His dissatisfaction increases to a point where he rebels against the government in small ways. Winston's first act of rebellion is buying and writing in a diary. This act is known as a thought crime and is punishable by death. A thought crime is any bad thought against the government of Oceania. Winston commits many thought crimes and becomes paranoid about being caught, which he knows is inevitable (Greenblast 113). He becomes paranoid because a young woman who is actively involved in many community groups follows him. Winston is obsessed with the past, a time before Oceania was under strict dictatorship. He goes into an antique shop and buys a shell covered in glass, which is another crime punishable by death. He sees

Daley, Alan L. George Orwell, Writer and Critic of Modern Society. Charlottesville: Samhar Press, 1974.

The owner of the antique shop is another example of someone appearing to be what he is not. Orwell uses the shop owner to illustrate a point. Orwell shows that no one can be trusted in a totalitarian country. Someone who appears to be your friend will actually turn you in and have you killed. The shop owner appears to be an old widower who enjoys having conversations with Winston Smith. Throughout the book it can be seen that looks can be deceiving. He is actually a member of the Thought Police and gets a good laugh when Winston and Julia getting caught. Now all he can do is wait for his next victim to enter his store.

In a totalitarian state something resembling a Ministry of Love is common place. It's a place where the government can inflict pain on its subjects for crimes big and small. That is how totalitarian nations keep, power over their citizens-- by fear of pain. The name Ministry of Love is a contradiction of itself. Its name shows a feeling of love and warmth, but in actuality it's the complete opposite. It's a place of hate and pain and is cold and dark. A better name for it would be the Ministry of Hate. George Orwell lived during a time when Europe was in a period of rebuilding after World War II. During that time Soviets gained six nations as satellites. England was helpless and had to worry about their own problems and had to watch the Soviet Union take control of half of Germany. The leader of the Soviet Union, Stalin, closely resembles Big Brother. They were both larger than life figures in their respective countries. In the Soviet Union you could easily have found large posters with Stalin's face on them. The same holds true in 1984; Big Brother's face is everywhere. A famous quote from 1984 is "Big Brother is watching you" (Orwell 5). Meaning if his Thought Police don't catch you, his telescreens and hidden microphones would. In the Soviet Union, Stalin's KGB sought criminals who plotted against the government. In Stalin's regime over 10 million people were killed. In 1984 hundreds of criminals were killed daily. Another aspect of the 1940's was the new broadcast TVs and mainframe computers. The new technologies could be used for means of control. Orwell saw communist countries using these technologies for control (Kolakowski 125). This is where Orwell's idea of telescreens and hidden microphones came from. Before World War II, Orwell had his worst encounter with communists. While Orwell was in the Spanish Civil War, he was running away from Soviet communists who were trying to kill him. After that experience he got out of the army and became a writer full time. "Another shock to Orwell was when the Nazi-Soviet pact signaled the breakdown and the beginning of the mental and emotional state out of which grew Animal Farm and 1984"(Greenblast 105). Orwell may of have extracted what he saw in his world while writing but it was done to get people's attention of problems in the existing world. "Orwell's primary purpose is to distort disturbing conditions tendencies and habits of thought that he saw existing in the world"(Stansky 105). Orwell saw, the whole world steadily moving toward a vast ruthless tyranny. He felt nothing could stop its monstrous progress. 1984, in spite of its setting in the future, is not primarily a utopian fantasy prophesying what the world will be like in thirty or forty years but a novel about what the world is like now (Greenblast 112). Orwell always relates characters in his books to points of view and real people. In Animal Farm every farm animal represents a person in the Soviet Union. In 1984, Orwell represents his po

Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 2493
Approximate Pages = 10 (250 words per page double spaced)