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Essays on 1984

Hook examples for "1984" essays, the dystopian warning hook.

Open your essay by discussing George Orwell's "1984" as a prophetic warning against totalitarianism and government surveillance. Explore how the novel's themes are eerily relevant in today's world.

The Orwellian Language Hook

Delve into the concept of Newspeak in "1984" and its parallels to modern language manipulation. Discuss how the novel's portrayal of controlled language reflects real-world instances of propaganda and censorship.

Big Brother is Watching Hook

Begin with a focus on surveillance and privacy concerns. Analyze the omnipresent surveillance in the novel and draw connections to contemporary debates over surveillance technologies, data privacy, and civil liberties.

The Power of Doublethink Hook

Explore the psychological manipulation in "1984" through the concept of doublethink. Discuss how individuals in the novel are coerced into accepting contradictory beliefs, and examine instances of cognitive dissonance in society today.

The Character of Winston Smith Hook

Introduce your readers to the protagonist, Winston Smith, and his journey of rebellion against the Party. Analyze his character development and the universal theme of resistance against oppressive regimes.

Technology and Control Hook

Discuss the role of technology in "1984" and its implications for control. Explore how advancements in surveillance technology, social media, and artificial intelligence resonate with the novel's themes of control and manipulation.

The Ministry of Truth Hook

Examine the Ministry of Truth in the novel, responsible for rewriting history. Compare this to the manipulation of information and historical revisionism in contemporary politics and media.

Media Manipulation and Fake News Hook

Draw parallels between the Party's manipulation of information in "1984" and the spread of misinformation and fake news in today's media landscape. Discuss the consequences of a distorted reality.

Relevance of Thoughtcrime Hook

Explore the concept of thoughtcrime and its impact on individual freedom in the novel. Discuss how society today grapples with issues related to freedom of thought, expression, and censorship.

The Importance of Fear in 1984

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Big Brother in George Orwell’s "1984"

George orwell’s representation of authority as illustrated in his book, 1984, orwell's use of literary devices to portray the theme of totalitarianism in 1984, the culture of fear in 1984, a novel by george orwell, let us write you an essay from scratch.

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1984 by George Orwell: Literary Devices to Portray Government Controlling Its Citizens

The use of language to control people in 1984, dictatorship of the people: orwell's 1984 as an allegory for the early soviet union, searching for truth in 1984, get a personalized essay in under 3 hours.

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A World Without Love: The Ramifications of an Affectionless Society in 1984

On double-think and newspeak: orwell's language, the theme of survival and selfishness in the handmaid's tale in 1984, government surveillance in 1984 by george orwell: bogus security, george orwell's 1984 as a historical allegory, exploitation of language in george orwell's 1984, how orwell's 1984 is relevant to today's audience, the relation of orwel’s 1984 to the uighur conflict in china, symbolism in 1984: the soviet union as representation of the fears people, parallels to today in 1984 by george orwell, the relationship between power and emotions in 1984, proletariat vs protagonist: winston smith's class conflict in 1984, a review of george orwell’s book, 1984, o'brien as a dehumanizing villain in 1984, family in 1984 and persepolis, the philosophy of determinism in 1984, orwell's use of rhetorical strategies in 1984, control the citizens in the orwell's novel 1984, dangers of totalitarianism as depicted in 1984, dystopian life in '1984' was a real-life in china.

8 June 1949, George Orwell

Novel; Dystopia, Political Fiction, Social Science Fiction Novel

Winston Smith, Julia, O'Brien, Aaronson, Jones, and Rutherford, Ampleforth, Charrington, Tom Parsons, Syme, Mrs. Parsons, Katharine Smith

Since Orwell has been a democratic socialist, he has modelled his book and motives after the Stalinist Russia

Power, Repressive Behaviors, Totalitarianism, Mass Surveillance, Human Behaviors

The novel has brought up the "Orwellian" term, which stands for "Big Brother" "Thoughtcrime" and many other terms that we know well. It has been the reflection of totalitarianism

1984 represents a dystopian writing that has followed the life of Winston Smith who belongs to the "Party",which stands for the total control, which is also known as the Big Brother. It controls every aspect of people's lives. Is it ever possible to go against the system or will it take even more control. It constantly follows the fear and oppression with the surveillance being the main part of 1984. There is Party’s official O’Brien who is following the resistance movement, which represents an alternative, which is the symbol of hope.

