1984 Primary Sources

Author information. What do you know about the author? What other books has he/she written? Does the author teach at a university? What training or experience has contributed to the author’s command of the topic? Organization. Discuss whether the book makes sense the way it is written or if it could have been better organized. Sources. Does the author use secondary sources or primary sources, or both? Review the bibliography of the text to see if there is a pattern or any interesting observation about the sources the writer uses. Are the sources all new or all old? Provide one source that you are interested in investigating further. How does researching the author enhance or change your perspective about the book?

Born into an era where an

Orwell’s decision next was to join the Indian Imperial Police where he would face the harsh justices that would later become influential in his transcendent writing of dystopian societies. George Orwell would then live through both World War I and World War II, but the effects of World War II’s spread of dictatorship would be one of the major steps towards the writing of 1984. While reading of Orwell’s fictional, dystopian world of Oceania, there are potential moments where the audience could become lost and confused as to what is happening in 1984. The main character of the story, Winston Smith, feels as if the antagonist, the Party and Big Brother, have a cruel system of government. Once the audience gets further along in the book, Winston will have “learned” that the Party is a safe way of living life. This switch of the main character’s views of the antagonist not only can cause the audience to lose a sense of what has happened in the story, but the switch of Winston’s ideas and views has created a personal confusion for myself. Orwell had not

In 1984, the Party and Big Brother being as controlling as they are in Oceania, with most citizens having acquiescence, is something I see as wrong. I would describe myself to have a liberal mindset where I, as a person, should be given cultural and economic freedom. The way the government is run in Oceania in 1984 versus the government that runs in America (as of the 2016 Presidential Election) do share common aspects where “Big Brother”, or President Trump, is limiting the freedoms of citizens. The quote “But the temptation of having a hiding place that was truly their own, indoors and near at hand, had been too much for both of them” (Orwell 115) connects back to the American people that are compelled to seek for cultural and economic freedom, but they are restrained because of a controlling government. A government that controls what their citizen’s say, do, act, or feel should be abated because of the overstepping of man’s natural right. These connections between the book 1984 by George Orwell and America’s modern government is why I believe this book goes against my views of the world and what I consider to be