George Orwell's Big Brother : National Security, Freedom, And The Government

With the power hungry Party and the most acknowledged face of Big Brother watching and monitoring everybody, the story of “1984” by George Orwell expresses the utmost control over their people and have the absolute power with their country Oceania. The Party believes that Big Brother will live on forever, because of the constant removal of those who are unfaithful and the rewriting of history. However, with the example of the main character showing disobedience against the Party, there is a chance for this type of ruling to fail and be destroyed by the people. The main possible cause of the fall of Big Brother is most likely the underestimation of the power of the people.

One of the most important concepts that many individuals in modern day society value the most is the idea that they have the freedom to do whatever they please. The term freedom means “being able to act, think, and speak in any way one wants to without any type of hindrance,”(Dictionary.com). In the book, 1984, by George Orwell, the totalitarian society ruled by Big Brother, in many ways, controls its citizens by hindering any types of freedom a member of the society might have. In a society that is decorated with telescreens, hidden microphones, and strict rules, Orwell illustrates the many ways Big Brother uses that to its advantage to stifle the freedom of its citizens. However, under all the scrutiny of Big Brother, there are

Technology is apart of mostly everyone’s life and daily schedule, but often people fail to realize the fact that the government has the ability to monitor everything someone does through these devices. In George Orwell’s novel, 1984, a futuristic government spies on their citizens through technology found all throughout their homes. The government used secret microphones, telescreens, and the thought police, a group in charge of finding rebels against the party, in order to monitor what people say and think. There are many examples of this in today’s society: Amazon’s Alexa, Samsung Smart televisions, and social media apps. Amazon’s Alexa and Samsung Smart Televisions are voice recognition systems

The general public gives an problem with the government surveillance as a media for invading others privacy. With the government monitoring, collecting, and retaining people's personal data, one side would claim that it is an infringement of their freedom to the rights to privacy. While the National security associations justifies the reason for monitoring would be to maintain order. Their ways to maintain order would be to monitor criminal and terrorist activity and to detect incoming threats, terrorists, or problems that would harm their country. This issue shows that freedom cannot exist without order. Although the general public wants their freedom of their privacy, they can not achieve their most of their desires because it puts their lives at risk without protection. Order is necessary in order to have freedom. It is impossible to attain entire freedom for a cause, however, it is possible to attain freedom to a certain

In the brainwashed society of Oceania in 1984, by George Orwell, led by a totalitarian government in the name of a leader known as Big Brother, citizens are placed under constant surveillance from the government, preventing them from having individuality and freedom of thought. Although written in a fictional setting, the book strikes analogous similarities to the United States in today’s world. Due to a growth in surveillance, personal information and privacy are being intervened, however, not violated. While technological advances are increasing and crimes such as hacking and terrorism are becoming more prominent in society, government surveillance is becoming largely needed to ensure the protection

Out of the increased abuse of surveillance emerges human fear, as an overdose of information leads to a paranoid society, whose skeptic lens distrusts everything and attempts to micromanage all portals of information, and a suppressed society, whose fear of discovery inhibits its expression. In Winston’s world of telescreens and thought police, the idea of privacy is nonexistent. The looming presence of Big Brother’s face “[is] as though some huge

The juxtaposition of Big Brother in George Orwell’s 1984 with our present day government and social media presence in the United States demonstrates the imminent danger of imposing figures who control both the actions and thoughts of its citizens. Throughout the novel, the narrator depicts Big Brother as a controlling force that takes technology and surveillance of the citizens of Oceania too far. Similarly, in today’s society, we are constantly bombarded with new technology by the government and social media that demands and records our actions as well as our inner thoughts. As Winston navigates his dangerous and dilapidated world, one can uncover parallels between his relationship with Big Brother and our relationship with the government

Mass surveillance is a word that has been thrown around every so often in the last few decades, especially ever since George Orwell’s book Nineteen Eighty-Four. Although this book was released over 60 years ago, some aspects of the book are seeming to become true in the United States, and other parts of the world today. The idea of mass surveillance isn’t so taboo anymore, as there are several programs ran by sovereign countries around the world which monitor their domestic citizens, as well as citizens and leaders of other foreign countries. With all of our technological communication advances since 1949, this age of information is only going to get more severe, and more tracking and monitoring will be done. The biggest offender of doing

Is this the war that we've almost lost or where actually is your privacy today?

