Nineteen Eighty-Four

1. (1949) A novel by George Orwell. Nineteen Eighty-Four depicts a totalitarian society of the future, ruled by an omnipotent dictator called Big Brother. In this society, called Oceania, people's thoughts are controlled as tightly as their actions. The government maintains an organization called the “thought police” and engages in constant propaganda. (See also Big Brother is watching you.)

Orwell coined the term doublespeak to describe one kind of propaganda practiced by the state in Nineteen Eighty-Four.

Example Sentences

Instead, he draws from the writer’s letters and diaries, as well as the longer-form works like the barnyard political allegory “Animal Farm” and the dystopian novel “Nineteen Eighty-Four.”

Read more on Los Angeles Times

He also weaves in fragments from past screen adaptations of Orwell’s titles, including the 1954 animated “Animal Farm” and Michael Radford’s stark, desaturated adaptation of “Nineteen Eighty-Four” starring John Hurt, cross-cutting them with current images of drone wars, surveillance and algorithmic control.

Read more on Los Angeles Times

He points to Orwell’s line in “Nineteen Eighty-Four”: “If there is hope, it lies in the proles.”

Read more on Los Angeles Times

“Nineteen Eighty-Four is applied in Aleppo. Assad’s image is on every building, streets, on every corner. He is controlling their minds,” he said, referring to the George Orwell novel about totalitarianism.

Read more on BBC

In George Orwell’s classic depiction of an authoritarian society, “Nineteen Eighty-four,” a key component of political control is the state’s erasure of history: “Every record has been destroyed or falsified, every book has been rewritten … every date has been altered. … After the thing is done, no evidence ever remains.”

Read more on Los Angeles Times