Before George Orwell wrote his famous book, he worked for the BBC as the propagandist during World War II. The novel has been named 1980, then 1982 before finally settling on its name. Orwell fought tuberculosis while writing the novel. He died seven months after 1984 was published. Orwell almost died during the boating trip while he was writing the novel. Orwell himself has been under government surveillance. It was because of his socialist opinions. The slogan that the book uses "2 + 2 = 5" originally came from Communist Russia and stood for the five-year plan that had to be achieved during only four years. Orwell also used various Japanese propaganda when writing his novel, precisely his "Thought Police" idea.

“Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past.” “But if thought corrupts language, language can also corrupt thought.” “Being in a minority, even in a minority of one, did not make you mad. There was truth and there was untruth, and if you clung to the truth even against the whole world, you were not mad.” “Confession is not betrayal. What you say or do doesn't matter; only feelings matter. If they could make me stop loving you-that would be the real betrayal.” “Power is in tearing human minds to pieces and putting them together again in new shapes of your own choosing.” "But you could not have pure love or pure lust nowadays. No emotion was pure, because everything was mixed up with fear and hatred."

The most important aspect of 1984 is Thought Police, which controls every thought. It has been featured in numerous books, plays, music pieces, poetry, and anything that has been created when one had to deal with Social Science and Politics. Another factor that represents culmination is thinking about overthrowing the system or trying to organize a resistance movement. It has numerous reflections of the post WW2 world. Although the novella is graphic and quite intense, it portrays dictatorship and is driven by fear through the lens of its characters.

This essay topic is often used when writing about “The Big Brother” or totalitarian regimes, which makes 1984 a flexible topic that can be taken as the foundation. Even if you have to write about the use of fear by the political regimes, knowing the facts about this novel will help you to provide an example.

1. Enteen, G. M. (1984). George Orwell And the Theory of Totalitarianism: A 1984 Retrospective. The Journal of General Education, 36(3), 206-215. (https://www.jstor.org/stable/27797000) 2. Hughes, I. (2021). 1984. Literary Cultures, 4(2). (https://journals.ntu.ac.uk/index.php/litc/article/view/340) 3. Patai, D. (1982). Gamesmanship and Androcentrism in Orwell's 1984. PMLA, 97(5), 856-870. (https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/pmla/article/abs/gamesmanship-and-androcentrism-in-orwells-1984/F1B026BE9D97EE0114E248AA733B189D) 4. Paden, R. (1984). Surveillance and Torture: Foucault and Orwell on the Methods of Discipline. Social Theory and Practice, 10(3), 261-271. (https://www.pdcnet.org/soctheorpract/content/soctheorpract_1984_0010_0003_0261_0272) 5. Tyner, J. A. (2004). Self and space, resistance and discipline: a Foucauldian reading of George Orwell's 1984. Social & Cultural Geography, 5(1), 129-149. (https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/1464936032000137966) 6. Kellner, D. (1990). From 1984 to one-dimensional man: Critical reflections on Orwell and Marcuse. Current Perspectives in Social Theory, 10, 223-52. (https://pages.gseis.ucla.edu/faculty/kellner/essays/from1984toonedimensional.pdf) 7. Samuelson, P. (1984). Good legal writing: of Orwell and window panes. U. Pitt. L. Rev., 46, 149. (https://heinonline.org/HOL/LandingPage?handle=hein.journals/upitt46&div=13&id=&page=) 8. Fadaee, E. (2011). Translation techniques of figures of speech: A case study of George Orwell's" 1984 and Animal Farm. Journal of English and Literature, 2(8), 174-181. (https://academicjournals.org/article/article1379427897_Fadaee.pdf) 9. Patai, D. (1984, January). Orwell's despair, Burdekin's hope: Gender and power in dystopia. In Women's Studies International Forum (Vol. 7, No. 2, pp. 85-95). Pergamon. (https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/0277539584900621) 10. Cole, M. B. (2022). The Desperate Radicalism of Orwell’s 1984: Power, Socialism, and Utopia in Dystopian Times. Political Research Quarterly, 10659129221083286. (https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/10659129221083286)

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A Summary and Analysis of George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four

By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)

George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four , completed in 1948 and published a year later, is a classic example of dystopian fiction. Indeed, it’s surely the most famous dystopian novel in the world, even if its ideas are known by far more people than have actually read it. (According to at least one survey , Nineteen Eighty-Four is the book people most often claim to have read when they haven’t.)

