George Orwell’s 1984 (Nineteen Eighty-Four) : A Review of Its Impact and Legacy

 

Published in 1949 and set 35 years later, Nineteen Eighty-Four is George Orwell's dark vision of the future. Written while Orwell was dying from tuberculosis and based on the work of the Russian author Yevgeny Zamyatin, 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 influential science fiction novel of the 20th 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 until he does not just obey but even loves Big Brother. 

Some critics have related Winston Smith's sufferings to those Orwell underwent at preparatory school, experiences he wrote about just before Nineteen Eighty-Four. Orwell maintained that the book was written with the explicit intention “to alter other people's idea of the kind of society they should strive after”.

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PLOT SUMMARY 

A  Part One 

In George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four, Winston Smith, a member of the Outer Party from Oceania (a fictional state representing both Britain and the United States), lives in all visible ways as a good party member, in complete conformance with the wishes of Big Brother—the leader of the Inner Party (Ingsoc). 

He keeps his loathing for the workings of the Party—for the vile food and drink, the terrible housing, the conversion of children into spies, the orchestrated histrionics of the Two Minutes' Hate—deep inside, hidden, for he knows that such feelings are an offence punishable by death, or worse. 

But as the year 1984 begins, he has decided, against his better judgement, to keep a diary in which his true feelings are laid bare. He sits back in an alcove in his dingy apartment, just out of view of the telescreen (two-way television screens that are in all buildings and homes, which broadcast propaganda and transmit back the activities of anyone passing in front of the screen) and writes of his hatred for Big Brother.

Winston works at the Ministry of Truth (Minitrue, in Newspeak), the branch of the government responsible for the production and dissemination of all information. Winston's job is to alter or “rectify” all past news articles that have since been “proven” to be false. 

Only once has he ever held in his hands absolute proof that the Ministry was lying. It concerned three revolutionaries, Jones, Aaronson, and Rutherford, who were executed for planning a revolt against the state. Winston found evidence, which out of fear he later destroyed, that their confessions were falsified.

One day during a Two Minutes' Hate session, Winston catches the eye of O'Brien, a member of the Inner Party who seems to harbour the same disillusionment about the Party as Winston. 

Winston realizes that all the stories told by the Party about Emmanuel Goldstein—the head of an underground conspiracy to overthrow the Party—and the traitorous Brotherhood are at least partly true. Perhaps there is another way, and he begins to see hope in the proletariat. They are the 85 per cent of the population of Oceania that exists outside the Party, kept in a perpetual state of slovenly poverty but mostly unregulated, unobserved.

Winston's wanderings among the proles, desperately searching for that little bit of hope, take him one evening to the junk shop where he purchased his diary. The proprietor, Mr Charrington, shows him a back room with a bed, where he and his wife used to live before the Revolution. There is no telescreen—the proles are not required to have them.

As he leaves the shop, Winston notices that he is being watched. A dark-haired woman from the fiction department at Minitrue has been spying on him. Fearing the worst, Winston contemplates killing her, but instead he quickly heads home.

B  Part Two 

Winston sees the dark-haired woman at the Ministry of Truth. She stumbles, and as he helps her up, she slips a piece of paper into his hand. 

Winston reads it in secret and discovers that it is a note saying that she loves him. Lonely and intrigued, he manages to have lunch with her one day. They make plans for another such “accidental” meeting that evening. Under the cover of a crowd, she gives him a complex set of directions to a place where they will meet on Sunday afternoon.

Winston and the woman—Julia—meet in the woods, far out in the country, away from the telescreens. There they are actually able to talk and make love. Julia reveals that she is not what she appears; she despises the Party but pretends to be a good party member.

The couple meet at irregular intervals, and never in the same place, until Winston suggests the idea of renting Mr Charrington's room. The two meet, sharing the delicacies that Julia has managed to procure on the black market (sugar, milk, real coffee), relishing their moments of freedom. Their bliss is interrupted only once by the presence of a rat. Julia chases it off.

