In the dystopian text, 1984, by George Orwell the reader is exposed to an environment where the government or ‘party’ exerts complete control over the public. They maintain this power through the use of technology and depriving the public of any privacy or personal opinions. Throughout the novel we experience different character’s views and uses of technology; O’Brien’s use of technology to establish control, Charington use of technology to prevent rebellion against the party and Winston and Julia’s avoidance of technology to try to establish their own lives, away from the control of the government. Firstly, O’Brien, a member of the inner party, uses technology to accomplish complete control over the public through the means of telescreens, hidden microphones and torture machines, ‘Any sound that Winston made… could be picked up by [the telescreen]. [Winston] could be seen as well as heard’. This emphasises to the reader the extent of control that the party can exercise over the public, enabling them to eliminate any potential rebels. Furthermore, this loss of freedom and individuality exterminates any real friendship, family or love forcing the public to turn to Big Brother for companionship. This in turn minimises the chance of rebellion as everyone views Big Brother as a figure of comfort and security, ‘As he seemed to tower up, an invincible, fearless protector…’ O’Brien also uses a torture machine on Winston, ‘[He] had never loved [O’Brien] so deeply as at this moment’. This machine enables O’Brien to manipulate Winston’s views, personal opinions and even feelings. O’Brien is able to make Winston view the world as he wants him to, even to the extent of making Winston love him, his tormentor, the person inflicting the pain. ... ... middle of paper ... ... out ‘Swine! Swine! Swine!’... she picked up a heavy Newspeak dictionary and flung it at the screen’. Julia has become so accustomed to the extreme limitations due to the constant surveillance she doesn’t see the full damage that the technology has caused. This is a terrifying thought as this demonstrates the extent of how oblivious the public have become to the violation to their privacy and rights. Throughout the novel we see the characters’ different uses and views of technology; O’Brien’s for power, Charington to incriminate rebels and Winston’s and Julia’s avoidance and frustration of its restrictions. Through Winston’s personal tendency to resist the confinement of his individuality and his intellectual ability to express his distress regarding the control of the party, enables the reader to observe and understand the extreme danger of corrupt technology use.
Winston Smith is a thirty-nine year old man who participates in a group of the “outer-party,” which is the lower part of the two classes. Smith works in one of the four main government buildings. This building is called the Ministry of Truth; his job is to rewrite history books so those that read them will not learn what the past used to be like. The occupation Winston is the major factor that allows him to realize that Big Brother is limiting people’s freedom. He keeps these thoughts to himself as secrets because the totalitarian party will not allow those of rebellious thoughts around. The tensions between the two grow throughout the book because the Big Brother becomes very suspicious of Winston. The Big Brother becomes so suspicious of Winston that he sends a person by the name O’Brien, to watch over him. Mr. O’Brien is a member of the “inner party,” which in this book is the upper-class. Winston doesn't know of the trap that Big Brother had set tells O’Brien of his own idea and plans. He tells Winston of a rebellious leader that has been rounding up those that want to go against the totalitarian government. But like the Big Brother had done, he set a trap and O’Brien betrayed Winston. During the story the conflict between Big Brother and Winston climaxes when Winston is caught. He is taken to some sort of bright underground prison type
David R. Morrow stated in his article, When Technologies Makes Good People Do Bad Things: Another Argument Against the Value-Neutrality of Technologies, “the use or invention of technology is not wrong it is the users who have ‘‘vicious’’ or condemnable preferences that will affect the outcome.” Orwell used technology in a way that many people of that time would never have imagined possible and created a fear of the future for his readers. How could a man, who was unaware of what the future would hold, be so acute and on point with how the world would be today? In his last interview Orwell said, “Always there will be the intoxication of power and always and every moment there will be the thrill of victory, the sensation of trampling on the enemy who is helpless.” Orwell tried to warn people not of the technology but of the danger technology might cause in the future if it landed in the wrong hands. In this paper, I will be exploring how the world of technology mimics that of Winston’s world and how “privacy” has lost its meaning due to technology just like in 1984 but the biggest issue I will research is why do we allow it the government to monitor our
The novel, 1984, written by George Orwell, gives readers an insight to a possible frightening future where one government has complete and definite control of the people. But “control” might not be the term to describe such a rule. The Party dominates every aspect of life. There is not a single thing that is not under the Party’s rule. Feelings, history, language, statistics, and even human nature are submissive to the Party. They corrupt the mind so much that there is no longer a line that separates truth from a lie. Slogans are repeated through telescreens on a daily basis so the people are gradually forced to believe in illogical statements. Upon first glance, it may seem that a 1984 society is not even imaginable in the world we live in currently. But is it really logical to make such an assumption so quickly? Do we know that what we see on the news and read in our history textbooks is completely accurate? The Internet is one of the most powerful technologies our world has, consisting of an insurmountable amount of information, which is not always what it seems. Ultimately, there are so many things that we do not know, some of which is being held a secret from us. Modern day society shockingly has evidence of a transformation into a menacing 1984 society because of similar government actions and abuse of advanced technology.
