Image of Society in 1984 by George Orwell

George Orwell’s book 1984 “Nineteen Eighty Four” is widely known as one of the best works of the dystopian fiction that deals with important issues in our modern society, when we read Nineteen Eighty Four we notice that several predictions has come true. The novel is mostly discussed by politicians about Orwell’s sociopolitical criticism of modern societies. ”1984 is set in a future London where dictatorship and totalitarianism has become a way of life where liberalism and the ability to think for yourself and create your own beliefs have not only disappeared, but are completely forgotten.

Big Brother and The Party, as the government is referred to as, are omnipotent a position they have secured by surveillance, control and constant lies and manipulation of history, facts and event.

Orwell himself fought in the Spanish Civil War and lived through the Cold War. He saw how tyranny and totalitarianism affected the world and how the Spanish newspapers not only blatantly lied about the war, but reported things that had not even taken place.

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When he then witnessed Soviet propaganda do the very same thing he feared that liberty and objectivity were becoming things of the past, and these experiences and fears are what inspired and fuelled 1984 “(Gleason, Goldsmith and Nussbaum 73-75).

Orwell gave a view of how the modern societies are going to be with all of the intelligent technology products, even though the novel was written before the invention of computers, tablets and smart phones, Orwell predicted a world controlled by technology under the control of “Big Brother “, exactly like the present with the technology the governments and the technological companies like Microsoft and Google are keeping an eye on people’s movement in the internet and with the excessive use of internet some application are now created for the purpose of spying on people for political reasons .

However, several academic studies didn’t really focus in the novel on Orwell’s prediction of the excessive use of technology in our modern society and how the societies nowadays are controlled by technology in all the spheres of life.

Aim of the study:

This research is an attempt to find out in George Orwell’s novel how technology, propaganda and surveillance work in the world of “Nineteen Eighty Four”, how it is empowering the totalitarian society in all the aspects of life and its connection with our modern society and how the world of the in the 21ST century is controlled by the technology.

The research questions:

This research is going to answer the following questions:

1. What is the role of technology in empowering the totalitarian regimes in 1984?
2. How technology control all the aspects of life in the modern society?

Significance of the study:

This study will shed light important problems mentioned in Orwell’s novel 1984.It will the negative effects and the danger of the totalitarian regimes in the novel, also it will show as George Orwell predicted how excessively the modern societies are using technology specially governments and how it become a very dangerous problem in the 21st century . I hope that this research will make an easy and clear point on those issues.

Methodology:

The research method is going to be as follows: First, gives an overview of totalitarian regime in Nineteen Eighty Four and the role of technology on it, how totalitarianism and Marxism affects the society in the novel. Second, describe how was technology in Oceania by showing how propaganda and surveillance work in 1984. Finally gives a comparison between Oceania in 1984 and our modern society and how technology overshadowed both in the aspects of life.

Structure of the dissertation:

This work will be separated into 2 chapters. The first chapter will contain:

• A biography of George Orwell and some of his famous works.
• A summary of Nineteen Eighty Four.
• Mentioning the prominent characters, themes and symbols.

The second chapter will contain:

• The totalitarian regime in 1984.
• The role of technology in the totalitarian society and its danger.
• The prediction of the excessive use of technology in the modern society and its effects.
• A comparison between 1984’s society and our modern society.

Work list cited:

• Arendt, Hannah, The Origins of Totalitarianism, Schocken, Random House, New York, 2004
• Chapman, Siobhan. (2009). “How could you tell how much of it was lies?”: The controversy of truth in George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four. Journal of Literary Semantics, 38, 71-86.
• Collie, Joanne & Slater, Stephen, Literature in the language classroom: a resource book of ideas and activities, Cambridge University Press. 2009. Print
• Dysthe, Olga, ed. Dialog, samspel och lärande [Dialogue, Interaction and Learning]. Lund: Studentlitteratur. 2003. Print.
• Bachelard, Gaston, Poetica spațiului, Pitești, Paralela 45, 2003
• Yeo, Michael. 'Propaganda and surveillance in George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four: Two Sides of the Same Coin.' Global Media Journal: Canadian Edition 3.2 (2010): 49-66. Communication & Mass Media Complete. Web. 12 Dec. 2014.