Wake up, go to work, produce. Hide your real thoughts, blend in, and be normal, for not could mean the end of your life as you know it. Life is unbearable, stressful, and seems not worth living. This is the sad reality that many people around the world suffer under totalitarian regimes. It’s easy to think that could never happen to you, but could it? The popular book 1984 by George Orwell is known worldwide as a staple of the dystopian genre, but the book is far more than just that. Through his viewing of real-life dystopias, Orwell uses 1984 to warn of the very real dangers of totalitarianism that persist even today. First, George Orwell wouldn’t have been able to create such a frighteningly accurate image of an authoritarian society out …show more content…
The defining political experience of his life, alternatively, was the six months he spent in Spain, in 1937, as a Republican volunteer against Franco. He was wounded in the throat – the bullet passing within a few millimetres of his carotid artery – and was present in Barcelona when Soviet-sponsored hit-squads attempted to suppress the Trotskyist POUM militia, of which he had been a member. Spain made Orwell ‘believe in Socialism for the first time’, as he put it, while instilling an enduring hatred of totalitarian political …show more content…
Terrorizing its citizens with fear and punishment was the main method to keep its citizens in line. In 1984, censorship was a routine task, of which citizens took little to no notice, similar to the Soviet Union. Just as in 1984, the secret police were feared by the people. Orwell, having a deep hatred for The Soviet Union, based many elements of 1984 on them, with this secret police being one of the key features. The Soviet Union also had many different committees dealing with different types of censorship, again similar to 1984. Without a doubt, The Soviet Union was one of the biggest influences on Orwell’s