From the beginning of the novel, it was inevitable that Big brother would eventually win, and Winston would be caught by the thought police. He could never have an immediate affect on the Party. His long and pointless struggle achieved no result in the end, and finally was brainwashed and lost any freedom of thought he once had.
George Orwell foresees a nightmarish-future for the world in his book 1984, where individualism loses precedence to "the good of society," and with it goes the individual's private life. "The [controlling] Party" in the socialist government knows the intimate details of all citizens, and prosecutes those who violate social orders through threatening speech, behavior or thoughts. The omnipresent visual warning "Big Brother is Watching You,” reminds citizens that no personal information is safe from the "Thought Police." While this may seem far-fetched to some, Orwell envisioned technology facilitating government's abuse of power in 1950; in the twenty-first century, progress has left one's private life susceptible to interested parties in both the public and private sectors. In 1997, Ralph Nader cautioned, "The people are not organized not equipped with the knowledge, tools or skills to confront the invasions of the self they can see, let alone the far greater, more subterranean kinds of surveillance" (viii). With the rise of computers to their current capabilities, collecting, storing, accessing and sharing personal data has become easier than ever before: governments and companies no longer keep files of paper records on individuals, which accessing, stealing or sharing would be too arduous a task, but rather electronic databases that they can easily create, access and link. Ellen Alderman and Caroline Kennedy note in their book The Right to Privacy, "From a privacy point of view, we are in the midst of the most unsettling period in [the computer] revolution" (326). Computers do not threaten personal privacy, though, nor violate any right granted to Americans: the word 'privacy' does not appear in the Constitution, nor does the p...
Even though many of Orwell’s ideas in his novel 1984 seemed completely fictional, several of the concepts throughout his book have a common link to today’s society. For instance in the same way telescreens monitor people every second of their li...
Dystopian governments in nowadays are acclaimed for dictating the entire lives of all its citizens, and everything in between instead of following the principle rules of Utopia which is referred to as an ideal and desirable society that is responsible for insuring the basic necessities for healthy human development for all of its willing individual citizens. The dystopian novel 1984, which was written by George Orwell in the year of 1948 has well represented a typical totalitarian government. In the novel, Big Brother, the dictator of Oceania, forces the citizens to believe in the doctrine of authoritarianism even though the facts behind the lies are brutal. Likewise, Guy Delisle, a French Canadian animator also describes his journey in North Korea in his own graphic novel Pyong Yang. The novel Pyong Yang truly reflects the miserable lives of the ordinary North Korean citizens whom do not belong to the ruling class. In short, the dangers of authoritarian society that is controlled by privileged party elite have been informed successfully by George Orwell ...
The conflict between Winston and Big Brother starts from the beginning of the novel when Winston begins to keep his secret diary about Big Brother. Winston Smith is a third-nine years old man who is a member of the 'outer-party'--the lower of the two classes. Winston works for the government in one of the four main government buildings called the ministry of Truth where his job is to rewrite history books in order for people not to learn what the past used to be like. Winston's occupation is the major factor which lets him to realize that Big Brother is restricting people's freedom. However, Winston keeps his complains about Big Brother and the party for his own secret because the party will not allow anyone keeping a rebellious thought. The tension between them gets serious when Big Brother becomes suspicious of Winston. Winston is therefore watched by O'Brien, an intelligent execute at the 'Ministry of Truth', who is a member of the 'inner party'--the upper class. Without doubting Big Brother's trap, Winston shares his ideas with O'Brien. O'Brien mentions a gentleman named Emmanuel Goldstein whom he claims to know the leader of the rebels against the party. O'Brien also promises to help winston, and promises him a copy of Goldstein's book. But O'Brien betrays him as Big Brother has planned.
