Wednesday, May 30, 2007

The Similarities

Orwell wrote this book in a time of fear and confusion. At the time it paralleled the government and living styles of the citizens like himself. There were many threats then and now depicted similarly to these in 1984. Its ideals of dictatorship and extreme limits to personal freedom are not as revolutionary as from when the book was written. now, it is clear that these problems are very realistic and many have already happened. He explains many of these as individual threats. Things such as thought police, who controlling every move, and the freedom of knowing your family history exemplify loss of personal freedom.These two are the most radical ideas to modern readers, but in reality are ot outrageous. Laws and acts by the government presently allow more governmental power to find personal information than ever before. The thought police and children who are spies on the parents are references to these acts. The clearing of past history is another way to make the government seem more powerful and ultimately makes the citizens that more brainwashed. THere are few people who are less affected, like winston. He is the parallel to modern day peacemakers. All h wishes to o is figure out the deep lies of “Big Brother” and to find what the past was like. There are so many similarities in this novel to present societies. It seems as though more similarities will continue to arise in the future, affecting all citizens and eventually turning many of us in Winstons.

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