>From the evidence contained in the novel 1984, George Orwell intended 1984 as an
insight into the future. He was predicting the future of the world and how government will
take control of every aspect of life. People will turn into machines that will power the real
In the very beginning of the novel, Orwell portrayed an image of a society where
people valued government success more than they valued personal success. People no
longer worked for personal gain, they worked only for improvement of the government
and improvement of their society as a whole. Because the government had so much
control, they made the people think that their society was improving when it was actually
getting worse. Since the people could not remember anything from the past and there was
no documentation of the past, they had no choice but to accept the propaganda of the
government. Orwell was describing how all the Oceanians thought they were the top of
the food chain when in reality they were slaves. The purpose of the propaganda was to
keep the Oceanians under control so that the government could use them to fuel whatever
it was that the government was doing outside of Oceania.
Winston Smith, the main character, is used to show how these future governments
deal with flaws in the system. Winston was born before Big Brother came to power and he
has the ability to remember things which other people, that were born during Big
Brother's power, can't. He remembers that Oceania was at war with Eastasia and not
Eurasia. He is a threat to the government because he might cause other people to question
Big Brother. Without complete control, Big Brother cannot exist.
Orwell's most important prophecy in this novel was the idea that the government
was attempting to destroy the ability to think. The purpose of this is to create a society
where there is no thought. The language of Oceania, newspeak, was created s...