The narrator in George Orwell's "Shooting an Elephant" is faced with precisely this kind of situation. ... However, unlike the mob of over two thousand Burmese in Orwell's account, today the groups are generally made up of peers and in much smaller numbers; nevertheless, the outcome is the same. ...
This idea of an "all knowing" government leads many to reflect on literature that, in a way, reveals the fate of society, such as George Orwell's novel 1984. ... Orwell's novel became a touchstone of our culture in the way that it functions as a warning, "If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face forever." Orwell's picture of the future describes the boot and its stamping of a human face in all the detail necessary to frighten everyone from the pessimistic misanthropes to the idealistic optimists. The book could only be written from the most pr...
Electronic Surveillance: A Threat to Liberty In 1984, George Orwell wrote in his futurist novel, "You had to live -- did live, from habit that became instinct -- in the assumption that every sound you made was overheard, and, except in darkness, every movement scrutinized." ...