George Orwell creates a dark, depressing and pessimistic world where the government has full control over the masses in the novel 1984. The protagonist, Winston, is low-level Party member who has grown to resent the society that he lives in. Orwell portrays him as a individual that begins to lose his sanity due to the constrictions of society. There are only two possible outcomes, either he becomes more effectively assimilated or he brings about the change he desires. Winston starts a journey towards his own self-destruction. His first defiant act is the diary where he writes “DOWN WITH BIG BROTHER.” But he goes further by having an affair with Julia, another party member, renting a room over Mr. Carrington’s antique shop where Winston conducts this affair with Julia, and by following O’Brien who claims to have connections with the Brotherhood, the anti-Party movement led my Emmanuel Goldstein. Winston and Julia are both eventually arrested by the Thought Police when Mr. Carrington turns out to be a undercover officer. They both eventually betray each other when O’Brien conducts torture upon them at the Ministry of Love. Orwell conveys the limitations of the individual when it comes to doing something monumental like overthrowing the established hierarchy which is seen through the futility of Winston Smith’s actions that end with his failure instead of the end of Big Brother. Winston’s goal of liberating himself turns out to be hopeless when the people he trusted end up betraying him and how he was arbitrarily manipulated. It can be perceived that Winston was in fact concerned more about his own sanity and physical well-being because he gives into Big Brother after he is tortured and becomes content to live in the society he hated so much. Winston witnesses the weakness within the prole community because of their inability to understand the Party’s workings but he himself embodies weakness by sabotaging himself by associating with all the wrong people and by simply falling into the arms of Big Brother. Orwell created a world where there is no use but to assimilate from Winston’s perspective making his struggle utterly hopeless.
This is demonstrated in 1984 when Julia pretended to trip and “had slipped something into his [Winston’s] hand” to confess her love (89). She was forced to create a diversion to deceive possible viewers from understanding her profession to Winston because society was structured in a way that human communication was not acceptable. In today’s society, technology and corporate internet companies dictate public behavior with a more ambiguous approach. These companies gather data from consumer habits to maximize their profits. It is very common to get bombarded with ads for new shoes or clothes after recently shopping online or searching on Google for specific items. Some have deemed these incidents as coincidences because this intrusion of privacy is becoming normalized. The government and these powerful companies track our every action online to influence our daily lives. There is no evading this problem because our society is systematically progressing deeper into the technology abyss. Surveillance technology is ubiquitous in the 21st century and will only continue to dominate American culture. Society is gradually mirroring the technological tyranny shown in 1984; soon citizens will have to fear hidden cameras or microphones in public spaces like Winston and Julia. When the two first met, Winston began speaking “in a low murmur. Neither of them looked up; and between spoonfuls [of food they] exchanged the few necessary words in low expressionless voices” (94). Eventually, the world will emulate this dystopian society. A society where citizens lose their independence and rights, where every action is watched and corrected, where individual thought will diminish and where humanity struggles to
In the book 1984 the surveillance by the totalitarian government is to the extreme where peoples lives are not their own. The main character Winston and many others live in a time where the government controls the moves people make, the relationships that are had and the thoughts that are made from those around. The government has set up telescreens everywhere. These telescreens play many different things from music to announcements. Every where you turn there is a telescreen that is monitoring everything that is said. The government has also brained washed the children with in the community to rat out their parents when they hear something that is considered thought crime or betrayal to the party. Having constant surveillance causes the citizens
1984, a novel by George Orwell, represents a dystopian society in which the people of Oceania are surveilled by the government almost all the time and have no freedoms. Today, citizens of the United States and other countries are watched in a similar way. Though different technological and personal ways of keeping watch on society than 1984, today’s government is also able to monitor most aspects of the people’s life. 1984 might be a dystopian society, but today’s condition seems to be moving towards that controlling state, where the citizens are surveilled by the government at all times.
In 1984 power is dominated by the inner party and in Metropolis by the elites, contrasted by the power deprived outer party/proles and the working class. Authoritative institutions aim to shape an illusion of reality in order to eliminate individuality to ensure absolute control. In nineteen eighty four this is achieved through the use of telescreens, Orwell‘s authorial intrusion, “It was terribly dangerous to let your thoughts wander when you were in any public place or within range of a telescreen” This insight into the restrictions placed on the people of nineteen eighty four shows us the totalitarian structure of this society and how technology can be harnessed in a negative way to manipulate and control the
Many citizens today are truly unaware of how much of their private lives are made public. With new technological advances, the modern democratic government can easily track and survey citizens without their knowledge. While the government depicted in 1984 may use gadgets such as telescreens and moderators such as the Thought Police, these ideas depicted can be seen today in the ever evolving democratic government known to be the "equivalent" of the people's voice. Orwell may have depicted a clearer insight into modern day surveillance than one may have imagined from this "fictional" novel. Furthermore, a totalitarianism based government is a dictatorship, in which the dictator is not limited by constitutional laws or further opposition.