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George Orwell warned us about more than just Big Brother

Countryside overrun by housing developments, commercialism and greed – the 1984 author is one to re-read.

THE TOTALITARIAN SURVEILLANCE state imagined in George Orwell’s “1984″ is often cited to describe government encroachments on privacy, which is why the recent National Security Agency leaks led to a spike in sales of the dystopian novel on Amazon.com.

When you look at Orwell’s other novels, however, it becomes clear that his central fear went far beyond government spying. The British author, whose birthday was 110 years ago this month, also wrote pessimistic novels about imperialism, capitalism, commercialism, and war.

All of his novels (except for Animal Farm, which is a specific historical allegory) convey a fear of losing individual freedom to an increasingly oppressive modern society. In each novel, the protagonist’s attempt to escape ends in failure.

The theme of escape in Orwell’s writing has been noted by Dominic Cavendish, who describes “an Orwellian preoccupation with imprisonment and escape, his urge to examine human beings in the most straitened circumstances and consider their often thwarted urges for freedom.

A Hong Kong pro-democractic legislator holds a copy of George Orwell’s  1984 novel this month as lawmakers there tried to persuade Obama not to bring charges against Edward Snowden. Image: AP Photo/Kin Cheung

Burmese Days, published in 1934, tells the story of a British bachelor in 1920s Burma who couldn’t cut it in England and feels like an outsider among other expatriates. Protagonist John Flory is “the lone and lacking individual trapped within a bigger system that is undermining the better side of human nature,” writes Emma Larkin.

Flory finds hope in the arrival in a young woman whom he briefly considers his soulmate. At the moment when he starts to propose to her, however, a literal earthquake interrupts them, following which his life is ruined by a confluence of negative forces including a corrupt Burmese magistrate, jealous Burmese mistress, and restrictive British society.

Gender relations and dropouts

A Clergyman’s Daughter, published in 1935, tells the story of young Dorothy Hare, who gets abused, gets amnesia, ends up in the gutter, before getting retrieved by the bachelor who abused her. This book, which Orwell later disowned, features haunting portrayals of gender relations as well as “the nightmare in which one may be dropped out of respectable life, no matter how debt-laden and forlorn.”

Dependence on money

Keep The Aspidistra Flying, published in 1936, tells the story of a man who quits a promising job as a copywriter for an advertising company to focus on his poetry while working a low-paying job. Protagonist Gordon Comstock falls lower and lower while trying to escape an “overarching dependence” on money. In the end he doesn’t, instead conforming to society and taking back his job in advertising.

Orwell’s last book before the war, Coming Up For Air, published in 1939, offers perhaps his most complete criticism of contemporary society.

Wanting to escape from the rat race

Protagonist George Bowling is a middle-aged insurance salesman who, after winning a modest sum of money on a horse race, is inspired to return to his childhood home in Lower Binfield, while telling his wife he is going on a business trip. Here are his motivations as described by Cavendish:

He wants to escape from a number of things that would make sense to the man in the street: 1) He wants to escape from his wife and family commitments 2) He wants to get away from the rat-race and the anxious financial concerns of the Thirties that afflict all working-men, not only married ones. 3) He wants to flee suburbia and what it represents, a kind of “mental squalor”, as he puts it and 4) He wants to get away from thoughts of Hitler and the world war he knows is just around the corner.

Bowling’s trip brings only disappointment, however, culminating in a greater sense of captivity than ever. He is unsettled to find his home town overrun by “fake-picturesque” housing developments. He is shocked when people remember neither him nor his family. He becomes paranoid, fearing that his wife has launched an elaborate campaign involving a fake illness to catch him in a lie. Finally he is struck by deus ex machina as a British plane accidentally drops a bomb on Lower Binfield.

Predicting World War II

As Bowling drives home to submit to his mundane life, he sees the future with lucid pessimism, in a passage that predicts both World War 2 and 1984:

War is coming. 1941, they say. And there’ll be plenty of broken crockery, and little houses ripped open like packing-cases, and the guts of the chartered accountant’s clerk plastered over the piano that he’s buying on the never-never. But what does that kind of thing matter, anyway? I’ll tell you what my stay in Lower Binfield had taught me, and it was this. IT’S ALL GOING TO HAPPEN. All the things you’ve got at the back of your mind, the things you’re terrified of, the things that you tell yourself are just a nightmare or only happen in foreign countries. The bombs, the food-queues, the rubber truncheons, the barbed wire, the coloured shirts, the slogans, the enormous faces, the machine-guns squirting out of bedroom windows. It’s all going to happen. I know it–at any rate, I knew it then. There’s no escape. Fight against it if you like, or look the other way and pretend not to notice, or grab your spanner and rush out to do a bit of face-smashing along with the others. But there’s no way out. It’s just something that’s got to happen.

Coming Up For Air was followed in 1945 by Animal Farm (an animal allegory for the events leading up to the Russian Revolution of 1917, which is hard to compare to the other books) and in 1949 by “1984.”

Written on an isolated Scottish island while Orwell suffered from tuberculosis, which would kill him in 1950, the dystopian masterpiece imagines a world where everyone and everything, even history, are controlled by the Party. The book is impressive in its creation of an entire language, history, and government, as well as concepts like doublethink, thoughtcrime, and Newspeak.

