Explore the Presentation of Totalitarian Regimes in George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty Four and Alan Moore’s V for Vendetta

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Explore the presentation of totalitarian regimes in George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty four and Alan Moore’s V for Vendetta Within dystopian literature, a recurring motif can be the presence of a totalitarian regime. Two apparent examples of this are George Orwell’s science fiction novel, Nineteen Eight-Four (1948) and Alan Moore’s “beautifully realised nightmare” of a graphic novel, V for Vendetta (1984). When comparing these two pieces of literature, it is not difficult to note that they are set in a parallel background to one another. Though not the same time period, the societies in each of the separate pieces are set in London and under the rule of an oligarchy. Adam Susan and “Big Brother” (assuming “he” actually exists), and their team of top party members are ideologically similar. Both Orwell and Moore have based their novels on alternative outcomes of wars they have seen in their lifetime, with Orwell dealing with an alternative outcome of World War Two and Moore dealing with an alternative path to the Cold War, while both set their narrative frames within the aftermath of nuclear wars. A similar feature of both the novel and the graphic novel is that the main oligarchic parties have distinct mottos: for IngSoc, they have: "War is Peace; Freedom is Slavery; Ignorance is Strength”, all of these being paradoxical statements that hold hidden truths about the world in the novel. In parallel, the Norsefire party use the slogan: "Strength Through Purity, Purity Through Faith", which highlights Norsefire’s “pure” society, which is void of people of different races, sexualities, religions and political leftists, the most notable victims of this prejudice being Valerie, who was imprisoned at Larkhill for being a lesbian, and Evey’s father, who was arrested and executed for being: “in a socialist group when he was younger”. Both totalitarian governments have similar

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