The literary work of George Orwell’s 1984 is historical and political and covers dystopian aspects of the 20th century, which was formerly represented as utopian. The theme of the essay will explore the similarities between the aspects of totalitarian surveillance of the 1984 Spanish Civil War and 21st-century society bounded by information society. The Orwell subjects in the novel were hazards of dictatorship, mental manipulation, control of information and technology. [1] These themes will be explored for the possible connection of Orwell’s dystopian views with the 21st-century society.
Orwell is the witness to the totalitarian government and the oppression that came along with that after the Cold War of 1949 in Russia and Spain. Orwell designed an alarm for the readers to be aware of the effects of totalitarianism through his work. Orwell’s novel depicted the image of a society where there was only a dictatorship as one supreme party. That party took hold of people’s lives through every possible means. People were not allowed to think independently, they were not allowed to have sex, mandatory exercises were suggested for every person in society, lovers were not supposed to exist, and love marriages were prohibited. There was a fictional dictionary called “newspeak” of phrases that was formed to ban all the random synonyms and antonyms for people. He gave the reader an image of dystopia filled with oppression and terror supervised by the Supreme Party.[2] The aspect of totalitarianism, if compared with the 21st century, will give the essence of the modern-day government with authority over people. There is a remarkable similarity between modern-day fiction and Orwell’s dystopian fiction. The totalitarian facet was majorly introduced in the novel as the supreme party took over people, and so did the modern-day society, which is taken over by the government through manipulations. [1]
The first manipulation used by the Supreme Party in the novel was surveillance. According to Orwell’s 1984, the liens we should draw have crossed long ago. The meaning is clear. We are being watched, investigated, and analyzed for every action we take. According to Orwell’s fiction, Big Brother was the supreme party that checked every person in Oceania and investigated the protagonist by looking into the personal diary. Big Brother had so much authority over citizens that he could change their thoughts about anything. The surveillance used in fiction was in the form of the telescreen, microphones, attendance of the community at social gatherings, and thought police; from the quotes in Orwell’s 1984,
“On coins, on pages, on stamps, on the covers of the books. Always the eyes watching you and the voice enveloping you. Asleep or awake, working or eating-no escape. “ p.29
It is evident that the citizens were analyzed at every moment.
In modern time, 21st century the government is working similar ways, it has the authority to get into individual’s lives through ISP, Web pages, and social media. The surveillance is so strong that the government does not need to get into every individual’s thoughts through physical intervention; only a medium surrounding us will do that. According to a recent MSN service policy,
“We may access information about you, including the content of your communication. We may also disclose personal information as part of a corporate transaction such as the sale of assets” [4]
The MSN privacy policy is authorized to get into any individual’s account and can sell the information to any company or government. There is a similarity between Orwell’s 1984 and the 21st century, both with the intention of control over people by the government over people. [3]
In the book “Database Nation” it is summarized that the loss of privacy is due to rapid technology and its effect on individual privacy.
The second way that the Supreme Party used was to check the records of information and history. The party people are supposed to rewrite the information posted in newspapers and any available information source. Citizens of Oceania were not allowed to have the records in any form. The reason for the strategy was to mould the citizens by stripping them of any second medium to make them followers of their own will. [1]
Recently, the NSA has been reported to be seeing citizens of America for their call records, Facebook pages, and Google web searches. The police now have scan devices for number plates that can check the insurance record of the car that one drives. The stores where one shops ask you for your ID and phone numbers. The aspect of this informative control in the 21st century gives a glimpse of the totalitarian features. The control of information in Orwell’s time was the confiscation of individuals’ liberty by cutting their information sources. [5]
The Trump administration is analyzed and found that it has the Orwell trend of a totalitarian mindset. With the designated president, Donald Trump, there has been a remarkable rise in the sale of Orwell’s novels, up to 9,000 per cent on Amazon. The dystopia that people felt during Trump’s presidency was the openness and merging of federal law with government law. The use and misuse of Orwell’s 1984 are noticeable in the trump reign. Lately, trump was noticed having CEO Alex Karp surveillance company Palantir at the frontline table at the private meet-up in Silicon Valley. His presence was not for the elite support at the meeting but for his strong association with NSA Surveillance. It posed the openness of the trump administration and gave the floor of the Orwell period in the current century. [6]
Orwell’s 1984 and the 21st-century share similarities in mass surveillance, mind control of people through media and press, the ban on individual thought, especially against the government and endless war in the form of cold wars, among various actions. We are living 184 today.
References
Annealing, Marie. “The Internet is Watching You.” Göteborg University (n.d.). https://gupea.ub.gu.se/bitstream/2077/33674/1/gupea_2077_33674_1.pdf.
Beale, Lewis. We’re living ‘1984’ today. 3 August 2013. https://edition.cnn.com/2013/08/03/opinion/beale-1984-now/index.html. 3 August 2013.
Prezi. English Project: Surveillance in 1984 Compared to the Present Day. 13 January 2014. https://prezi.com/gdzaqhv6px_w/english-project-surveillance-in-1984-compared-to-the-present-day/. January 2014.
Searle, Rick. On the use and misuse of 1984 in the reign of Trump. 21 February 2017. https://ieet.org/index.php/IEET2/more/Searle20170221. 21 February 2017.
Shakury, Sabah. A. “George Orwell’s 1984 The dangers of totalitarianism.” STUDIA UBB PHILOGIA (2013): 219-225. http://www.diacronia.ro/ro/indexing/details/A15800/pdf.
Spark Notes. Themes. n.d. http://www.sparknotes.com/lit/1984/themes/.
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