A Totalitarian Government In George Orwell's 1984

1984

1984 takes place in London, England but instead of the monarchy the government is totalitarian. this London is depressing, The food is scarce and when it is available it tastes terrible, there are never enough clothing or shoes to wear and most homes lack the basic’s like meat, bread and milk. The city is decaying and dying and lies in a ruined state, except for large government pyramids, that rise above the horizon A war rages on somewhere, but no one really knows what is going on. Rockets will often rain down from the sky, killing and destroying whatever is nearby when they explode. The government is also always watching you, they have a branch of the police called the “Thought Police” that have cameras and microphones hidden literally

This is a time when people only saw the suffering and misery of those who had chosen to believe in communism and fascism and did not see the hypothetical benefits these types of political and economic thought could have brought to their respective nations. the book itself does not develop any ideas directly about communism and fascism, most ideas are about what would life be like with a totalitarian government. The party uses many techniques used by real totalitarian governments, including propaganda, mass surveillance, torture, forced participation, scapegoating and they keep the populace in state of fear induced by the government controlled media. The london described in 1984 also bares a resemblance to the soviet union, the people are poor and have nothing to eat or wear, most buildings are poorly constructed and have insubstantial maintenance and centralized government.

1984 by george orwell is a timeless masterpiece that makes you look at how different life could be and how we take for granted all of the personal and fundamental freedoms we have. the book is heavy, with lots of ideas on how people suffer in totalitarian regimes, how they lack basics like food, clothing, running electricity, personal freedoms to do and think as you please. All of these constantly reinforced over the course of the book, when winston and julia can’t love each other, how they have barely anything to