Premium Essay

George Orwell Big Brother 1984 Analysis

Submitted By
Words 1328
Pages 6
Big Brother is an image that is regarded as the face of the Party. Because it is not certain who is in the higher ranks of the Party, the face of Big Brother represents them and the ideals that they instill on society. This image is quite a controversial because of the ideals held in place by this image. One is the idea of an actual big brother who is kind and considerate to his younger siblings. The other is the idea of this open eyed threat watching you’re every move. These two contradictory ideas make up the image of Big Brother and help instill the idea of doublethink in the city of Oceania. Big Brother is supposed to protect and care for the citizens in his society, yet, people are also afraid of him. On the other hand, these same people …show more content…
Without the Party – Big Brother – being right all the time, they lack authority, and prevent new generations from accepting their views as the truth. “’Who controls the past’ ran the Party Slogan, ‘controls the future: who controls the present controls the past’” (Orwell, 34). This was the aim of the Party and they achieved this through the help of the image Big Brother. While ideas were set out in order to convince people that what they believed wasn’t true, and the Party was always right, Big Brother enforced this. Big Brother was all seeing, so to say that anyone who believed contrary to this and expressed it, was charged with thoughtcrime – the biggest crime you could commit in Oceania – and never seen again. However, those who “believed” this and also kept their old beliefs participated in thoughtcrime. Moreover, aside from the values and information distributed from the Party, in the lives of the people in Oceania, there was a constant experience of …show more content…
Everything that was available to them was rationed and thus made life in Oceania difficult. There was little food for the people who lived there, low quality of alcohol or tobacco, and hardly any clothes that were made of quality material. This being said, this is one area of life that was controlled constantly, and thus led many people to practice doublethink. People saw the inconsistencies of their life, but accepted them because of the control the Party had over them. The Ministry of Plenty was a department in Oceania in charge of rationing due to economic shortages and is a prime example of doublethink. They are lowering rations due to economic shortages, but are constantly exalted for “providing more to their city.” This is seen when an announcement is made that the 30 gram chocolate ration went up to 20 grams a week. This included living conditions, and even the departments established by the party where they

Similar Documents

Premium Essay

The Theme of Political Strife

...The theme of Political Strife in Orwell’s 1984 Student’s name Institution name Abstract Orwell’s 1984 is another masterfully done piece of work that captures the political scenario across the world. Having written it in 1964, the book foretells the political events of the coming 1984 generations. This is a purely prophetic book that is inspired by Orwell’s sharp observation and political analytical skills. In this book, the life of the characters is purely determined by the political happenings of the time. (Bloom, 2007). Many literary and political analysts have found a place to refer to in interpreting political realities of the world in George Orwell’s works. Orwell is remembered for his other book Animal Farm that continues to spark emotional reactions from all over the world every day. A look at how the political theme gets manifested can help one to understand better the happenings in the story and their general applicability to the world we are living in. The Theme of Political Strife There are a number of themes that Orwell (1964) brings out in his book 1984. It is a prediction of the coming political sceneries in future since its publication came earlier before the year 1984. Among the major themes that can be found in the story are betrayal...

Words: 2301 - Pages: 10

Premium Essay

Western Literature

...Western hero and the Lewis and Clark Expedition written in the early nineteenth century gave readers some of their first visions of the landscape and native peoples of the West. Later explorers added to the colorful picture of the West. However, as the realities of the West changed, so did the focus of writers who used the West as subject and symbol. Land became less available and the uses of land came into question. The environmental movement led to a reevaluation of humanity’s relationship to nature. As the region was settled a mix of cultures came into play. Writers now have come to emphasize the complexity of Western life, rather than its simplicity. Contemporary Westerns sound with more diverse voices than ever before. In George Orwell’s novel, 1984, he writes about his dark vision of the future. It may not just be of the future of the West, but the way of thinking and system portrayed are particularly Western in nature. A lot of terms coined in this novel are also use widely already in the modern day English language. It is a chilling depiction of how the power of the state could come to dominate the lives of individuals through cultural conditioning. Perhaps the most powerful science fiction novel of the twentieth century, this apocalyptic satire shows with grim conviction how Winston Smith's individual personality is wiped out and how he is recreated in the Party's image...

