1984 Essay, Research Paper

Critical Review of 1984 By George Orwell

1984 by George Orwell is a story of a man’s strugle against a

totalitarianstic government that controlls the ideas and thoughts of its

citizens. They use advanced mind reading techniques to discover thoughts of the people and punish those who show signs of rebellion against

the government. The novel is supposed to be a prophetic story, however, it

was somewhat wrong in the date. Although some of the things described in

the book are going on today, several things are not going to happen for

some time to come.

I believe that Orwell’s purpose for writing 1984 was to express his

feelings of how the governments would come to control everything and

anything it wished to do. It is also possible that he wanted t tell of how

mind control and torture techniques could be used to make an individual or

an entire nation do what the government wanted.

In his novel Orwell used the image of a man who stood in a shadow that

covered his face. This was to make him anamous and unrecognizable. The

figure was called “Big Brother” and this figure was placed on posters and

put all over the place with the saying, “BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING YOU.” This

was used to let the people know that no matter where they go the could not

escape the watching eyes of the controling government.

The government itself was very mysterious and had several parts that were

very suspicious to the main character, Winston, who worked in one part of

the government. It was divided up into four parts. The Ministry of Truth,

where Winston worked, was incharge of education and the arts. The Ministry

of Peace, which was in command of war. The Ministry of plenty, which

controlled economic affairs. And finally the Ministry of Love, which

concerned itself with law and order.

Orwell also uses description of technology to show how the government

controlled it’s citizens. He constantly refers to telescreens that are in

all areas and even in peoples homes. They have been placed there by the

government in order to see what is being said and discussed by the citizens.

He also tells of an occurence that happens everyday called, “The Two

Minutes Hate.” This event happens everyday at a specified time in which

people assembled in front of a large telescreen where they were show

pictures of terrible events in their history and then the face of a man who

is their equivalent to Adolf Hittler. The mans name was Emmanual Goldstein

and was considered an enemy of the people. The assembeled people go

through several different reactions, some boo him, others scream and become

violent. I feel that George Orwell accomplished his goal of telling how he

viewed the world of the future. He used excellent description of places,

events and people that I can’t even attempt to repeat. He used the

prospective of several different people through Winston’s interaction of

them, and their disscusions. He also used his imagination extreemly well

to describe the technology that is used to control the people of the world.

Even today we are making things that Orwell described like the telescreens.

He also used comparisons of the real world to the world of his story. The

image of Emmanual Goldstein was an excellent likness to Hitler. Along with

the large numbers of countries that join together to form an alliance for a

common good, similar to the United Nations or NATO. It is in this way that

we can better understand what the author was saying and the idea that he

wanted to convey.