that Orwell’s purpose for writing 1984 was to express his feelings of how the governments would come to control everything and anything it wished to do. It is also possible that he wanted t tell of how mind control and torture techniques could be used to make an individual or an entire nation do what the government wanted. In his novel Orwell used the image of a man who stood in a shadow that covered his face. This was to make him anamous and unrecognizable. The figure was called “Big Brother” and this figure was placed on posters and put all over the place with the saying, “BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING YOU.
This was used to let the people know that no matter where they go the could not escape the watching eyes of the controling government. The government itself was very mysterious and had several parts that were very suspicious to the main character, Winston, who worked in one part of the government. It was divided up into four parts. The Ministry of Truth, where Winston worked, was incharge of education and the arts. The Ministry of Peace, which was in command of war. The Ministry of plenty, which controlled economic affairs. And finally the Ministry of Love, which concerned itself with law and order.
Orwell also uses description of technology to show how the government controlled it’s citizens. He constantly refers to telescreens that are in all areas and even in peoples homes. They have been placed there by the government in order to see what is being said and discussed by the citizens. He also tells of an occurence that happens everyday called, “The Two Minutes Hate. ” This event happens everyday at a specified time in which people assembled in front of a large telescreen where they were show pictures of terrible events in their history and then the face of a man who is their equivalent to Adolf Hittler.
The mans name was Emmanual Goldstein and was considered an enemy of the people. The assembeled people go through several different reactions, some boo him, others scream and become violent. I feel that George Orwell accomplished his goal of telling how he viewed the world of the future. He used excellent description of places, events and people that I can’t even attempt to repeat. He used the prospective of several different people through Winston’s interaction of them, and their disscusions.
He also used his imagination extreemly well to describe the technology that is used to control the people of the world. Even today we are making things that Orwell described like the telescreens. He also used comparisons of the real world to the world of his story. The image of Emmanual Goldstein was an excellent likness to Hitler. Along with the large numbers of countries that join together to form an alliance for a common good, similar to the United Nations or NATO. It is in this way that we can better understand what the author was saying and the idea that he wanted to convey.