Words: 2722 - Pages: 11

Free Essay

Paper

...Shanshan Huang English 103 Professor Joseph 5/7/2013 The Major Themes of Orwellian Imagine living in an environment under the surveillance of a big power, imagine being manipulated and controlled for every thought and action. The act of obeying orders from the big power leads to survival, and the rebellion for freedom leads to the most devastating punishment. Would you give in to the big power or would you fight? The novel Nineteen-Eighty Four written by George Orwell portraying through the view of the protagonist, Winston Smith, describing a nation called Oceania being under the ruling of the antagonist, a totalitarian Party or the Big Brother. In addition, it presented various methods such as constant surveillance, unending propaganda, distortion of language, historical revisionism, fear, torture, perpetual war, and lack of habeas corpus to characterize an oppressive and authoritarian government. The Party utilizes these methods to keep its citizens living in a state of fear, making them developing a feeling of dependency of the party. The novel Nineteen-Eighty Four has its significance today because all of the methods that characterize a totalitarian government are still presence, especially being currently utilized by the government of the United States. Once upon a time, the U.S used to be a land of unparalleled freedom. However, ever since the terrorist attack on September 11, 2001, the U.S government, primarily under the management of the bush administration, has...

Words: 3137 - Pages: 13

Premium Essay

Predictions In Brave New World

...Social critic Neil Postman expresses his opinions on both George Orwell and Aldous Huxley’s visions of the future, believing that Huxley’s less popular vision in Brave New World is more realistic and relevant to current society than Orwell’s vision in 1984. Postman’s assertion was correct, and Brave New World is more accurate than 1984 in its predictions of the future, as it provides a better understanding of contemporary society. Huxley’s novel, Brave New World, provides a better prediction of the future because of its assumptions on implosion of society. Rather than portraying the idea of an outside force such as the government taking over America and destroying society, Huxley proclaims that, “no Big Brother is required to deprive the people of their autonomy, maturity, and history.” An external force is not required to destroy...

Words: 498 - Pages: 2

Free Essay

Big Brother Isnt Watching You

...Big Brother isn’t Watching You The famous phrase “Big brother is watching you” is from the legendary book “1984” by George Orwell. It’s written in 1949, but yet it’s still magnificent. Many years later in 2011 a famous actor named Russell Brand wrote, “Big brother isn’t watching you”. It’s a commentary published on The Guardian’s webpage, and it’s about the UK riots. Brand used to live in London, and he is British. He is commenting on the big riots in London. You can also see in the text that Brand is a British lad. He speaks with a British accent, when he uses the words “mate” and so on. But he’s also speaken from his heart, when he uses the words “shit” and “fucking”. He’s a famous actor, but also a comedian. So that could a stunt in the text, that symbolise Brand’s comment is written with a conscious use of a relaxed language – this is a clear tendency throughout the text. For instance he often uses contractions of words – even in the title. Furthermore he uses slang: “…and have a row with the Old Bill.” (L. 69) Brand is, as before mentioned, a comedian and he writes in a serious but also entertaining and relaxed tone: He is able getting through with his message even though he uses irony and swear words as shit and fucking. These words help underlining his opinion and purpose of the commentary, as they seem quite heated. Brand’s profession is reflected in his choice of words. It would be possible imagining people who would be offended or would have a lack of understanding...

Words: 1085 - Pages: 5

Premium Essay

1984 Rhetorical Analysis

...Wearing a Mask: Analysis of Rhetorical Devices Used in 1984 and 2016 Presidential Elections     In the novel 1984, George Orwell illustrates the life of a man named Winston Smith in a dystopian society. Although the government, known as the Party, in the novel certainly differs from our government today. Some of the rhetoric the novel uses have connections with those used by our major presidential candidates, Donald Trump and HiIlary Clinton. Many times, the ways that the public interprets the government’s and candidates’ actions may contrast from what they are truly saying or doing. The various strategies used by the Party and mirrored with Clinton and Trump implore that the voters take notice of these differences.     Firstly, the ways the...

