Human Spirit In 1984

One parallel from modern day life to George Orwel’s 1984 is the Telescreens or “big brother is watching you” to the NSA’s surveillance. In the novel the telescreen is a device similar to a TV combined with a security camera. The device is used by the party to monitor the behavior of the inner and outer party members and to insure that they are not plotting against the party. The people of the inner and outer party have very little to no privacy.

All of the constant messages and propaganda causes citizens to have no time for independent thought. The constant stream of propaganda is designed to make everything the Party does, look like a glorious success. Everyone thinks the Party is doing well and is a necessity when in reality, the people would be better off without the Party. No matter where the people go, the Party provides a constant barrage of information, mostly untruthful, meant only to occupy their time. The Party also thinks down upon the family structure. The Party undermines families by letting their children into an organization called the Junior Spies. The Party then brainwashes and encourages them to spy on their parents. They are told to report any problems and signs of disloyalty to the Party. Mrs. Parson’s children are in the Junior Spies. Mrs. Parson is even afraid of her kids accusing her of a thoughtcrime or any disloyalty. The Party also forces the public to suppress and disband their sexual desires almost completely. They are forced to treat sex as merely a job where the only purpose is the creation of new, loyal, Party members. With such a lack of sexual freedom, it is obvious why Winston wishes to overthrow the Party and the face of Big Brother. When Winston is being tortured by O’Brien, Winston submits to O’Brien’s power. O’Brien is holding up four fingers and yet Winston says there are five. He is accepting anything

George Orwell’s novel 1984 reflects on the society of dystopian city Airstrip 1 where main character Winston Smith lives. Along with the many other citizens, Winston is controlled by the Inner Party by constantly being monitored via telescreens that keep sight of everybody and their actions. Besides using telescreens the government also easily arrests people in any case of “thoughtcrime” which consists of any thoughts that regard disobedience towards the government. Thoughtcrime and telescreens are two of the several factors that reflect the extreme surveillance in 1984. Orwell uses surveillance as the central theme of the novel to spread his idea that the usage of more extreme surveillance could eventually lead to a totalitarian society. On a less extreme scale, today’s society also has a significant amount of surveillance but many question whether or not more surveillance is necessary. With the many current text sources, it is certain that we need less surveillance in order to keep a stable society that does not take away the individualism of people.

While the government of 1984 takes complete control over the thoughts and actions of each individual in Oceania, the US government only records information and extracts them only for a legitimate cause. In 1984, the Party keeps everyone under its examination at every moment, accusing citizens of thoughtcrime - unacceptable thinking of the Party - for even the slightest hint of suspicion. Winston purposely turns his back towards the telescreen whenever he sits near one, for “anything that carried with it the suggestion of abnormality,… [such as] to wear an improper expression on your face,… was itself a punishable offense,” (Orwell 69). By restraining citizens and removing those from society who are accused even inappropriately, the government builds fear upon its citizens so that everyone would believe the government’s claims to be true regardless of reasoning. Meanwhile, in the United States, privacy is still recognized, and government searches are not allowed without proper reason. Under the Fourth Amendment, people are protected from “arbitrary governmental intrusions... [for] warrantless searches of private premises are mostly prohibited unless there are justifiable exceptions,” (Cornell University Law School). As seen today, social media allows individuals to think freely, and yet there are no

In 1984, the last and largest work of Orwell’s life, the oppression becomes even more sinister. Winston, a member of the “party,” decides to break away from the melancholy lifestyle in which “freedom is slavery” and rebel against the government that restrains him. The party even erases all of history and claims that reality is within the mind; “He who controls the past controls the future. He who controls the present controls the past.” He becomes conscious of all the trickery and lies of the party and joins a secret organization to fight for freedom. The organization, however, is a lie and Winston is tortured until he learns to truly love Big Brother. 1984 makes prominent stabs at the

Usually, when people get the feed, they are babies, so it molds their brain a certain way. In 1984, from the time of birth people are taught to only care for Big Brother. When children are born into the Party, they join the Spies,a children’s version of the Party. In the Spies, the children are taught that they must help protect the Party and that they need to find and annihilate all of the Eurasian spies. Winston goes to his comrade Parson’s loft and he is yelled at by his children,

Telescreens: A wall mounted electronic device that doubles as a television and a surveillance camera, used to monitor the citizens of 1984. In the novel 1984 by George Orwell, these telescreens play the most critical part in keeping Oceania’s citizens under control. With telescreens, it’s almost impossible to have any freedom. People are constantly being watched, the slightest act of rebellion can be easily caught, restricting people from being able to truly express themselves. Other techniques the party use may contribute to the control of its citizens, but nothing keeps everybody’s back straight quite like the telescreens of Oceania. Due to the unbelievable amount of telescreens there is no privacy what so ever. Without privacy, no one can think of rebellion, much less act upon those thoughts. Because of this, it is clear that telescreens are the most affective method the party can use to keep the citizens of Oceania under its control.