Like many novels that are more known about than are carefully read and analysed, Nineteen Eighty-Four is actually a more complex work than the label ‘nightmare dystopian vision’ can convey. Before we offer an analysis of the novel’s themes and origins, let’s briefly recap the plot.

Nineteen Eighty-Four : plot summary

In the year 1984, Britain has been renamed Airstrip One and is a province of Oceania, a vast totalitarian superstate ruled by ‘the Party’, whose politics are described as Ingsoc (‘English Socialism’). Big Brother is the leader of the Party, which keeps its citizens in a perpetual state of fear and submission through a variety of means.

Surveillance is a key part of the novel’s world, with hidden microphones (which are found in the countryside as well as urban areas, and can identify not only what is said but also who says it) and two-way telescreen monitors being used to root out any dissidents, who disappear from society with all trace of their existence wiped out.

They become, in the language of Newspeak (the language used by people in the novel), ‘unpersons’. People are short of food, perpetually on the brink of starvation, and going about in fear for their lives.

The novel’s setting is London, where Trafalgar Square has been renamed Victory Square and the statue of Horatio Nelson atop Nelson’s Column has been replaced by one of Big Brother. Through such touches, Orwell defamiliarises the London of the 1940s which the original readers would have recognised, showing how the London they know might be transformed under a totalitarian regime.

The novel’s protagonist is Winston Smith, who works at the Ministry of Truth, rewriting historical records so they are consistent with the state’s latest version of history. However, even though his day job involves doing the work of the Party, Winston longs to escape the oppressive control of the Party, hoping for a rebellion.

Winston meets the owner of an antique shop named Mr Charrington, from whom he buys a diary in which he can record his true feelings towards the Party. Believing the working-class ‘proles’ are the key to a revolution, Winston visits them, but is disappointed to find them wholly lacking in any political understanding.

Meanwhile, hearing of the existence of an underground resistance movement known as the Brotherhood – which has been formed by the rival of Big Brother, a man named Emmanuel Goldstein – Winston suspects that O’Brien, who also works with him, is involved with this resistance.

At lunch with another colleague, named Syme, Winston learns that the English language is being rewritten as Newspeak so as to control and influence people’s thought, the idea being that if the word for an idea doesn’t exist in the language, people will be unable to think about it.

Winston meets a woman named Julia who works for the Ministry of Truth, maintaining novel-writing machines, but believes she is a Party spy sent to watch him. But then Julia passes a clandestine love message to him and the two begin an affair – which is itself illicit since the Party decrees that sex is for reproduction alone, rather than pleasure.

We gradually learn more about Winston’s past, including his marriage to Katherine, from whom he is now separated. Syme, who had been working on Newspeak, disappears in mysterious circumstances: something Winston had predicted.

O’Brien invites Winston to his flat, declaring himself – as Winston had also predicted – a member of the Brotherhood, the resistance against the Party. He gives Winston a copy of the book written by Goldstein, the leader of the Brotherhood.

When Oceania’s enemy changes during the ritual Hate Week, Winston is tasked with making further historical revisions to old newspapers and documents to reflect this change.

Meanwhile, Winston and Julia secretly read Goldstein’s book, which explains how the Party maintains its totalitarian power. As Winston had suspected, the secret to overthrowing the Party lies in the vast mass of the population known as the ‘proles’ (derived from ‘proletarian’, Marx’s term for the working classes). It argues that the Party can be overthrown if proles rise up against it.

But shortly after this, Winston and Julia are arrested, having been shopped to the authorities by Mr Charrington (whose flat above his shop they had been using for their illicit meetings). It turns out that both he and O’Brien work for the Thought Police, on behalf of the Party.

At the Ministry of Love, O’Brien tells Winston that Goldstein’s book was actually written by him and other Party members, and that the Brotherhood may not even exist. Winston endures torture and starvation in an attempt to grind him down so he will accept Big Brother.

In Room 101, a room in which a prisoner is exposed to their greatest fear, Winston is placed in front of a wire cage containing rats, which he fears above all else. Winston betrays Julia, wishing she could take his place and endure this suffering instead.

His reprogramming complete, Winston is allowed to go free, but he is essentially living under a death sentence: he knows that one day he will be summoned by the authorities and shot for his former treachery.

