1984 Essay

Nineteen Eighty-Four was written by a major contributor and factor to anticommunist literature around the World War II period, George Orwell, and is one of the greatest stories of an anti-utopian or dystopian society ever. Nineteen Eighty-Four was not written only as an entertaining piece of literature or as a vision of what the future could be like, it was written as a warning of what could happen as a result of communism and undemocratic actions. This was not necessarily a popular vision of the future at the time the novel was published, but it was certainly considered a possibility by many people. The popular vision of the future, if looked at from a character in the book's point of view, sometimes changes, depending on the character. For example Winston's vision of the future and what the world should be like was very democratic and fair, yet his so-called ally, O’Brien, his vision of the future was very illiberal and the exact opposite of Winston’s vision. However, Winston, and others who have had the same experience as him, have a different view of the future after leaving the Ministry of Love. There were many different perceptions and ideas of the future at the time when Nineteen Eighty-Four was written.

Some people believed that the world superpowers would conquer the weak nations of the world and democracy would overrule everything. Some believed that the world will remain the same as it was 1948 for years into the future, as many individual nations, and somewhere in the future we would drive cars through the air and live on the moon. Others feared that communism and socialism would spread throughout the world, and that everyone would suffer under these unwanted economic and political structures. It was on this idea that Nineteen Eighty-Four was written. George Orwell's idea of an undemocratic society is frighteningly realistic, and could easily have been seen as a possibility of what the world could have been like in 1984.

Today,