Cultural Criticism In George Orwell's 1984, By George Orwell

“Sixty years after the publication of Nineteen Eighty-Four, it is hard to think of any major institution not open to the epithet “Orwel­lian”. From Channel 4’s barely ironic Big Brother to the ever-increasing surveillance measures of a paranoid and cloyingly invasive state, Orwell anticipated a peculiarly British nightmare,” (Power, Nina). In George Orwell's 1984, there are many ideologies and cultural norms that people in the book see as perfectly normal and readers took notice. Those who read it, started seeing that the things in the book were like how things that were around them. In this way, 1984 has caused a cultural influence on its readers and the world around them. The book does this by becoming popular, staying significant, becoming

As people started seeing things happening in their word that was oddly similar to the novel, they started to take notice. “George Orwell's dystopian novel "1984" is enjoying a spike in sales in the wake of revelations on surveillance in the United States,” (UPI Top News). With how people were making connections to the novel and their lives, many people started reading it again to see if there were any more similarities between their lives and the book. “Amazon.com says the book, published in 1945, has gone from No. 13,074 to No. 193 on its selling list, and it is moving higher, The Guardian reported. To put it another way, sales are up 7,000 percent,” (UPI Top News). With this spike in sales, there is no question that the novel has stayed

“In 1984 he demonstrated that we may be reduced to the lowest of acts: we become worse than rats. The gene is selfish, and the individual man is selfish. We are all potential tortures, and we would all betray our loved ones,” (Drabble, Margaret). This quote states that how in 1984 people became selfish because that was what seemed normal for people to do, people of today are doing the same thing. People are becoming more and more selfish and self-centered to which they do not acknowledge anyone that they deem is worthy. This also goes into how the culture in the book influences the perspective of people who read