1984: The Graphic Novel

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Foster, David William; Altamiranda, Daniel (1997). Twentieth-century Spanish American Literature to 1960. Garland Pub. ISBN 978-0-8153-2680-9. Archived from the original on 20 November 2023 . Retrieved 9 June 2015.

Leetaru, Kalev. "As Orwell's 1984 Turns 70 It Predicted Much of Today's Surveillance Society". Forbes. Archived from the original on 27 March 2023 . Retrieved 3 December 2019. And indeed, many of the details surrounding censorship – the rewriting of history, the suppression of dissident literature, the control of the language people use to express themselves and even to think in – were also derived from Orwell’s reading of life in Soviet Russia. Surveillance was also a key element of the Stalinist regime, as in other Communist countries in Europe. In January 1944, literature professor Gleb Struve introduced Orwell to Yevgeny Zamyatin's 1924 dystopian novel We. In his response Orwell expressed an interest in the genre, and informed Struve that he had begun writing ideas for one of his own, "that may get written sooner or later." [16] [17] In 1946, Orwell wrote about the 1931 dystopian novel Brave New World by Aldous Huxley in his article "Freedom and Happiness" for the Tribune, and noted similarities to We. [16] By this time Orwell had scored a critical and commercial hit with his 1945 political satire Animal Farm, which raised his profile. For a follow-up he decided to produce a dystopian work of his own. [18] [19] Writing [ edit ] Chernow, Barbara; Vallasi, George (1993). The Columbia Encyclopedia (5thed.). Boston: Houghton Mifflin. p.2030. OCLC 334011745. Alex Hern (26 January 2017). "Forget Nineteen Eighty-Four. These five dystopias better reflect Trump's US". The Guardian. Archived from the original on 1 July 2017 . Retrieved 17 June 2017.

McCauley, Martin (2014). The Rise and Fall of the Soviet Union. Taylor and Francis. p.298. ISBN 978-1-317-86783-8. OCLC 869093605. Best Novels «Modern Library". www.modernlibrary.com. Archived from the original on 2 October 2010 . Retrieved 29 December 2022. Certainly, many of the most famous features of Nineteen Eighty-Four were suggested to Orwell by his time working at the BBC in London in the first half of the 1940s: it is well-known that the Ministry of Truth was based on the bureaucratic BBC with its propaganda department, while the infamous Room 101 was supposedly named after a room of that number in the BBC building, in which Orwell had to endure tedious meetings. During the war, the Soviet Union invaded and absorbed all of Continental Europe, while the United States absorbed the British Commonwealth and later Latin America. This formed the basis of Eurasia and Oceania respectively. Due to the instability perpetuated by the nuclear war, these new nations fell into civil war, but who fought whom is left unclear (there is a reference to the child Winston having seen rival militias in the streets, each one having a shirt of a distinct colour for its members). Meanwhile, Eastasia, the last superstate established, emerged only after "a decade of confused fighting". It includes the Asian lands conquered by China and Japan. Although Eastasia is prevented from matching Eurasia's size, its larger populace compensates for that handicap. Shortly before completion of the second draft, Orwell hesitated between two titles for the novel: The Last Man in Europe, an early title, and Nineteen Eighty-Four. [29] Warburg suggested the latter, which he took to be a more commercially viable choice. [30] There has been a theory – doubted by Dorian Lynskey (author of a 2019 book about Nineteen Eighty-Four) – that 1984 was chosen simply as an inversion of the year 1948, the year in which it was being completed. Lynskey says the idea was "first suggested by Orwell's US publisher", and it was also mentioned by Christopher Hitchens in his introduction to the 2003 edition of Animal Farm and 1984, which also notes that the date was meant to give "an immediacy and urgency to the menace of totalitarian rule". [31] However, Lynskey does not believe the inversion theory:

The term "English Socialism" has precedents in Orwell's wartime writings; in the essay " The Lion and the Unicorn: Socialism and the English Genius" (1941), he said that "the war and the revolution are inseparable...the fact that we are at war has turned Socialism from a textbook word into a realisable policy"—because Britain's superannuated social class system hindered the war effort and only a socialist economy would defeat Adolf Hitler. Given the middle class's grasping this, they too would abide socialist revolution and that only reactionary Britons would oppose it, thus limiting the force revolutionaries would need to take power. An English Socialism would come about which "will never lose touch with the tradition of compromise and the belief in a law that is above the State. It will shoot traitors, but it will give them a solemn trial beforehand and occasionally it will acquit them. It will crush any open revolt promptly and cruelly, but it will interfere very little with the spoken and written word." [95] Hillegas, Mark R. (1967). The Future as Nightmare: H. G. Wells and the Anti-Utopians. Southern Illinois University Press. ISBN 978-0-8093-0676-3The standard of living of the populace is extremely low overall. [61] Consumer goods are scarce, and those available through official channels are of low quality; for instance, despite the Party regularly reporting increased boot production, more than half of the Oceanian populace goes barefoot. [62] The Party claims that poverty is a necessary sacrifice for the war effort, and "The Book" confirms that to be partially correct since the purpose of perpetual war is to consume surplus industrial production. [63] As "The Book" explains, society is in fact designed to remain on the brink of starvation, as "In the long run, a hierarchical society was only possible on a basis of poverty and ignorance." Syme– Winston's colleague at the Ministry of Truth, a lexicographer involved in compiling a new edition of the Newspeak dictionary. Although he is enthusiastic about his work and support for the Party, Winston notes, "He is too intelligent. He sees too clearly and speaks too plainly." Winston predicts, correctly, that Syme will become an unperson. Kellyanne Conway, an early purveyor of Trump’s ‘alternative facts’. Photograph: Mark Wilson/Getty Images a b "Orwell's Notes on 1984: Mapping the Inspiration of a Modern Classic". Literary Hub. 18 October 2019. Archived from the original on 1 January 2023 . Retrieved 1 January 2023. George Orwell: Why I Write". Resort.com. Archived from the original on 9 July 2011 . Retrieved 4 July 2011.

a b Stalin, Joseph (1944). On the Great Patriotic War of the Soviet Union. Moscow: Foreign Languages Press. Nineteen Eighty-four, novel by English author George Orwell published in 1949 as a warning against totalitarianism. The chilling dystopia made a deep impression on readers, and his ideas entered mainstream culture in a way achieved by very few books. The book’s title and many of its concepts, such as Big Brother and the Thought Police, are instantly recognized and understood, often as bywords for modern social and political abuses. Summary Star Trek: Picard Viewing Guide – The Essential Treks to Take Before the Show – IGN, 18 January 2020, archived from the original on 26 October 2020 , retrieved 29 October 2020 Brown library buys singer Janis Ian's collection of fantasy, science fiction". providencejournal.com. Archived from the original on 24 September 2019 . Retrieved 24 September 2019.References to the themes, concepts and plot of Nineteen Eighty-Four have appeared frequently in other works, especially in popular music and video entertainment. An example is the worldwide hit reality television show Big Brother, in which a group of people live together in a large house, isolated from the outside world but continuously watched by television cameras.