ough this, one can see that Orwell wanted to avoid such movements as communism, which attempted to obtain control over the individual, and yet he had a need to preserve the community through socialism. With communism, Nazism, fascism, and imperialism rising during Orwell’s lifetime, he had concern for the elimination of the individual. He therefore wrote critical and sardonic literary works, including his most famous novel entitled 1984.As a critic of Stalin and his followers during World War II, Orwell wrote the satirical novel entitled 1984, portraying what society would turn out to be in 1984 if people followed Stalin’s movement in Russia. The society is ruled by “Big Brother,” whose description is unmistakably meant to represent Stalin himself. There is almost a complete elimination of privacy through the “telescreens,” which can be used to monitor the actions and speech of any individual in the vicinity. Also, any actions that hint towards rebellion against or even a slight distaste for the Party or Big Brother can cause someone to be tortured and eliminated from the society. At one point, the main character, Winston Smith, realizes that the Party can also control one’s mind. After being discovered for rebellious actions, Smith is sent to the Ministry of Love, where they torture him solely to make him agree with the Party. At this point, they have finally ingrained in him the idea that two plus two equals five, showing their dominion over his mind: “‘They can’t get inside you,’ she had said. But they could get inside you. ‘What happens to you here is forever,’ O’Brien had said. That was a true word. There were things, your own acts, from which you could not recover. Something was killed in your breast; burnt out, cauterized out” (1984 239). The Party tries to conquer people’s minds in order to take control and create a soc...
