George Orwell's 1984 was released in 1949, at a time when the world
             was still reeling from the effects of World War II. The Soviet Union had
             just exploded the first atomic bomb, setting off 40 years of the Cold War.
             Supports of capitalism thus latched onto the book as a warming about the
             In this novel, Orwell creates a future dystopia controlled by
             technology. Television screens were used to monitor individuals. Privacy
             was impossible as the authoritarian regime could control people's thoughts
             and actions. Given the climate of fear that was set off by atomic bomb,
             Orwell's world of a technological dystopia seemed terrifyingly real.
             Orwell states that 1984 is a narrative satire. Fearing how
             totalitarian ideas have taken root even in the minds of intellectuals, he
             wrote the book to show the dangers of these ideas run amuck. Orwell writes
             that 1984 was set in London "to emphasize that the English-speaking races
             are not innately better than anyone else and that totalitarianism, if not
             fought against, could triumph anywhere" (Orwell, Collected Essays, 502).
             In this sense, Orwell succeeds admirably. Much of the descriptions of
             daily life in 1984 would be familiar to readers even today - milkless
             coffee, the "sickly oily smell" of Victory gin and a pannikin of pinkish-
             gray stew. Even the concept of doublespeak no longer seems implausible, as
             politicians use words like "peacekeeping" and "safe areas" to make war
             images more palatable to television audiences.
             It is from this dichotomy familiar surroundings where clocks strike
             thirteen that the novel continues to draw its power. Orwell reminds the
             reader that Big Brother is not a remote possibility, confined only to the
             uncivilized and non-English speaking nations like the Soviet Union. The
             ultimate horror of the dystopic society was not the lack of freedom, the
             everyday monotony or even the rats. Inst...