O'Brien, under the guise of having a copy of the newest Newspeak dictionary, approaches Winston at the ministry and invites him to his apartment. Winston believes he is a friend and agrees to go with Julia. When Winston and Julia finally do appear, O'Brien tells them that Goldstein and the conspiracy to overthrow the Party do indeed exist, that he himself is involved, and that he wants them to join. 

O'Brien sends Winston a copy of Goldstein's forbidden book on the secret history of Oceania, which Winston and Julia read in the privacy of Mr Charrington's room.

Shortly after waking, Winston and Julia hear a voice from a hidden telescreen that suddenly commands them to stand in the middle of the room. Mr Charrington enters with a group of storm troopers who beat Winston and Julia and take them away separately.

C  Part Three 

Winston is tortured in jail—known as the Ministry of Love—for an indeterminable length of time. O'Brien is in charge of the torture. 

Winston confesses to various crimes, including years of conspiracy with the ruler of Eastasia—one of the three superpowers that are repeatedly at war with Oceania. O'Brien explains to Winston that, among other things, Goldstein's book was in fact a Party fabrication.

It becomes clear, however, that the purpose of Miniluv is not to produce forced confessions and then kill its victims, but to “cure” the confessors, to enable them to see the truth of their confessions and the correctness of the Party's doublethink, in which “War is Peace”, “Freedom is Slavery”, and “Ignorance is Strength”. 

The Party is not content with negative obedience but must have the complete and true belief of all members. No one is executed before coming to love Big Brother.

Winston is at length able to persuade himself that the Party is right about everything—that two and two, in fact, make five—but he has not betrayed Julia, whom he still loves. At last the time comes for that step, and O'Brien sends Winston to Room 101, where each individual's darkest fear is catalogued. In Winston's case it is rats. When they threaten him with rats, he betrays Julia.

One last hurdle remains: Winston must come to love Big Brother, for the Party wants no martyrs, no opposition at all. Winston is released a shell of a man, his hair and teeth gone, his body destroyed. He is given a small job on a committee that requires no real work. He spends most of his time in a bar, drinking oily Victory gin. He sees and even speaks to Julia one day, who admits matter-of-factly that she betrayed him just as he betrayed her. They have nothing more to say to one another.

At last, it is announced over the telescreen in the bar that Oceania has won an important victory in the war. Suddenly Winston feels himself purged, no longer running with the crowd in the street but instead walking to his execution in the Ministry of Love. He can be shot now, for he at last believes. He loves Big Brother.

CHARACTERS 

A  Big Brother 

Big Brother, the mysterious all-seeing, all-knowing leader of the totalitarian society is a god-like icon to the citizens he rules. He is never seen in person, only staring out of posters and telescreens, looking stern as the caption beneath his image warns “Big Brother Is Watching You”. 

Big Brother demands obedience and the devotion of Oceania's citizens; in fact, he insists that they love him more than they love anyone else, even their own families. At the same time, he inspires fear and paranoia. His loyal followers are quick to betray anyone who seems to be disloyal to him. 

Through technology, Big Brother is even able to monitor the activities of people who are alone in their homes or offices.

Of course, Big Brother does not really exist, as is clear from the way O'Brien dodges Winston's questions about him. His image is only used by the people in power to intimidate the citizens of Oceania. Orwell meant for Big Brother to be representative of dictators everywhere, and the character was undoubtedly inspired by Adolf Hitler, Francisco Franco, Joseph Stalin, and Mao Zedong, all of whom were fanatically worshipped by many of their followers.

B  Mr Charrington 

Mr Charrington is an acquaintance of Winston’s who runs a small antique/junk shop and rents Winston a small room above it. Winston and Julia do not realize he is actually a cold, devious man and a member of the Thought Police. Charrington is responsible for Winston and Julia’s eventual arrest.

C  Emmanuel Goldstein 

Emmanuel Goldstein is the great enemy of Big Brother. 

An older Jewish man with white hair and a short pointed beard, Goldstein is a former Party leader but now the head of an underground conspiracy to overthrow the Party. When his face is flashed on telescreens, people react to him as if he were the devil himself, frightening and evil. He personifies the enemy. Winston fears him yet is fascinated by him as well. 