Words: 1656 - Pages: 7

Premium Essay

T. S. Eliot's The Hollow Men

...literature is for it to be politically convincing. Whether it is able to affect and perhaps even change our political views. Inside this piece, Eliot expresses how the hollow men's ideas are "quiet and meaningless" and that they are nothing more than a "headpiece filled with straw". His description of life as a hollow men is very similar to the life of a prole in "1984". "1984" is a novel written by George Orwell, it is about a dystopian society where proles have no individual opinions or thoughts. Related to the proles, the hollow men cannot express their own personal thoughts without being silenced. These stuffed men fear the Shadow, like how the proles fear Big Brother. Resembling, the power of the Shadow, its ability to fall like a curtain and interrupt the nature of things, is Big Brother. Big Brother acts somewhat as a god like figure. He falls between humans' nature to feel, the desire of sex, and actions. These concepts are precisely expressed in "The Hollow Men" in part five ," between the emotion and the response" "between the desire and the spasm, falls the shadow". These lines fit snuggly into the policies in 1984. The proles and the hollow men are both living empty lives, living according to how others want them to live. However, as the reader reaches this point of acknowledgement of what the poet is trying to imply, they should begin to question themselves. For Edgar Allan Poe once said "Words have no power to impress the mind without the exquisite horror of their reality...

Words: 1370 - Pages: 6

Free Essay

History Is a Lie

...François-Marie Arouet (21 November 1694 – 30 May 1778), also known as Voltaire, was a French writer, historian and philosopher who was famous for his political works. All his literary writings were famous, including plays, poems, novels, essays, historical and scientific works. His best-known histories are The Age of Louis XIV (1751), and his Essay on the Customs and the Spirit of the Nations (1756). He broke from the tradition of narrating political and military events, and emphasized traditions, societal history and achievements in the arts and sciences. One of his famous sayings, “History is the lie commonly agreed upon”, is quite contrary as some agree with it while others argue that that is not the case. Based on the analysis and readings I agree with what Voltaire said. Some people associate history with past whereas history is not the same as past. As past is the occurrence of all the events even the minor ones while history is the selection of some events from the past which are then given meaning to by the historians. So what we study is not actually history but historiography (the writings of history). An example of which can be a person selling gingerbread man in a low lying area and some random people come to his stall and beat him up and kill him [1]. So the historians will not give importance to this event – which is definitely part of the past but it is not the part of written history. At the same time history is majorly affected by the involvement of the role...

Words: 1397 - Pages: 6

Premium Essay

The Sat Essay

...The SAT Essay: Building a Repertoire of Examples The SAT essay is intended to measure your writing skills, not your knowledge of any specific subject. Therefore, the essay prompts given on the SAT must be fairly open-ended, so that anyone with a highschool education and life experiences common to all teenagers can respond to them. Most of them deal with basic philosophical, psychological, moral, or social issues. In my experience as a teacher, I’ve seen that the biggest challenge students face in writing the SAT essay is coming up with rich and relevant examples to discuss within the twenty-five minutes you’re given for the essay section. Quite often, students end up using examples that are inappropriate or superficial, or they don’t know enough about the examples they’ve chosen to write about them in detail. The way to combat this problem is to create your own repertoire of examples that you are well prepared to write detailed paragraphs about. Then, when you read the prompt you’re given on the day of the test, you can simply choose the examples from your repertoire that are most relevant to that particular topic. (Of course, this method isn’t fullproof; it may happen that you are unfortunate enough to get a topic that your prepared examples aren’t really appropriate for. If that’s the case, don’t try to force your examples to fit the topic. The process of coming up with these examples and writing several practice essays will also help you learn how to come up with new examples...