He meets Julia one day, and learns that she was subjected to torture at the Ministry of Love as well. They have both betrayed each other, and part ways. The novel ends with Winston accepting, after all, that the Party has won and that ‘he loved Big Brother.’

Nineteen Eighty-Four : analysis

Nineteen Eighty-Four is probably the most famous novel about totalitarianism, and about the dangers of allowing a one-party state where democracy, freedom of movement, freedom of speech, and even freedom of thought are all outlawed. The novel is often analysed as a warning about the dangers of allowing a creeping totalitarianism into Britain, after the horrors of such regimes in the Soviet Union, Nazi Germany, and elsewhere had been witnessed.

Because of this quality of the book, it is often called ‘prophetic’ and a ‘nightmare vision of the future’, among other things.

However, books set in the future are rarely simply about the future. They are not mere speculation, but are grounded in the circumstances in which they were written.

Indeed, we might go so far as to say that most dystopian novels, whilst nominally set in an imagined future, are really using their future setting to reflect on what are already firmly established social or political ideas. In the case of Orwell and Nineteen Eighty-Four , this means the novel reflects the London of the 1940s.

By the time he came to write the novel, Orwell already had a long-standing interest in using his writing to highlight the horrors of totalitarianism around the world, especially following his experience fighting in the Spanish Civil War in the 1930s. As Orwell put it in his essay ‘ Why I Write ’, all of his serious work written since 1936 was written ‘ against totalitarianism and for democratic socialism’.

In his analysis of Nineteen Eighty-Four in his study of Orwell, George Orwell (Reader’s Guides) , Jeffrey Meyers argues convincingly that, rather than being a nightmare vision of the future, a prophetic or speculative work, Orwell’s novel is actually a ‘realistic synthesis and rearrangement of familiar materials’ – indeed, as much of Orwell’s best work is.

His talent lay not in original imaginative thinking but in clear-headed critical analysis of things as they are: his essays are a prime example of this. Nineteen Eighty-Four is, in Meyer’s words, ‘realistic rather than fantastic’.

Indeed, Orwell himself stated that although the novel was ‘in a sense a fantasy’, it is written in the form of the naturalistic novel, with its themes and ideas having been already ‘partly realised in Communism and fascism’. Orwell’s intention, as stated by Orwell himself, was to take the totalitarian ideas that had ‘taken root’ in the minds of intellectuals all over Europe, and draw them out ‘to their logical consequences’.

Like much classic speculative fiction – the novels and stories of J. G. Ballard offer another example – the futuristic vision of the author is more a reflection of contemporary anxieties and concerns. Meyers goes so far as to argue that Nineteen Eighty-Four is actually the political regimes of Nazi Germany and Stalinist Russia ‘transposed’ into London of the early 1940s, during the Second World War.

Certainly, many of the most famous features of Nineteen Eighty-Four were suggested to Orwell by his time working at the BBC in London in the first half of the 1940s: it is well-known that the Ministry of Truth was based on the bureaucratic BBC with its propaganda department, while the infamous Room 101 was supposedly named after a room of that number in the BBC building, in which Orwell had to endure tedious meetings.

The technology of the novel, too, was familiar by the 1940s, involving little innovation or leaps of imagination from Orwell (‘telescreens’ being a natural extension of the television set: BBC TV had been established in 1936, although the Second World War pushed back its development somewhat).

Orwell learned much about the workings of Stalinism from reading Trotsky’s The Revolution Betrayed (1937), written by one of the leading figures in the Russian Revolution of 1917 who saw Stalinist Russia as the antithesis of what Trotsky, Lenin, and those early revolutionaries had been striving to achieve. (This would also be important for Orwell’s Animal Farm , of course.)

And indeed, many of the details surrounding censorship – the rewriting of history, the suppression of dissident literature, the control of the language people use to express themselves and even to think in – were also derived from Orwell’s reading of life in Soviet Russia. Surveillance was also a key element of the Stalinist regime, as in other Communist countries in Europe.

The moustachioed figure of Big Brother in Nineteen Eighty-Four recalls nobody so much as Josef Stalin himself. Not only the ideas of ‘thought crime’ and ‘thought police’, but even the terms themselves, predate Orwell’s use of them: they were first recorded in a 1934 book about Japan.

One of the key questions Winston asks himself in Nineteen Eighty-Four is what the Party is trying to achieve. O’Brien’s answer is simple: the maintaining of power for its own sake. Many human beings want to control other human beings, and they can persuade a worrying number of people to go along with their plans and even actively support them.

