Technology and the Government
The opening pages of the novel establish two characters: the protagonist, Winston, and the antagonist, Big Brother. Feeble for thirty-nine years of age, Winston pathetically ascends to his walk-up flat. In the stairwell of each landing in his apartment building hangs 'an enormous face, more than a meter wide: the face of a man of about forty-five, with a heavy black mustache and rugged handsome features.' This is Big Brother. He's the nation's mascot, like Uncle Sam. He watches people out of telescreens. His giant face gazes at you silently out of posters and billboards. His imposing presence establishes the sense of an all-seeing eye. The idea that he is always watching from the shadows imposes a kind of social order. You know not to speak out against The Party -- because big brother is watching. 'The poster with the enormous face gazed from the wall. It was one of those pictures which are so contrived that the eyes follow you about when you move.' The face always appears with the phrase Big Brother is watching you. As if you could forget.
The novel opens with a thorough description of what life is like in this dystopian society though the eyes of Winston. Imagine for yourself this terrible future. You have no privacy or freedom, and your every move is carefully scrutinized -- or at least you think so. There's no way of knowing if and when somebody is actually watching. At the same time as the TV monitors spread disinformation, their cameras also watch: 'The instrument (the telescreen, it was called) could be dimmed, but there was no way of shutting it off completely' (Part 1, Chapter 1). The telescreen is both an announcement system as well as a surveillance network. The following passage explains from Winston's point of view what it's like to try to keep a secret when living under the regime of such technology:
'It was terribly dangerous to let your thoughts wander when you were in a public place or within range of a telescreen. The smallest thing could give you away. A nervous tic, an unconscious look of anxiety, a habit of muttering to yourself -- anything that carried with it the suggestion of abnormality, of having something to hide. In any case, to wear an improper expression on your face was itself a punishable offense.'
Winston describes in this passage how difficult it is for him to restrain his private, inward thoughts from appearing on his face. If you harbor ill thoughts toward the powerful, omnipotent government, you'll always have to keep your guard up when you're in public. It's even more difficult to blend in when you know your every action is being scrutinized. By emphasizing the correlation between Winston's inner thoughts and the expression on his face, this passage sets up the conflict that plays throughout the novel:
If you want to keep a secret you must also hide it from yourself. You must know all the while that it is there, but until it is needed, you must never let it emerge into your consciousness in any shape that could be given a name. From now onwards, he must not only think right; he must feel right, dream right.
This describes the correlation between surveillance, paranoia, and privacy. The government spies on its people because it wants ultimate control: control the body and you control the mind. While video cameras cannot technically police the public, their very presence imposes a mental state of paranoia. Winston discovers that the only way to keep anything to yourself is to fool yourself, along with the cameras. He begins to learn how to deceive his own perceptions, to live like the best of spies.
Paranoia and Privacy
The suffocating presence of Big Brother drowns Nineteen Eighty-four in paranoia. When Winston rents a room above an old junk shop - a very rare private space that doesn't have a telescreens installed in the walls -- he begins to learn what it's like to enjoy privacy. But this doesn't last long; the climax of the novel begins with a disembodied voice:
'They could do nothing except stand gazing into one another's eyes. To run for life, to get out of the house before it was too late -- no such thought occurred to them. Unthinkable to disobey the iron voice from the wall. There was a snap as though a catch had been turned back, and a crash of breaking glass. The picture had fallen to the floor uncovering the telescreen behind it.
'Now they can see us,' said Julia.
'Now we can see you,' said the voice.'
It turns out that a picture hanging on the wall had hidden the telescreen from view; Big Brother had heard every word spoken in that room. They are then captured by the Thought Police. It's one of the most terrifying moments in the novel, when you discover that there is truly no such thing as privacy, no safe place, no thought secret from Big Brother.
Lesson Summary
No words or thoughts are free in a society that monitors the interactions of its citizens. The Orwellian future depicted in Nineteen Eighty-four hinges on the all-seeing omnipresence of the central antagonist, Big Brother. Orwell uses technology in the novel to convey a sense that Winston is being watched at every moment. Beginning with the constant surveillance of the face of Big Brother, a sense of paranoia seeps in. The feeling of being watched becomes internalized to the point where the Thought Police invade your mind and your dreams. No place can be safe, no room private, when surveillance is both technological and psychological.