He thinks Goldstein's speeches, which are broadcast as a warning against anti-Party thoughts, are transparent and shakes his head at the thought of people less intelligent and more easily led than him being taken in by such revolutionary talk. Yet Winston changes his mind later, and as he reads Goldstein's revolutionary tract, “The Theory and Practice of Oligarchical Collectivism”, he is more impressed than ever by Goldstein's ideas.

Goldstein is reminiscent of Leon Trotsky, the great enemy of Soviet leader Joseph Stalin who led an unsuccessful revolt and was later brutally murdered by Stalin's men. It is no accident that he is a Jewish intellectual—Stalin and Hitler deeply feared and hated the Jewish intelligentsia.

D  Julia 

At first Winston does not like Julia because she seems like a zealous pro-Party advocate. Moreover, she is also a member of the Anti-Sex League and deep down Winston resents that he will never be able to have sex with her. However, when he takes her up on her request that they meet privately, Winston discovers that Julia is smart and funny and loves sex, and she does not care at all about Big Brother. 

As for her membership of the Anti-Sex League, she is simply doing what is expected of her in society. A pretty woman with dark hair and freckles, she does not worry about the revolutionary implications of her actions; she does what she does because it feels good and right. 

She cares little about revolution and even falls asleep when Winston is reading from Emmanuel Goldstein’s revolutionary tract. Julia is practical as well. For instance, she is discreet in arranging her meetings with Winston and warns him that they will eventually be caught.

When they are caught, it is Julia who insists that her love for Winston cannot be destroyed, but she betrays Winston more quickly than he betrays her (at least, according to O’Brien), and when they finally meet again she is indifferent towards him.

E  Katharine 

Winston’s wife. She was a tall, fair-haired woman and, according to Winston, remarkably vulgar and stupid. Technically he is still married to her, though they have lost track of each other. They parted ways about 10 or 11 years ago, after only 15 months of marriage, when they realized that she could not become pregnant by him. 

The Party has declared that the only reason for marriage is procreation, and in fact it is illegal to have sex simply for pleasure. Therefore, there was no reason for Winston and Katharine to stay together. The Party does not believe in divorce, only separation, so Winston and Katharine drifted apart.

The reader only sees Katharine through Winston’s memory of her and her main purpose in the novel is to show how the Party destroys love, sex, and loyalty between husband and wife.

F  O'Brien 

O'Brien is a member of the Inner Party. He is a large, burly, brutal-looking man, and yet Winston thinks he has a certain charm and civility. 

Winston suspects he is very intelligent and may share his subversive views of society. When O'Brien reveals that he does have revolutionary thoughts, Winston is excited enough to go with him to a secret underground meeting led by Emmanuel Goldstein. The group aims to overthrow the Party. 

Winston does not realize that O'Brien is secretly loyal to the Inner Party and that the secret underground group is simply a set-up by the Party to detect potential subversives. O'Brien betrays Winston and becomes his interrogator and torturer. It is he who reveals to Winston that the true, ugly purpose of the Party is to stay in power for power's sake. 

Like the Party, O'Brien cares for one thing only: power. He has no personal ambition, however. He only needs and wants to be a part of the Party's power structure.

As a torturer, O'Brien reveals himself to be extremely intelligent and sophisticated. His relationship with Winston is complicated and twisted. O'Brien seems to respect Winston and he enjoys their conversations because Winston is a challenge. O'Brien and Winston ought to hate each other because it is O'Brien's job to brainwash Winston and thereby destroy him but they are drawn to each other out of respect and mutual understanding.

G  Old Man 

The old man is a prole who lives near Winston. He remembers a lot about the past but only insignificant snippets of his own life, so he cannot answer Winston’s pressing questions, such as, “Was life better then than it is now?” Winston describes him as an ant who cannot see the bigger picture.

H  Tom Parsons 

Winston’s neighbour, Tom Parsons, is a representative of the proletariat, or working class. 