Anti-establishment protests

From the film version of 1984. Image: Topham/Topham Picturepoint/Press Association Images

1984 also follows the theme of thwarted escape. It all starts when protagonist Winston Smith buys an old notebook and surreptitiously writes in it, thereby planting the seeds of antiestablishment thoughts. Smith, while taking care to avoid the surveillance state, starts an affair with a young Party member named Julia. The two of them rent a room in a “prole” part of town and think they have found a way occasionally to escape to a simpler, better life. In fact, the Thought Police have been tracking them the whole time, and the couple are captured and brutally tortured for the entire back third of the novel, until they betray each other and become totally brainwashed.

Although 1984 is Orwell’s most terrifying novel, its portrayal of a totalitarian surveillance state remains a work of science fiction. His other novels, however, show how in contemporary society people everywhere are trapped by the relentless march of progress, capitalism, commercialism, communism, and other aspects of modern society.

Orwell warned us about all of it.

- Gus Lubin

Sales of George Orwell’s ’1984′ up 6,000% since US surveillance scandal>

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    Mute Larry Whack
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    Feb 12th 2016, 10:26 PM

    A dose of thumps would do that lad no harm.

    186
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    Mute Shane McGettrick
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    Feb 12th 2016, 11:27 PM

    Douchebaggery. God be with the times when this stuff would see you labelled a bol*x, not an internet sensation.

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    Mute Jamie McCormack
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    Feb 13th 2016, 1:41 AM

    haha you guys.

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    Mute Uncle Denise
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    Feb 12th 2016, 9:26 PM

    How is this news? I want interesting news not crap like this!!!

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    Mute Tomás O'Loughlin
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    Feb 12th 2016, 9:28 PM

    It’s the Daily Edge. Want news, read a newspaper. DE is for entertainment/switching off from too much news.

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    Mute Johnneary
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    Feb 12th 2016, 10:24 PM

    I find the title of this article is a tad bit disingenuous.
    Real men don’t do these things.

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    Mute Byyys
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    Feb 12th 2016, 9:26 PM

    A whooping 82,742 Views… I guess from a journalist point of view this has gone “viral”?

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    Mute Your Defence
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    Feb 12th 2016, 9:58 PM

    1.2 million on YouTube, only been up a day.

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    Mute Eoin Milner
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    Feb 12th 2016, 10:29 PM

    Shared….

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    Mute Eoin Milner
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    Feb 12th 2016, 10:29 PM

    Like it matters anyway….

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    Mute Notthatguy
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    Feb 13th 2016, 12:42 AM

    Ya make money from hits….. This guy had a plan, and it seems to be working, so fair play, ignore what many Irish are famous for, begrudgers……

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    Mute bacoxy
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    Feb 12th 2016, 9:26 PM

    She has set a good eggsample to other mothers

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    Mute Jonny Irish
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    Feb 12th 2016, 11:51 PM

    You’re some yolk!

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    Mute Noel Tate
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    Feb 13th 2016, 11:33 AM

    That pun doesn’t egg-wash with me.

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    Mute Suzie Sunshine
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    Feb 12th 2016, 9:56 PM

    I wouldn’t dare throw an egg at my mammy , it’s so disrespectful .. Plus the fact that l would be more afraid of what gets thrown back at me !

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    Mute john truman
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    Feb 12th 2016, 10:18 PM

    I would throw him out of the house

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    Mute Luke Sarpish
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    Feb 12th 2016, 9:28 PM

    Jackass was doing this stuff 15 years ago.Have no idea why there is an article on this. Is he going to become a drug addict and kill himself in a car crash too?.

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    Mute family guy
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    Feb 12th 2016, 10:15 PM

    Luke the kids of today don’t recall jackass. It’s all new to them.

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    Mute Dave Meagher
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    Feb 13th 2016, 12:14 AM

    Right that’s it, I want to leave this planet.

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    Mute baz newham
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    Feb 12th 2016, 11:16 PM

    Like throwing eggs at your mother !…..like who gives a f&&k!

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    Mute Cill Dará Abú
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    Feb 12th 2016, 11:22 PM

    Oh big man, throwing eggs and his mum. Has he no mates to this sort of idiotic prank on

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    Mute zebedee
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    Feb 12th 2016, 9:31 PM

    I do eggsactly the same to my mam each day….but my mam’s better. If she lets the egg fall its scrambled for breakfast….if she catches, it’s boiled or fried sunny side up.

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    Mute John Fergus
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    Feb 12th 2016, 11:18 PM

    well presumably the video is monetized and some people will subscribe to his channel after seeing this video. this could be a very good money spinner for him, hopefully he will deal in his long suffering mother………….otherwise he’s a c##t.

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    Mute fitzz30
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    Feb 13th 2016, 12:06 AM

    Wow that guy is amazing. He should get his own tv show with a prime time slot.

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    Mute Zandranalily
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    Feb 13th 2016, 3:10 AM

    She should try throwing a few back.

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    Mute John Doe
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    Feb 12th 2016, 10:56 PM

    Mad yoke..

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    Mute Malcolm Lackey
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    Feb 13th 2016, 12:40 PM

    I like the way no one is taking responsibility for putting this tripe up!! No one wants to see a poor oul one getting egged, why yas even giving this sap publicity?

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    Mute ginger tomcat
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    Feb 13th 2016, 11:34 AM

    What would be nice is if a few people return favour to him at unexpected points throughout next year

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    Mute Lilly Ella
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    Feb 13th 2016, 8:07 AM

    I think it’s great craic…….as long as he does the cleaning up after an egg breaks.

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