Despite the fact that they are starving and living a miserable life, many of the people in Airstrip One love Big Brother, viewing him not as a tyrannical dictator but as their ‘Saviour’ (as one woman calls him). Again, this detail was taken from accounts of Stalin, who was revered by many Russians even though they were often living a wretched life under his rule.

Another key theme of Orwell’s novel is the relationship between language and thought. In our era of fake news and corrupt media, this has only become even more pronounced: if you lie to a population and confuse them enough, you can control them. O’Brien introduces Winston to the work of the traitor to the Party, Emmanuel Goldstein, only to tell him later that Goldstein may not exist and his book was actually written by the Party.

Is this the lie, or was the book the lie? One of the most famous lines from the novel is Winston’s note to himself in his diary: ‘Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else follows.’

But later, O’Brien will force Winston to ‘admit’ that two plus two can make five. Orwell tells us, ‘The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears.’

Or as Voltaire once wrote, ‘Truly, whoever is able to make you absurd is able to make you unjust.’ Forcing somebody to utter blatant falsehoods is a powerful psychological tool for totalitarian regimes because through doing so, they have chipped away at your moral and intellectual integrity.

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4 thoughts on “A Summary and Analysis of George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four”

1984 is a novel which is great in spite of itself and has been lionised for the wrong reasons. The title of the novel is a simple anagram of 1948, the date when the novel was written, and was driven by Orwell’s paranoia about the 1945 Labour government in UK. Orwell, a public school man, had built a reputation for hiself in the nineteen thirties as a socialist writer, and had fought for socialism in the Spanish civil war. The Road To Wigan Pier is an excellent polemic attacking the way the UK government was handling the mass unemployment of the time, reducing workers to a state of near starvation. In Homage To Catalonia, Orwell describes his experiences fighting with a small Marxist militia against Franco’s fascists. It was in Spain that Orwell developed his lifelong hatred of Stalinism, observing that the Communist contingents were more interested in suppressing other left-wing factions than in defeating Franco. The 1945 Labour government ws Britain’s first democratically elected socialist governement. It successfully established the welfare state and the National Health Service in a country almost bankrupted by the war, and despite the fact that Truman in USA was demanding the punctual repayment of wartime loans. Instead of rejoicing, Orwell, by now terminally ill from tuberculosis, saw the necessary continuation of wartime austerity and rationing as a deliberate and unnecessary imposition. Consequently, the book is often used as propaganda against socialism. The virtues of the book are the warnings about the dangers of giving the state too much power, in the form of electronic surveillance, ehanced police powers, intrusive laws, and the insidious use of political propaganda to warp peoples’ thinking. All of this has come to pass in the West as well as the East, but because of the overtly anticommunist spin to Orwell’s novel, most people fail to get its important message..

As with other work here, another good review. I’m also fascinated that Orwell located the government as prime problem, whereas Huxley located the people as prime problem, two sides of the same coin.

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1984 Essays

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What Orwell’s ‘1984’ tells us about today’s world, 70 years after it was published

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Seventy years ago, Eric Blair, writing under a pseudonym George Orwell, published “1984,” now generally considered a classic of dystopian fiction .

The novel tells the story of Winston Smith, a hapless middle-aged bureaucrat who lives in Oceania, where he is governed by constant surveillance. Even though there are no laws, there is a police force, the “Thought Police,” and the constant reminders, on posters, that “Big Brother Is Watching You.”

Smith works at the Ministry of Truth, and his job is to rewrite the reports in newspapers of the past to conform with the present reality. Smith lives in a constant state of uncertainty; he is not sure the year is in fact 1984.

Although the official account is that Oceania has always been at war with Eurasia, Smith is quite sure he remembers that just a few years ago they had been at war with Eastasia, who has now been proclaimed their constant and loyal ally . The society portrayed in “1984” is one in which social control is exercised through disinformation and surveillance.

As a scholar of television and screen culture , I argue that the techniques and technologies described in the novel are very much present in today’s world.

‘1984’ as history

One of the key technologies of surveillance in the novel is the “telescreen,” a device very much like our own television.

The telescreen displays a single channel of news, propaganda and wellness programming. It differs from our own television in two crucial respects: It is impossible to turn off and the screen also watches its viewers.

The telescreen is television and surveillance camera in one. In the novel, the character Smith is never sure if he is being actively monitored through the telescreen.