His children, like children in Nazi Germany, belong to scout-like organizations sponsored by the government. They wear uniforms and are encouraged to betray their parents to the authorities should they see any signs of disloyalty. His wife, Mrs Parsons, is about 30 but looks much older because she lives in constant fear of her own children. 

Tom Parsons, aged 35, is sweaty, fat, pink-faced, and fair-haired. He is also not very intelligent, a zealous man who worships the Party. Eventually his daughter turns him in for Thoughtcrime because he says “Down with the Party” in his sleep. He tells Winston he is grateful he was turned in before his terrible thoughts became conscious.

I  Prole Woman 

A heavy-set neighbour of Winston’s; he watches her singing to herself as she hangs out the laundry. She is a symbol of the future, representing the spirit of the proletariat that cannot be crushed.

J  Winston Smith 

Orwell named his central character Winston Smith after Winston Churchill, prime minister during World War II; he also gave him the commonplace surname, Smith. A 39-year-old man who works in the Ministry of Truth, Winston Smith is fairly ordinary. 

His heroism is heartfelt, not motivated by false notions of rebellion for the sake of power and glory. Because of the visceral nature of his actions, he acts in a foolhardy manner. For example, he keeps a diary in order to record events as he experiences them, even though he is likely to get caught by the Thought Police. Similarly, he rents the room above a junk shop to use as a meeting place with Julia despite the obvious risks. 

Finally, Winston trusts O’Brien, not suspecting that he is a loyal member of the Inner Party who is trying to entrap him.

When he is captured and tortured, Winston continues his defiance as long as possible. He has a strange respect for his torturer, O’Brien, and seems to enjoy their battles of intellect, ideas, and wills. Indeed, he has been thinking about and has been fascinated by O’Brien for years, even dreaming about him. He almost seems happy to be confronting him at last.

K  Winston's Mother 

Dead for 30 years, Winston's mother appears only in his dreams of the past. He recalls her as a fair-haired and self-possessed woman. He is not certain what happened to her, but he thinks she was probably murdered in the purges of the 1950s (reminiscent of Joseph Stalin's infamous purges in Russia, in which large numbers of people simply disappeared overnight and were murdered). 

Winston misses his mother greatly and feels guilty that he survived and she did not. In fact, he has the feeling that somehow she gave her up life for him.

L  Syme 

Syme, who works in the Research Department of the Ministry of Truth, is a small man with dark hair and large eyes. He is helping prepare a new dictionary of Newspeak that will eliminate even more words from the language. Winston knows Syme is destined to be purged in spite of his loyalty to Big Brother because “he sees too clearly and speaks too plainly”.

THEMES 

A  Freedom and Enslavement/Free Will 

Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four is set in Oceania, a totalitarian state ruled by a god-like leader named Big Brother who completely controls the citizens down to their very thoughts. Anyone who thinks subversive thoughts may be turned in by spies or by Big Brother, who monitors everyone through highly sensitive telescreens. 

If someone does not have the proper facial expression, they are considered guilty of Facecrime, so all emotions must be extremely carefully guarded. It is even possible to commit Thoughtcrime by being overheard talking in one's sleep, which Winston Smith fears will happen to him; it actually happens to his neighbour Tom Parsons. Freedom exists only in the proletarian ghetto, where crime and hunger are commonplace. 

Winston feels he could not live in this ghetto, even though his life is almost as grim as that of the ghetto dwellers.

The punishment for even minor crimes is severe, yet people occasionally choose to break the law. The Party knows that people instinctively want to have sex, form loving bonds, and think for themselves instead of accepting unquestioningly whatever the totalitarian government tells them. As long as people choose to exercise free will, the Party must be ever-vigilant against crime and make punishment severe in order to remain in control.

B  Appearances and Reality 

In totalitarian Oceania, it seems as if everyone is slavishly devoted to Big Brother and believes everything the government tells them. 

