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Allusions In 1984

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1984 is a dystopian novel written in 1949 by George Orwell. Winston Smith navigates through his life working as a Party member for Ingsoc, a totalitarian government, but soon rebels against it. Insoc aims to control its society through surveillance and propaganda. Aspects of 1984 such as Big Brother, the Brotherhood, the war between Eurasia, Eastasia, and Oceania, and other features of the novel are clear allusions to Orwell’s surroundings in 1949. The Red Scare, the Russian Revolution, the World Wars, Orwell’s time with BBC, and the rise of communism influenced Orwell’s writing of 1984. The rise of communism that corresponds to 1984 first began with the Russian Revolution in 1917 when the Soviet Union overthrew the Russian Monarchy. World …show more content…

Secino begins with Orwell’s birth in India to an imperialist background where his family had social value. When Orwell moved to England, his status was one of the “less-well-off” students. Orwell noticed the privileges that the richer and higher-status families around him received and Secino speculated that the bias Orwell experienced affected his political views later on. After leaving school, Orwell joined the Imperial Police force in Burma and later entered trench warfare. Orwell joined BBC in mid-1941, creating propaganda in the Indian Section to send “strong antifascist signals” and strengthening India’s “loyal support of the British war effort”. The Ministry of Information often censored Orwell, hence the many ministries Orwell included in 1984. The Ministry of Information blocked anyone who criticized the war and created “lies and hatred” to sway people’s opinions. Orwell believed that working with BBC gave him “direct experience with the creation of propaganda and the control of thought.” BBC was similar to 1984 in which the Thought Police and Orwell’s coworkers reviews each other's works and decided whether or not to censor them. BBC held a lot of power over its workers and if the organization or the war was criticized, they would be removed, similar to Winston’s colleagues being vaporized when they were a liability to Ingsoc. BBC held their meetings in Room 101, sharing the name of the torture chamber where Winston is “tortured and broken” in 1984. The similarities in Orwell’s time with BBC and Winston with the Party are too obvious to ignore. The party system and its class divisions in 1984 are a reference to the caste systems that Orwell witnessed during his childhood and his time at school. Secino implies that the origin of the three warring countries in 1984, Eurasia, Eastasia, and Oceania,

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