How To Read Literature Like A Professor By George Orwell

Many artists utilize their work to evoke emotion, push political agendas, and spark change. Thomas C. Foster wrote, in his book How to Read Literature Like a Professor, that “writers tend to be men and women who are interested in the world around them. That world contains many things, and on the level of society, part of what it contains is the political reality of the time…” (Foster 122). George Orwell, Aldous Huxley, and Ray Bradbury use their literary works to urge their audiences to be mindful of all-powerful states and rapidly advancing technology. Orwell’s novel 1984 acts as a warning; “the warning is that unless the course of history changes, men all over the world will lose their most human qualities, will become soulless automatons, and will not even be aware of it” (Fromm 313). Huxley’s

He implies violent and dark punishments for those who oppose the Party such as death, forced-labor camps, and torture. “Thoughtcrime does not entail death: thoughtcrime IS death” (Orwell 28). Orwell makes it clear that disloyalty is death and there is not hiding disloyalty.The Party constantly watches its members for signs of disloyalty and if any signs are detected those people are “reeducated” and then vaporized. “There was no physical act, no words spoken aloud, that they had not noticed, no train of thought they had not been able to infer” (Orwell 276). Orwell reminds the audience that there is no escaping Big Brother watchful eye. He also addresses the Party’s use of torture as a way to force rebels into submission. “Of pain you could wish only one thing: that it should stop. Nothing in the world was so bad as physical pain. In the face of pain there are no heroes, no heroes”(Orwell 239). Orwell explains the Party’s thought process behind inflicting physical harm to rebellious members as simple as this: with enough pain they will