However, as we can understand from Winston's thoughts, all is not as it seems. Some people secretly feel and believe differently to how they behave, although they are extremely careful not to betray themselves. Moreover, the Party is in control of all information and revises history, even yesterday's history, to reflect their current version of events. 

Winston is very much aware of this because it is his job in the paradoxically named Ministry of Truth to change the records of history. He cannot ignore what he remembers: Oceania was at war with Eurasia and allied with Eastasia yesterday, and not vice versa. If anyone else remembers differently, they certainly will not say so.

Only the old man, a powerless prole who lives on the street, speaks about what really happened in the past, but in short and irrelevant snippets about his personal experiences. 

It is Winston's need to reconcile what he knows with the Party's version of reality that leads to his downfall. The Party cannot allow people to have a perception of reality that is different from its own. As Winston writes in his diary: “Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else follows.”

C  Loyalty and Betrayal

In order to remain all-powerful, the Party destroys loyalty between people: co-workers, friends, even family members. Children are encouraged to betray their parents to the state if they suspect them of Thoughtcrimes (thinking something that goes against the Party line).

The Party has outlawed sex for pleasure and reduced marriage to an arrangement between a man and woman that exists only for procreation. 

Sexual urges must be repressed for fear that they will lead to love, human connection, and personal loyalty, all of which threaten the Party. Winston believes that love like the feelings he and Julia share will eventually destroy the Party, but he underestimates the Party's ability to destroy love and loyalty. Winston and Julia both give in to torture and betray each other. 

When they are released, their love and loyalty to each other have been destroyed.

Because the Party can easily detect thought crimes, people always act as if they are completely loyal to the Party. No one entirely trusts anyone else. Winston makes fatal mistakes when he trusts O'Brien and Charrington, both of whom betray him. 

His misjudgment is understandable, given the subtle cues both give him to indicate that they are fellow subversives. But as it turns out they are deliberately setting a trap for him and Julia. In the end, no one can be trusted.

D  Utopia and Anti-Utopia 

Nineteen Eighty-Four is clearly an anti-utopian book. As O'Brien tells Winston, the world he and his comrades have created is “the exact opposite of the stupid hedonistic Utopias that the old reformers imagined”. 

Instead of being a society that is a triumph of human spirit and creativity, the society the Party has created is full of fear, torment, and treachery that will worsen over time. O'Brien gives Winston an image of the future: a boot stomping on a human face, for ever and ever.

Such a pessimistic vision of the future serves a purpose, as Orwell knew. He wrote Nineteen Eighty-Four as a warning in order to make people aware that this type of society could exist if trends such as jingoism, oppression of the working class, and the erosion of language that expresses the vastness of human experience continued. 

Readers are meant to see that this is only one possible future, one they must work to avoid. Orwell's anti-utopian vision captured the horrors of World War II and the fears of the Cold War in the same way that earlier utopian novels, such as Thomas More's Utopia, captured the hope and self-confidence after the end of the medieval period.

E  Patriotism 

The blind patriotism that fuelled the dictatorships of Adolf Hitler and Joseph Stalin in the 1930s and 1940s inspired Orwell to write of Oceania and its leader, Big Brother. 

Just as the Germans fanatically cheered and revered Hitler, treating him as a beloved father, the citizens of Oceania look up to Big Brother as their protector who will watch over them just as a real brother would. 

The huge pictures of Big Brother that can be found everywhere in Oceania are reminiscent of those of Communist leader Mao Zedong displayed by the Chinese.

As in real totalitarian regimes, the children of Oceania play a large part in maintaining the loyalty and patriotism of the citizens. 

Just as German children joined the scout-like, militaristic Hitler Youth organization, the children of Oceania enjoy wearing their Junior Spy uniforms, marching around, and singing patriotic songs. Orwell depicts how sinister it is for a government to use children to promote their policies when he portrays the Parsons' children as holy terrors, threatening to denounce their parents to the authorities if they do not give in to their childish demands. 

In the 1960s, the Chinese under Mao would indoctrinate an entire generation of children by taking them away from their parents for long periods in order to ensure that the government's message could not be contradicted by the children's parents.

