Essay/Term paper: Nineteen eighty-four: a grim prediction of the future

Essay, term paper, research paper:  George Orwell

Nineteen Eighty-Four was written between the years of 1945 and 1948. Orwell got the title from switching

the last two numbers of the publication date. In Orwell"s criticism of a perfect society, his book became

known as one of the greatest anti-utopian novels of all time. The book"s message is so powerful that some

say it went so far as to prevent the sinister future from realizing itself.



Althought the book starts out as the story of a neurotic, paranoid man, it quickly turns into a protest

against a quasi-utopian society and a totalitarian government. The book appears to be a satire at the start,

similar to books such as "Gulliver"s Travels", or Huxley"s "Brave New World", but all too quickly the reader

will "discover, quite unpleasantly, that it is not a satire at all." Nineteen Eighty-four is not simply a criticism

of what Orwell saw happening in his national government with the coming of English Socialism, but a

warning of the consequences of contemporary governmental practices, and what they where threatening to

bring about.



Perhaps the book seems so bleak because the events in the book are a somewhat logical projection from

current conditions and historical environment that Orwell observed in 1948. Perhaps people would be more

comftorble with the book if they could rule out in their minds the possibility of the profecy becoming a

reality.



In a critique of his own work, Orwell called Nineteen Eighty-Four "A work of a future terrible [sic] because it

rests on a fiction and can not be substantiated by reality or truth. " But perhaps this future is realizing itself

more than Orwell thought it would. Orwell, more than likely, would have made note of, but wouldn"t be

astonished by, the fact that in 1983 the average American household spent over 7 hours in front of the

television every night. The number is even greater for those households which currently subscribe to a

cable service. Those families watch television for more that 58 hours a week. That is more that 2 days

straight without sleeping, eating, or going to the bathroom.



He also wouldn"t have passed by this magazine advertisement that could be seen in 1984: Is Big Brother

watching? If you are tired of Government, tired of big business, tired of everyone telling you who you are

and what you should be, then now is the time to speak out. Display your disgust and exhibit your

independence, Wear a "Big Brother Is Watching" tee-shirt. $10, Canadians remit us dollars. Big Brother is

Watching LTD. Neenah, WI. This advertisement makes one wonder if there is really a group dedicated to

the rise to power of someone called "Big Brother".



No true reader could ever pass off Winstons experience with indifference. You have to have some kind of

sympathy for a man, even if fictional, who can not remember his childhood, or for that matter, even his

mother. That is certain to strike a nerve with almost anyone.



In addition to this constant pain of loss, the reader will also have to vicariously live through lengthy

episodes of of other psychological pains, and physical pain. The reader will also be forced to endure the

pains of society as "The Party" turns children against parents, friends against friends, and although ther

reader will discover the beauty of a love between a man and a woman, "The Party" will eventually destroy

that too.



While "The Party" is an important theme, two other themes are far more important. The first is the

distruction of language. By eliminating more and more words from people"s vocabularies, "The Party"

eliminates the ability of people to unite or conspire against the government. However, they are also

eliminating the possibility of conceiving original thought, which has catastrophic effects. The ultimate goal

of "The Party" is to reduce the language to only one word thereby eliminating any thought at all. The

second important theme is the elimination of the past. This is the main character, Winston"s, job in the

ministry of truth, to make sure that "The Party" always looks right about every decision it has made in the

past.



This quest for total power by "The Party" is an excellent dramatization of Lord Acton"s famous apothegm,

"power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely." "The Party" seems like it won"t stop

until it controls the minds of everyone under it"s power, and has complete physical and psychological

surveillance on all people at all time. This is exemplified in the fact that the government can look back at

you through your television, or telescreen as it is called in the book, and the governmet has set up

telescreens almost anywhere you can go. While they don"t have telescreens in unpopulated country sides,

they have gone through the trouble to place hidden microphones disgused as flowers in those areas. and

while there are real no laws, the thought police can spy on your thoughts at anytime, and can arrest and kill

you on a whim. This policy is mythical. It is not really used for punishment, but to scare everyone else into

being good citizens.



No other work of this century has inspired people with such love of liberty and hatred of tyranny. Humans

have a basic desire to be free and not controlled. Therefore, to Orwell as to the Utopian reformers, the

adoption of the governmental doctrine, socialism, was less an economic decision and more a moral decision.



Nineteen Eighty-Four is an expression of Mr. Orwell"s irritation at many of the facets of English socialism. It

is also an expression of his moral and intellectual indignation at the concept of totalitarianism, where a

country is ruled utterly and completely by a group of few. Another critic says that the book is not a

criticism of English socialism at all, but a warning of the consequences of the contemporoary political paths

we are following, or were at the time the book was written. The bombs in Nineteen Eighty-Four

symbolize Orwell"s pent up rage about everything in the political world from the disasterous state of

unemployment of the 1930"s, to the ignorance of the leftist intelligensia, stupidly justifing Stalinism. Some

literary critics have attributed the book"s extreme grimness to Orwell"s declining Health, and surmise that his

pessimistic views illustrate his collapsing spirit.



Whatever his inspiration or motivation, almost fifty years after its first publication, Nineteen Eighty-Four

remains one of the great novels of this century.