Words: 3449 - Pages: 14

Free Essay

Google in China

...“Google-ing” China: An ethical analysis of Google’s censorship activities in the People’s Republic by Leonard T. Musielak 
 
 
 Introduction The spread of the internet to all corners of the world has led to tremendous business opportunities for many American businesses. With these opportunities may also come many ethical dilemmas. When operating abroad, businesses are required to abide by the laws of the host country. For US companies operating in China and other countries with totalitarian regimes, this requirement may include actions that are viewed as unethical or illegal in the United States. These “expatriate” corporations must often choose to ignore the basic rights guaranteed to American citizens, and disregard their own corporate missions, in order to respect the foreign society’s mores and meet the government demands. While cooperating assures legality, the question remains is their compliance ethical? 
 Case Background/Research Findings “The Great Firewall of China” With an email stating “Beyond the Great Wall, Joining the World,” China signed onto the internet in 1987. (Liange & Lu, 2010, p. 104) Quickly, internet usage in the Communist country began to grow. The Chinese Communist Party (“CCP”), which governs China, exercises almost total control over all forms of communication within its domain. If the CCP wished to continue to maintain its communication stranglehold, 
 
 
 

 they realized that a way to police the internet needed to be developed...

Words: 2488 - Pages: 10

Free Essay

You Are Being Watched

...The  unsettling  thing  about  living  in  a   surveillance  society  is  not  just  that   you  are  being  watched.  It  is  that  you   have  no  idea.       M a r i n e   D r o u a r t               L E A 3             L a e t i t i a   F o u r e u r               INDEX Introduction 3 I. A. B. You are Being Watched in Popular Culture The Firm by John Grisham Surveillance in Other Works 3 3 4 II. A. B. C. Surveillance in Daily Lives History Different Kinds of Surveillance Regulation of The Surveillance 5 5 7 14 III. A. B. Reversal of The Situation: Everyone can Watch One Another Exhibitionism Voyeurism 17 17 19 Conclusion 21 SOURCES 22         2         Introduction: Our freedom is always under electronic surveillance. Computer technologies have increased; this is what specialists call "traceability". Our operations, our conversations, our tastes and interests leave traces in the multiple computer systems that manage our daily lives. All these data are collected, centralized and stored by public or private organizations that can know at any time the "profile" of each individual. Every day in so many ways we are being watched. We are told it is for our own good, our own protection, to make our lives better, but is...

Words: 5798 - Pages: 24

Free Essay

Factors That Affects the Study Habits of Bachelor of Science in Information Technology Students of Neust

...IGOROTS * Home * IGOROT SONGS * IGOROT DANCE * IGOROT TRADITIONS * MONEY ON THE MOUNTAIN IGOROT TRADITIONS IGOROT TRADITIONS When we talk about Igorot identity and culture, we also have to consider the time. My point is that: what I am going to share in this article concerning the Igorot culture might not be the same practiced by the Igorots of today. It has made variations by the passing of time, which is also normally happening to many other cultures, but the main core of respect and reverence to ancestors and to those who had just passed is still there. The Igorot culture that I like to share is about our practices and beliefs during the "time of Death". Death is part of the cycle of life. Igorots practice this part of life cycle with a great meaning and importance. Before the advent of Christianity in the Igorotlandia, the Igorots or the people of the Cordilleran region in the Philippines were animist or pagans. Our reverence or the importance of giving honor to our ancestors is a part of our daily activities. We consider our ancestors still to be with us, only that they exist in another world or dimension. Whenever we have some special feasts (e.g., occasions during death, wedding, family gathering, etc.), when we undertake something special (like going somewhere to look for a job or during thanksgiving), we perform some special offer. We call this "Menpalti/ Menkanyaw", an act of butchering and offering animals. During these times we call them...

