1- Identify a warning that George Orwell issues to us via his novel Nineteen Eighty Four – support with a quote

2- Identify a manifestation of his concern in contemporary society – provide evidence

3- Draw a connection between the two – was Orwell right? what did he miss? what are we missing?

The novel ‘Nineteen Eighty Four’ written by George Erwell, tells of a dark future for the human race. It predicts of government corruption as well as gives us many warnings that Erwell believes will be the downfall of humanity in the years to come. Although George Erwell did not get the timing predictions right as he believed that these problems would come into humanity in the year of 1984, how ever he is very accurate with our our society in today in 2019. These problems in the world that Erwell warned readers of his novel about can be seen today in objects such as cellphones and social media and the way we portray ourself through emotions.

George Erwell creates the idea of ‘Telescreens”, in his novel Nineteen Eighty Four as a way to reflect the control the government has over the common citizen. Telescreens are a device provided by the government which act as a television, security camera and a microphone. The device of the telescreen help give power to the government and enforce the authority they have. Any ‘thoughtcrimes’ that the government could see through the telescreens resulted in instant vaporisation, no questions asked. A thoughtcrime is any intellectual action of a person who holds any politically unacceptable thoughts. “It was terribly dangerous to let your thoughts wander when you were in any public place or within range of a telescreen. The smallest thing could give you away.”

The idea that the “telescreens” are a way to reflect the control the government has over the common citizen can be seen today, by our own little ‘telescreens’ we as humans in the 21st century carry around in our back pockets known as cell phones. There is always the rumor that behind every selfie cam on a laptop or phone there is an FBI agent watching your every move, but how do we know this is not true? Stingrays are devices set up by the government which mimic a cellphone tower which can pinpoint the physical location of a phone that is using it. If the government was corrupt as it was in the novel Nineteen Eighty Four this could be used by them to see any illegal actions that are occuring. This raises the question of, ‘Is it moraly acceptable for anybody to be able to use those Sting ray devices?’ However, in the society unlike Nineteen Eighty Four, we are giving the government the oppurtunity to control us. With every cellphone purchased, it gives the government the chance to be able to locate us, and as most cellphones have a camera and microphone, they could possibly see what we are doing and hear our conversations. Orwell created this theme in the novel to warn us. As Nineteen Eighty Four was written during the time of World War II, a time in life where no one could be trusted as in fear that they were spys for the enemy. In George Orwells peridction of what the world would look like in the future, I don’t think he would have guessed that we would be giving the goverment such ways as cellphones to control us.

In todays society, you can learn everything you need to know about a person from a few clicks of a facebook page, or taking a few minutes to scroll down someones instagram profile. Welcome to the world of social media. In the novel Nineteen Eighty Four, Orwell uses the saying “Big Brother is always watching you” as a way to represent the government exercising the complete and utter control in the time of Nineteen Eighty Four, however today, anybody could be big brother. The Novel Nineteen Eighty Four creates the image that Big Brother is a human of higher power, almost like a god. He has a level of power over the citizens which strikes fear into them. With the access of the internet and social media we or anybody can be Big Brother. Anybody can have power of over you or someone else and learn multiple things about them just by glancing at their social media accounts. As all of us being social media users, we are always concerned about the amount of likes we acquire on each post, how many followers we have, and it is heart breaking when we lose followers. We do whatever we can do fit the norm and gain more of a social media profile. This reflects an idea in Nineteen Eighty Four, where people such as Winston, hide their true feelings and opinions on matters so they can stay alive and not be caught by Big Brother. In todays society we do that with our social media, we do not post what we want to see, we post what others want to see, we post what makes us look better than we are. Social media can be manipulated and can be used to create an illusion of who we really are. Just like in Nineteen Eighty Four, Winston creates an image of himself which is not who he truly is to keep himself alive.

Emotions are expressed everywhere throughout the world. One look at a person can tell you lot. Emotions can also be expressed through the way they dress, how they style their hair and even the way that they stand. In Nineteen Eighty Four, people are forced to show no emotion and have no say in the way they look. “Reality exists in the human mind, and nowhere else.” At the time of Nineteen Eighty Four, the only true place where people such as Winston could be themselves, away from the watching eye of the telescreens. “It was terribly dangerous to let your thoughts wander when in the range of a telescreen, the smallest thing could give you away.” Many famous celebrities and models use photoshop to portray the way they look in an unrealistic way. Their emotions portray a different person to who they actually are. College humour a youtube channel created a video to help show that “photoshop creates unrealistic beauty standards”. By doing this they show us that a beautiful blonde girl in a bikini can be photoshopped to look exactly like a slice of pepperoni pizza. As Winston being a character in the novel Nineteen Eighty Four, he had to confine himself to the norm so as not to bring attention to who he really is. His first signs of showing who he truly is was at the time of him buying himself a dairy. Many people have not understood the warning Erwell has given us as society seems to believe everything they see as not what it truly is beneath the surface.

Nineteen Eighty Four, gave us a dark, yet truful prediction of what the world may turn out to be like in the future. Erwell has given us many warnings through his novel of Nineteen Eighty Four, most of which society has failed to acknowledge placing us in the state we are in today.