LITERARY TECHNIQUE 

A  Point of View 

Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four is told in the third person, but the point of view is clearly Winston Smith's. 

Through his eyes, readers are able to see how the totalitarian society functions, in particular how an individual deals with having illegal thoughts that can be detected easily by spies and telescreens that monitor one's every movement. Because readers are in Winston's head, they make the mistakes he makes in judging people. 

At one point he looks around a room at work and tells himself he knows just who will be vaporized within the next few years and who will be allowed to live. His perceptions of who is a loyal party member and who is not turn out to be inaccurate, however. In this way, Orwell shows that in a paranoid society, where personal relationships with others are at best only tolerated and at worst illegal, no one can really know his fellow man.

Winston is a well-drawn character with clear opinions (clear to the reader, that is; he cannot reveal his opinions to anyone in his society). Critics have claimed that these opinions echo George Orwell's. For example, Winston admires the spirit of the proletariat, but looks down on them because they will never have the means or intelligence to change their lives and their government. 

On the other hand, he admires the sophistication of the wealthy, cultured O'Brien, even though he is an evil character. This may reflect Orwell's own perspective as someone from a middle-class background.

B  Setting 

Written between 1947 and 1948, Nineteen Eighty-Four's original title was Nineteen Forty-Eight, but Orwell changed it so that it would be set in the future but still be close enough to the present to be frightening. 

The action takes place in London, which is now part of a country called Oceania. Oceania is one of three world superpowers, and it is continually at war with one of the other two superpowers, Eastasia and Eurasia. Enemies can change overnight and become allies, although the Party automatically rewrites history when this happens so that no one will remember circumstances were ever any different. 

This perpetual state of war consumes most of the state's resources, so city buildings are in a constant state of disrepair. All consumer goods, from food to clothing, are rationed, just as they were during World War II. Winston lives in what was once London, now a drab, grey, and decaying urban area.

C  Language and Meaning 

Orwell was very aware of the power of language, so he had the totalitarian government of the future create a new language called Newspeak. Newspeak is used throughout the book by the citizens of Oceania and explained in detail in an appendix. 

The language is derived from Standard English and will go through many versions over the years until it reaches its final version in the year 2050. The 1984 version, however, still bears a strong resemblance to English.

The basic idea behind Newspeak is to take all words that refer to ideas the Party disagrees with and strip them of their original meaning or eliminate them entirely. 

The purpose of Newspeak is to narrow the range of ideas that can be expressed so that as the language develops it contains fewer and fewer words. Word forms and grammar are simplified, as is pronunciation, so that eventually the number of readers can be kept to a minimum. Newspeak also contains words to express new ideas, such as oldthink, which refers to the way people thought before the revolution. Naturally, it has sinful and decadent connotations.

When Newspeak appeared, citizens were unable to read about old ideas and express new ones that were counter to what the Party wanted them to think. Any such ideas can be reduced to one word: crimethink. Simplistic slogans replace more complicated ideas. The Party's most famous slogans are “War Is Peace”, “Freedom Is Slavery”, and “Ignorance Is Strength”.

Through the device of a fictional language Orwell is able to point out that language can be used to mislead people. In creating Newspeak, Orwell was influenced both by political rhetoric that takes the place of substantive communication and advertising language that makes ridiculous and vague promises.

D  Structure 

Nineteen Eighty-Four is divided into three parts plus an appendix. Part one sets up Winston's world, which the reader sees through his eyes and his thoughts. We understand his loneliness and why this leads him to take risks that will lead to his downfall.

In part two, the lengthiest part of the narrative, Winston becomes connected with people he believes are rebels like himself. He has an affair with Julia and follows O'Brien to an underground meeting of dissidents. 

Also in part two, Orwell includes lengthy sections from the fictional Emmanuel Goldstein's political tract. It is interesting to note that Orwell’s publishers originally wanted him to delete this material because it stops the action of the narrative.