Words: 53758 - Pages: 216

Premium Essay

Reading a Novel in 1950-2000

...Reading the Novel in English 1950–2000 i RTNA01 1 13/6/05, 5:28 PM READING THE NOVEL General Editor: Daniel R. Schwarz The aim of this series is to provide practical introductions to reading the novel in both the British and Irish, and the American traditions. Published Reading the Modern British and Irish Novel 1890–1930 Reading the Novel in English 1950–2000 Daniel R. Schwarz Brian W. Shaffer Forthcoming Reading the Eighteenth-Century Novel Paula R. Backscheider Reading the Nineteenth-Century Novel Harry E. Shaw and Alison Case Reading the American Novel 1780–1865 Shirley Samuels Reading the American Novel 1865–1914 G. R. Thompson Reading the Twentieth-Century American Novel James Phelan ii RTNA01 2 13/6/05, 5:28 PM Reading the Novel in English 1950–2000 Brian W. Shaffer iii RTNA01 3 13/6/05, 5:28 PM © 2006 by Brian W. Shaffer BLACKWELL PUBLISHING 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148-5020, USA 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford OX4 2DQ, UK 550 Swanston Street, Carlton, Victoria 3053, Australia The right of Brian W. Shaffer to be identified as the Author of this Work has been asserted in accordance with the UK Copyright, Designs, and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, except as permitted by the UK Copyright, Designs, and...

Words: 123617 - Pages: 495

Free Essay

The Outline of English Literature

...Министерство образования и науки Республики Казахстан Кокшетауский государственный университет им. Ш. Уалиханова An Outline of British Literature (from tradition to post modernism) Кокшетау 2011 УДК 802.0 – 5:20 ББК 81:432.1-923 № 39 Рекомендовано к печати кафедрой английского языка и МП КГУ им. Ш. Уалиханова, Ученым Советом филологического факультета КГУ им. Ш. Уалиханова, УМС КГУ им. Ш. Уалиханова. Рецензенты: Баяндина С.Ж. доктор филологических наук, профессор, декан филологического факультета КГУ им. Ш. Уалиханова Батаева Ф.А. кандидат филологических наук, доцент кафедры «Переводческое дело» Кокшетауского университета им. А. Мырзахметова Кожанова К.Т. преподаватель английского языка кафедры гуманитарного цикла ИПК и ПРО Акмолинской области An Outline of British Literature from tradition to post modernism (on specialties 050119 – “Foreign Language: Two Foreign Languages”, 050205 – “Foreign Philology” and 050207 – “Translation”): Учебное пособие / Сост. Немченко Н.Ф. – Кокшетау: Типография КГУ им. Ш. Уалиханова, 2010 – 170 с. ISBN 9965-19-350-9 Пособие представляет собой краткие очерки, характеризующие английскую литературу Великобритании, ее основные направления и тенденции. Все известные направления в литературе иллюстрированы примерами жизни и творчества авторов, вошедших в мировую литературу благодаря...

Words: 82733 - Pages: 331

Free Essay

Longman

...Rhetoric, Reader, Handbook Fifth Edition and The Longman Writer Rhetoric and Reader Fifth Edition Brief Edition Judith Nadell Linda McMeniman Rowan University John Langan Atlantic Cape Community College Prepared by: Eliza A. Comodromos Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey New York San Francisco Boston London Toronto Sydney Tokyo Singapore Madrid Mexico City Munich Paris Cape Town Hong Kong Montreal NOTE REGARDING WEBSITES AND PASSWORDS: If you need a password to access instructor supplements on a Longman book-specific website, please use the following information: Username: Password: awlbook adopt Senior Acquisitions Editor: Joseph Opiela Senior Supplements Editor: Donna Campion Electronic Page Makeup: Big Color Systems, Inc. Instructor’s Manual to accompany The Longman Writer: Rhetoric, Reader, Handbook, 5e and The Longman Writer: Rhetoric and Reader, Brief Edition, 5e, by Nadell/McMeniman/Langan and Comodromos Copyright ©2003 Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. Instructors may reproduce portions of this book for classroom use only. All other reproductions are strictly prohibited without prior permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. Please visit our website at: http://www.ablongman.com ISBN: 0-321-13157-6 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 - D O H - 05 04 03 02 CONTENTS THEMATIC CONTENTS vi COLLABORATIVE AND/OR PROBLEM-SOLVING...

Words: 78100 - Pages: 313