This post is a summary of three articles. The first with the title of, "Orwell and me." Written by Canadian author of the dystopian novel, "The Handmaid`s Tale," Margaret Atwood. Published at http://www.theguardian.com/uk, on June, 16 2003. The second with the title of, "NSA spy scandal boost sales of Orwell`s 1984." Published at, http://www.orwellsociety.com/, on June, 24 2013. The third with the title of, "1984 study guide-major themes." Published at http://www.gradesaver.com/1984/study-guide/major.
The book of Orwell, "Animal Farm", was published in 1945. Thus I was able to read it at the age of nine. I knew nothing about the kind of politics in the book. So, I gobbled up the adventures of the smart, greedy, upwardly mobile pigs and the easily led, slogan-chanting sheep, without making any connection with historical events. Children have a keen sense of injustice. The whole experience was deeply disturbing to me, but I am forever grateful to Orwell for alerting me early to the danger flags I have tried to watch out for since. I could see, too, how easily those who have toppled an oppressive power take on its trappings and habits. Jean Jacques Rousseau was right to warn us that democracy is the hardest form of government. Animal Farm is one of the most spetacular books of the 20th century, and it got Orwell into trouble. Then came "1984", which was published in 1949, thus I read it when I was in high school. Then I read it again, and again. It was among my favorite books. "1984" struck me more, probably because Winston Smith, the protagonist, was like me, a skinny person who got tired a lot and who was silently at odds with the ideas. I sympathised particularly with the desire of Winston to write his forbidden thoughts in a secret book. Along with illicit sex, another item with considerable allure for a teenager of the 1950s decade. "Animal Farm" charts the progress of a movement of liberation towards a totalitarian dictatorship. "1984" describe what it is like to live within such a system. There is no love interest in Animal Farm, but there is in 1984. Winston finds a soulmate in Julia, but the lovers are discovered. Orwell became a model for me much later in my life, in the real year 1984, the year in which I began writing a dystopian novel, " The handmaid tale," by the time I was 44, and I had learned enough about real despotism, through the reading of history, travel, and in my membership of Amnesty International. Democracies have defined themselves by, among other things, openness and the rule of law. But now it seems that we are tacitly legitimising the methods of the darker human past, upgraded technologically. For the sake of freedom, freedom must be renounced. To move us towards the utopia we are promised.
The NSA spying scandal has had an unusual side effect, sales of Orwell`s dystopian novel 1984 are going through the roof. The book, which depicts a nightmarish world where citizens are subjected to constant surveillance, have rocketed onto Amazon pages thanks to a whopping 6.000% increase in sales. Its website says, "people are buying it up either to learn about what could be, or simply because recent events remind them to read the classic." Whatever the reason, there are certainly some similarities between the book of Orwell and the recent revelations about the NSA`s mass surveillance operations. In the book, 1984, a world of perpetual war, government surveillance and public mind control. In the U.S. perpetual war on terror has been used to justify government surveillance of phones and internet.
The main goal of Orwell was to warn of the serious danger dictatorship poses to society. He goes to great lenghts to demonstrate the terrifying degree of power and control a totalitarian regime can acquire and maintain. In such regimes, notions of personal rights, freedoms and individual thought are pulverized under the all-powerful hand of the government. Orwell believed in the advancement of society. He witnessed during his time in Spain and Russia, the rise of destruction of civil liberties, honest government, and economic strenght. Besides totalitarianism, propaganda is another major theme in his book. There is a extremely well organized and effective propaganda machine that allows the ruling party to completely dominate the range of information disseminated to the public. The citizens are filled with hatred for the stated enemies, but this hatred is easily re-directed if the supposed enemy happens to change. This efficiency is disturbing. The world is as the ruling party defines it. Others major themes in 1984 are: Love and Sexuality, the ruling party works to quell all sensations of love, solidarity, affect and depersonalizes sex to the point where it is referred to as a "duty to the party". The party has also removed interfamilial loyalty, demanding all loyalty to itself, in this way, the bonds between family are broken. Independence and Identity, it is a effective psychological manipulation tactics, to destroy all sense of individuality, for this reason writing has been outlawed, independent thought could be dangerous. Music appears to inspire Winston and allow him to see simplicity in a otherwise violent world. Orwell also demonstrate how totalitarian societies promote the wealth of the ruling elite regime while decreasing the quality of life for all other members of society. The technology is an important tool to the ruling party to maintain control over its citizens, when technology development serves the power, as more effectively put citizens always under observation, they are encouraged, when they do not, they are stopped.