In part three, Winston and Julia have been caught by the Inner Party and separated. Winston undergoes severe torture and brainwashing at the hands of O'Brien. His dialogue and interaction with O'Brien has dramatic tension because underlying their battle lies mutual respect. Unfortunately for Winston, this respect does not translate into O'Brien freeing him. O'Brien successfully brainwashes Winston into loving Big Brother.

The book ends with an appendix on the development and structure of the language called “Newspeak”. The appendix is written as if it were a scholarly article, and while it serves to clarify the use of Newspeak in the novel it is interesting to note that the publisher originally wanted to cut this as well, thinking it unnecessary.

HISTORICAL AND SOCIAL CONTEXT 

A  Totalitarianism 

In 1949, when Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four was published, World War II had just ended. 

One of Britain's allies had been Russia, which was ruled by the despotic dictator Joseph Stalin. Stalin ruled with an iron fist and was famous for his midnight purges: he would have hundreds of citizens at a time rounded up and murdered in deserted areas, much as Oceania citizens are “vaporized”. Stalin's victims were his imagined enemies, such as political dissidents, artists, or Jews. 

Meanwhile, Adolf Hitler, in Germany, had slaughtered his enemies as well, ultimately killing six million Jews and nine million Slavs, gypsies, political dissidents, homosexuals, and mentally handicapped people. In China Mao Zedong was fighting for communism against Chinese nationalist forces led by Chiang Kai-shek. Mao would finally defeat the nationalists in 1949 and begin a long, oppressive totalitarian regime.

Other dictators of the time included Francisco Franco in Spain and Benito Mussolini in Italy. These oppressive rulers controlled citizens through propaganda and violence. This state of affairs prompted Orwell to create Big Brother, the ultimate totalitarian leader who dominates all political, social, and economic activities.

B  Socialism and Communism 

Orwell fought against Franco in the Spanish Civil War in the mid-1930s, supporting the socialist left. He was not a communist, but a dedicated democratic socialist who believed that government, not private enterprise, should control the production and distribution of goods, and as such he was greatly concerned about the lives of the poor and working class.

All over the world, throughout the 20th century, working-class people have been fighting for better lives. 

In many countries workers fought a long and hard battle for labour reforms that would eventually include such benefits as job security, safety regulation, overtime pay, holiday and sickness allowances, pensions, and disability and child labour laws, which modern workers sometimes take for granted. Some British and American workers turned to socialism and communism, thinking that perhaps these alternative economic and social structures would solve their problems. 

In the late 19th century, the German Karl Marx proposed that to resolve the gross inequality between workers and employers, the working class, or proletariat, would have to revolt and establish a new communist regime that would control the political and economic systems. 

He believed workers ought to run their own farms and factories and that profits should be distributed evenly among the workforce. Communist revolutions subsequently occurred in Russia and China.

The United States' response to communism was extreme during the Cold War era of the 1950s; in fact, many people believed the American government was acting just as oppressively as communist governments were. 

Under the leadership of Senator Joe McCarthy, the House (of Representatives) Committee on Un-American Activities aggressively attacked public figures who were suspected communists, demanding that they name other communists or be blacklisted in their industries. Hollywood writers and film-makers were especially hard hit and many careers were destroyed before President Truman and public opinion turned against McCarthy and the witch hunt ended. 

The paranoia that characterized the McCarthy era was similar to the paranoia in Nineteen Eighty-Four, as people were pressured to betray their friends, co-workers, and even parents in order to save themselves. Today, communism still has some followers in Britain and the United States, as does democratic socialism, which Orwell embraced wholeheartedly.

C  Television 

Aside from being concerned about workers’ rights and government, Orwell was very aware of an important invention that was just becoming popular after World War II and that would eventually be a dominant force in Western culture: the television. 

The first BBC broadcast in Britain occurred in 1937. Television's popularity grew rapidly throughout the 1950s and today the overwhelming majority of Western households own at least one colour television set. Orwell recognized the enormous potential of this communication tool, which would soon be in every home. 

He imagined that the television could one day not only broadcast propaganda non-stop but that it could transmit back images of action in front of the screen, allowing the broadcaster to spy on its viewers.