Orwell’s telescreen was based in the technologies of television pioneered prior to World War II and could hardly be seen as science fiction. In the 1930s Germany had a working videophone system in place , and television programs were already being broadcast in parts of the United States, Great Britain and France .

Past, present and future

The dominant reading of “1984” has been that it was a dire prediction of what could be. In the words of Italian essayist Umberto Eco, “at least three-quarters of what Orwell narrates is not negative utopia, but history .”

Additionally, scholars have also remarked how clearly “1984” describes the present.

In 1949, when the novel was written, Americans watched on average four and a half hours of television a day; in 2009, almost twice that . In 2017, television watching was slightly down, to eight hours, more time than we spent asleep .

In the U.S. the information transmitted over television screens came to constitute a dominant portion of people’s social and psychological lives.

‘1984’ as present day

In the year 1984, however, there was much self-congratulatory coverage in the U.S. that the dystopia of the novel had not been realized. But media studies scholar Mark Miller argued how the famous slogan from the book, “Big Brother Is Watching You” had been turned to “Big Brother is you, watching” television .

Miller argued that television in the United States teaches a different kind of conformity than that portrayed in the novel. In the novel, the telescreen is used to produce conformity to the Party. In Miller’s argument, television produces conformity to a system of rapacious consumption – through advertising as well as a focus on the rich and famous. It also promotes endless productivity, through messages regarding the meaning of success and the virtues of hard work .

Many viewers conform by measuring themselves against what they see on television, such as dress, relationships and conduct. In Miller’s words, television has “set the standard of habitual self-scrutiny.”

The kind of paranoid worry possessed by Smith in the novel – that any false move or false thought will bring the thought police – instead manifests in television viewers that Miller describes as an “inert watchfulness.” In other words, viewers watch themselves to make sure they conform to those others they see on the screen.

This inert watchfulness can exist because television allows viewers to watch strangers without being seen. Scholar Joshua Meyrowitz has shown that the kinds of programming which dominate U.S television – news, sitcoms, dramas – have normalized looking into the private lives of others .

Controlling behavior

Alongside the steady rise of “reality TV,” beginning in the ‘60s with “Candid Camera,” “An American Family,” “Real People,” “Cops” and “The Real World,” television has also contributed to the acceptance of a kind of video surveillance.

For example, it might seem just clever marketing that one of the longest-running and most popular reality television shows in the world is entitled “ Big Brother .” The show’s nod to the novel invokes the kind of benevolent surveillance that “Big Brother” was meant to signify: “We are watching you and we will take care of you.”

But Big Brother, as a reality show, is also an experiment in controlling and modifying behavior. By asking participants to put their private lives on display, shows such as “Big Brother” encourage self-scrutiny and behaving according to perceived social norms or roles that challenge those perceived norms .

The stress of performing 24/7 on “Big Brother” has led the show to employ a team of psychologists .

Television scholar Anna McCarthy and others have shown that the origins of reality television can be traced back to social psychology and behavioral experiments in the aftermath of World War II, which were designed to better control people.

Yale University psychologist Stanley Milgram , for example, was influenced by “Candid Camera.”

In the “Candid Camera” show, cameras were concealed in places where they could film people in unusual situations. Milgram was fascinated with “Candid Camera,” and he used a similar model for his experiments – his participants were not aware that they were being watched or that it was part of an experiment .

Like many others in the aftermath of World War II, Milgram was interested in what could compel large numbers of people to “follow orders” and participate in genocidal acts. His “obedience experiments” found that a high proportion of participants obeyed instructions from an established authority figure to harm another person, even if reluctantly .

While contemporary reality TV shows do not order participants to directly harm each other, they are often set up as a small-scale social experiment that often involves intense competition or even cruelty.

Surveillance in daily life

And, just like in the novel, ubiquitous video surveillance is already here.

Closed-circuit television exist in virtually every area of American life, from transportation hubs and networks , to schools , supermarkets , hospitals and public sidewalks , not to mention law enforcement officers and their vehicles .

Surveillance footage from these cameras is repurposed as the raw material of television, mostly in the news but also in shows like “America’s Most Wanted,” “Right This Minute” and others. Many viewers unquestioningly accept this practice as legitimate .

