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1984 And Minority Report

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Most characters in dystopian stories, no matter what their personal or family situation, lead more or less controlled lives which often leads to a personal struggle to take control over one’s life. This can be a difficult and dangerous process for the individual who feels the need to break free of systematic restraint. In the novel 1984 and the film Minority Report, George Orwell and Steven Spielberg (film based on a short story by Philip Dick), create two characters that must deal with this struggle: Winston Smith in 1984 and John Anderton in Minority Report have come to realize they are controlled by both government and technology. In the midst of these characters’ efforts to gain individual control, each falls into a very challenging situation. …show more content…

The thought police uses mind control as a way to scare people into behaving. People in the dystopia don’t necessarily want to behave, but in the end they are forced to, out of fear of death/vaporization. The party pressures the people of Oceania to act the way they want by the threat of the thought police. Just the idea of Big Brother (a concept created to intimidate the citizens of Oceania) is enough to persuade the people to behave the way they do. A figurehead to look up to and obey makes the people abide by the peculiar rules and guidelines of the dystopia. The book states “A few agents of the Thought police moved always among them, spreading false rumors and marking down and eliminating the few individuals who were judged capable of becoming dangerous; but no attempt was made to indoctrinate them with the ideology of the party. (Orwell, 71)” This shows the control of the Thought Police because it displays how the party scares the people into believing, by making up wars and …show more content…

The Pre Crime Unit uses pre cogs (siblings who can see visions of murders before they happen) to predict the future and control the society and the murder rate. Although the Pre Crime Unit did reduce all murders to 0, the police gave no choice to the potential killer if they went through with the killing. In the movie, Agatha (a pre cog), kept repeating “You have a choice” to John Anderton while in the act of killing a man. The government gives no choice of control to the people. Although the intentions of the invention of Pre Crime were originally good, the idea ended up being an overall disaster for John, the government, and people in charge of officially making Pre Crime an effective way to resolve murder. In Minority Report, people are arrested for crimes they didn’t commit yet. The people have a choice to commit the crime or not, yet before they even make the decision, they are

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