Can Big Brother decide what is real and what isn't? Yes, they can. They torture people until they are hallucinating and they see what Big Brother wants them to see. He controls the past by restricting the constituents(the people) from keeping a record of what they go through daily. Any form of the past is thrown into “memory holes” located all around Oceana, thus enabling Big Brother to control the past, present, and meir future.

April 4, 1984, is the date that he wrote at the top of a diary. Put in another way, this was when he decided to rise in revolt against the Big Brother. Though a little defiance, he aimed to keep a diary not for himself, but for the future. Moreover, his attempts were never portrayed for the sake of his ambitions toward power. He wrote down, “Down with Big Brother.” This determined, bold declaration indicates that his diary would become the repository for everyone who has rebellious thoughts like Winston since he believes “If there is hope, it lies with the proles.” Even if this consequence comes to his death by the Party, his diary can trigger people to contemplate rebellion and inspire the future in which they all have the freedom to think, write, read, and live regarding concerning their desire. Such his intelligent and introspective characteristics serve as the classic hero in 1984; however, it also entails the difficulty in easily identifying a hero as the protagonist of 1984 since his heroism barely led the rebellion to a broader extent in the literal sense of the world that the Party takes a massive control of people. The conflict, more significantly, between his daily activities and the Party’s current reality, demonstrates the struggle that eventually resulted in the demise of Winston Smith, thereby emphasizing the manipulation of free will by the Big Brother.

The leaking of documents by Edward Snowden beginning in June 2013 that revealed the surveillance operations of the National Security Agency, or NSA, drew international attention to the question of what governments can do in the name of protection and what crosses the line into unauthorized spying on citizens. It also drew many comparisons to George Orwell’s dystopian classic Nineteen Eighty-Four. After careful analysis of the novel it becomes clear that the NSA’s actions bear some similarity to the Big Brother of Nineteen Eighty-Four, but there are some crucial differences that prevent the United States from becoming the totalitarian society that Orwell warned against. Even though the mass surveillance that the NSA performs is more encompassing than what the Party was capable of,

People nowadays complain about the NSA monitoring over what we post, what we say over the phone, what we text to each other. George Orwell have made this discovery not knowing he did! In 1984, George Orwell uses fear and security to make the Party control language used in society and use the telescreens to check the conversations. Winston Smith, a character in this novel starts to resist the Party, writing his thoughts down in a journal. Orwell has made a noticeable mark, having Big Brother control the society through “panoptic gaze”. Watched over can make someone paranoid and cause them to self-regulate their life. The self-regulation has made people watch how they speak and how they act. This is like the NSA.

One might say that Orwell’s warnings are not valid in societies today but Orwell's warnings about surveillance are certainly valid in today's societies and communities especially with new laws that have been set, the habit to accommodate and settle that humans struggle with, and with the astonishing advances in technology towards surveillance, these are some of the reasons that still make Orwell’s warnings towards surveillance valid in today's world.

Comrades are blindsided by the way the government abolishes their personal viability;no one in the society has privacy. Big Brother is omnipresent hence “even from the coin the eyes pursued you. On coins, on stamps, and on the wrapping of a cigarette packet-- everywhere. Always the eyes watching you and the voice enveloping you. Asleep or awake, working or eating, indoors or out of doors, in the bath or in bed -- no escape.” (Orwell, 27). In other words, the interpretation of Big Brother is evident in the community down to an object as straightforward as a cigarette packet. Regardless of where comrades stand, the party is able to see and hear everything; the voice over the intercom consistently mocking and barking orders to the citizens. There is only invasion of privacy- all movements are monitored through telescreens, Thought Police and others. The ability for enabling privacy decreases the chances for the citizens to revolt. The telescreens are constantly on, knowing every movement, processing everything said. The telescreens are in every part of the Party’s communities: inside homes, bathrooms, all of the Ministries, and inside picture frames. Including, Thought Police who pose as comrades prey on others who may be breaking the rules secretively. When Big Brother’s face is on every materialistic thing, he is a constant reminder that the comrades are being watched.