The Role of the Government in 'Nineteen Eighty-Four ' and What it Means to the Contemporary Reader

Studienarbeit aus dem Jahr 2007 im Fachbereich Anglistik - Literatur, Note: 1,7, Universität zu Köln (Englisches Seminar), Veranstaltung: Gordon Bölling - Utopia/Dystopia, Sprache: Deutsch, Abstract: From all utopian/dystopian novels ever published, George Orwell's 'Nineteen Eighty-Four', along with Huxley's 'Brave New World', surely has the highest influence on modern culture. Being translated into sixty-two languages since its publication, the novel had a big influence on language, the development of the science-fiction genre and the view on governments all around the world. It provides an important warning to pay attention to political decisions, new laws and the critical increase of mass surveillance. Orwell's ideas presented in the novel spawned numerous other novels, movies, television shows and awareness groups against an orwellian world. The reason for this development was in the end Orwell's depiction of a horrible kind of government, which seems to be in infinite control of its citizens. Hence, the term 'orwellian' emerged into popular culture to describe totalitarian states and governments with such tendencies. This paper is going to give a closer view on the way the government described in 'Nineteen Eighty-Four' works, how it came to power, how is makes use of its power to preserve it and how the ordinary citizens deal with living under such a government. Furthermore, this paper will come across the historical circumstances that inspired Orwell at his time and finally we will observe the present to compare the situation in several selected countries and especially the United States of America all over the world with Orwell's fearful vision. Reliability of information and lack of information is of course a big problem in the case of the Ingsoc government. The reader is always bond to the limited perspective of the main character, Winston Smith - who himself is probably deceived and lied to by O'Brien most of the time. The lack of perspectives often makes it impossible to be sure if that what is told is the truth, so it is necessary to presume, assume, speculate and calculate with probabilities to draw a picture of the whole. If this goal is finally achieved, remains the decision of the reader.