The friendly face of surveillance

Reality television is the friendly face of surveillance. It helps viewers think that surveillance happens only to those who choose it or to those who are criminals. In fact, it is part of a culture of widespread television use, which has brought about what Norwegian criminologist Thomas Mathiesen called the “viewer society” – in which the many watch the few.

For Mathiesen, the viewer society is merely the other side of the surveillance society – described so aptly in Orwell’s novel – where a few watch the many.

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• Surveillance
• George Orwell
• 1984 (novel)
• Big Brother
• Scientific experiments

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George Orwells 1984 - Free Essay Examples And Topic Ideas

1984 is a dystopian novel by George Orwell that explores the dangers of totalitarianism and surveillance. Essays on this topic could delve into the themes of surveillance, truth, and totalitarianism in the novel, discuss its relevance to contemporary societal issues, or compare Orwell’s dystopian vision to other dystopian or utopian literary works. A substantial compilation of free essay instances related to George Orwell’s 1984 you can find at PapersOwl Website. You can use our samples for inspiration to write your own essay, research paper, or just to explore a new topic for yourself.

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Winston against the Party in the Novel 1984

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How To Write an Essay About George Orwell's 1984

Understanding the context and themes of 1984.

When setting out to write an essay about George Orwell's "1984," it's crucial to first grasp the novel's historical and literary context. Published in 1949, "1984" is a dystopian novel that paints a chilling picture of a totalitarian regime. In your introduction, outline the key themes of the novel: the dangers of totalitarianism, the manipulation of truth, and the erosion of individuality. It's important to contextualize these themes within the post-World War II era during which Orwell was writing, as well as considering their continued relevance in today's society. This foundational understanding will inform your exploration of the novel's complex narrative and thematic structure.

Analyzing Orwell's Characters and Narrative Techniques

The body of your essay should delve into a detailed analysis of the novel's characters and narrative techniques. Focus on the protagonist, Winston Smith, and his journey of rebellion and subsequent downfall. Examine Orwell's portrayal of the Party, particularly the character of Big Brother, and the ways in which it exercises control over individuals. Discuss the novel's key symbols, such as telescreens, Newspeak, and the concept of doublethink, and how they contribute to its overall message. Analyze Orwell's use of language and narrative style, considering how these elements enhance the novel's themes and its impact on readers. Use specific examples and quotes from the text to support your analysis, ensuring each paragraph contributes to a comprehensive understanding of Orwell's vision.

Contextualizing 1984 in the Broader Literary Landscape

In this section, place "1984" within the broader context of dystopian literature and its historical background. Discuss how the novel reflects the anxieties of its time, including fears of fascism and communism, and how these concerns are woven into the fabric of the narrative. Consider the influences on Orwell's writing, such as his experiences during the Spanish Civil War and his observations of Stalinist Russia. Additionally, reflect on the novel's impact on later literature and culture, including its influence on the genre of dystopian fiction and its relevance in contemporary discussions about surveillance, privacy, and political power.

Concluding Reflections on 1984

Conclude your essay by summarizing the key points of your analysis, emphasizing the enduring significance of "1984" in both literary and socio-political contexts. Reflect on the novel's warning about the dangers of totalitarianism and the importance of preserving individual freedoms. Consider the novel's relevance in today's world, particularly in light of current technological and political developments. A strong conclusion will not only provide closure to your essay but also underscore the novel's ongoing relevance, encouraging readers to continue contemplating Orwell's warnings and insights in relation to contemporary society.

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Common Module – Practice Essay On 1984

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Resource Description

Common Module human experiences written by English Extension student, marked 20/20 response.

How effectively does your prescribed text tell stories to reveal both the personal and shared nature of human experiences?

Thesis Statement Ideas

Stories can accentuate humanity’s futile search for individualism and ignite new perspectives within readers to reflect upon their own values. Orwell’s three act novel 1984 follows the story of the societal anomaly Winston Smith as an individual pursuits memory, self autonomy, and human connection/emotion in response to an oppressive society. Orwell captures the individual human experience of Winston Smith for audiences to sympathise and reconsider the pursuit of individualism within their own time. Contrasting Winston Smith, Orwell encapsulates the collective human experience and their tendency to become subservient to oppressive powers personified by the mysterious ‘Big Brother’, highlighting the dangers of becoming complacent and not seeking individualism. Hence, Orwell exacerbates the individual and collective human experience to achieve his authorial purpose in highlighting the futile search for individualism while facing suppressions of memory, self-autonomy and human emotion.

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