1984 #1

            George Orwell wrote 1984 as an attempt to predict what the world would be like in the year 1984, roughly four decades after the book was published. The setting is filled with danger, hypocrisy, oppression, darkness, and technology. All of these details develop the theme of totalitarianism and its certain destruction of humanity, as seen through protagonist Winston Smith. When Winston is describing his apartment and the telescreen, the fear in the Thought Police provides enough justification to be afraid of the entire government as a whole: “You had to live – did live, from habit that became instinct – in the assumption that every sound you made was overheard, and, except in darkness, every movement scrutinized” (3). The telescreen and all of technology is a symbol for what the government is capable of in terms of controlling their population. The advantage of using technology as a means of control provides the government the necessary instruments to successfully run an oppressive Totalitarian regime. The Though Police have ways of knowing what you are doing, saying, and thinking at seemingly every moment. Living without and competition or rebellion is similar to living with no government at all, it becomes void and completely useless. The danger in Totalitarianism is the factor of control and supremacy, which George Orwell invokes the possibility of through the control in rising technological advancements displayed in the novel.