Having the ability to think independently is a vital aspect of a human mindset. In “1984,” the Party makes propaganda, such as falsified history, catchy slogans, and glorified figures, a constant in the Oceania lifestyle, preventing citizens from having thoughts that differ from what the media tells them to think. The unsilenceable telescreens installed in every space not only invade citizens’ minds with ceaseless propaganda, but are also used by the the Thought Police to spy on unique individuals who may disrupt the submissive behavior necessary to keep the public in line. The omnipresence of the Thought Police and invasive telescreens are a constant reminder of the morbid consequences of independent thought. As a result of this fear, as well as expertly designed propaganda, the public is driven into an easily

Much like the society of Denmark, corruption crept its way into Big Brother’s society in 1984. Big Brother has absolute control over every aspect of its citizens from physical to emotional. The fear that it brings upon its people emphasizes the control and constant reminder that “Big Brother is always watching you” (Orwell, 4). Winston barely survives these emotional roller coasters that the totalitarian government has put them in and straddles along in a government job, trying to piece together how he feels and what he should do with his life. The society influence can be seen in hate week, hate rallies, and the two-minute hate. Winston finds himself conforming to the crowds chants and people having no control over their own minds as they would drop there own beliefs just as an assigned speaker changes sides. To the extreme, the government is turning kids into these mindless spies, robbing them of their innocence. Madness, again, drives citizens in these rallies that “[were] not that one was

Her feelings were her own and could not be altered from the outside. It would not have occurred to her that an action which is ineffectual thereby becomes meaningless. If you loved someone, you loved him, and when you had nothing else to give, you still gave him love.” (Orwell, 171-172) Winston’s mother is described as someone who embraces today’s most common aspects of love, but traits foreign to Ingsoc. The distinct human traits of unconditional love, internal morals, and unimpressionable code of ethics. Another group unassociated with oppressive Party also managed to stay human. “They [the people of only two generations prior to Winston] were governed by private loyalties they did not question. What mattered were individual relationships and a completely helpless gesture, an embrace, a tear, a word spoken to a dying man, could have value in itself.” (Orwell, 172.) In this specific area of the book, Orwell provides several groups that differ from the members of the Party with ideas inculcated within them by the government. These descriptions of the unique groups show some traits as

In 1984, the Party’s main goal was security. The Party tried to achieve this security through intimidation. Winston experiences this intimidation when he sees the Party’s poster throughout the nation. “BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING YOU, the caption said, while the dark eyes looked deep into Winston’s own.” (Orwell.2.)

The government in 1984 maintains power by using constant surveillance and suppression of citizens. Unlike the modern era, all citizens know they are being watched and are cautious about their actions. Winston says of the telescreen, the Party’s method of espionage: “Any sound that Winston made, above the level of a very low whisper, would be picked up by it [the telescreen], moreover, so long as he remained within the field of vision which the metal plaque commanded, he could be seen as well as

In 1984, the Party has complete control over all the surveillance in Oceania. There is not a place anyone can go without being heard or watched. The telescreen is a device that is everywhere. George Orwell writes of the telescreen: “The instrument could be dimmed, but there was no way of shutting it off completely” (4). The telescreen is always watching the actions of the citizens of Oceania, and there is no privacy. Orwell gives more detail of the telescreen:

The Party naturalizes the dominance that it has in the way that it constantly conducts surveillance on its members. Through the use of devices called telescreens, the government is able to observe every movement and sound made in the homes of members, on the streets of Oceania, and in the workplace. These telescreens act as modern day webcams and make the government privy to all things going on in the city. The footage transmitted from these screens is monitored by the Thought Police, and it is this government body that determines whether or not one is guilty of a crime. Since the members of the Party are so accustomed to being constantly

All throughout the novel we read about these telescreens that have a one way window idea. The Party watches people through the telescreens, then correct people if they aren’t doing an adequate amount of work or send the Thought Police if they see a thoughtcrime in progress. Today websites, like Facebook and Instagram track our likes, while governments and private individuals hack into our accounts and find out what they want to know through our social media.There is a conspiracy that the government watches us through the cameras on our computers, laptops, tablets, and smartphones. This is what the telescreens do to the people of Oceania in the novel.