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The Effects of Totalitarianism on a Fictional Society
In 1984 George Orwell shows how totalitarianism controls people’s lives through propaganda and technology, history without any truth, and fear for their lives. Orwell’s intention was to invoke resistance to the totalitarian society he was writing about. It is strange, however, that despite the unappealing control of that kind of society displayed in the book, Russia throughout history has tried that form of government. Critic Phillip Rahv states, “Big Brother, the supreme dictator of Oceania, is obviously modeled on Stalin, both in his physical features and in his literary style” (182). Orwell is recognizing the similarities between his fictional society and that of Russia when he compares Big Brother to Stalin. The essential point of 1984 according to Lionel Trilling is “…the danger of the ultimate and absolute power which mind can develop when it frees itself from conditions, from the bondage of things and history” (143). The way the totalitarian government shows power in this novel is extraordinary. In every part of the book dealing with totalitarianism Orwell gives explicit detail in how the Party controls every part of the peoples lives. In the book the characte

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They keep the percentage of people that know the true history extremely low in order to keep the outsiders ignorant to the lie.


If the people of the society went against the Party or the rules of the Party they were in serious trouble and had to face the consequences of their actions which were usually pretty harsh. There are huge posters of Big Brother all over the town with eyes that seem to follow wherever the people go. Reality exists in the human mind and nowhere else…whatever the Party holds to be the truth is truth. […] The black-mustachio’d face gazed down from every commanding corner. They come to a point where it is useless for them to live in a...