George Orwell's critique of totalitarianism and societal control

George Orwell's literary context

George Orwell was a key author in the British literary, historical and political context after the First World War.
In his work on "Burmese days", George Orwell expressed a profound disagreement over the colonialist and racist politics.

"Burmese Days" was published in 1934 and was inspired by the author's experience in Burma as a member of the British imperial police.
After fighting for the Republicans in the Spanish Civil War, George Orwell also published a "homage to Catalonia" in 1938, which is a fierce criticism of the violence and authoritarianism of the Spanish Communist Party and the Soviet Union.
Orwell expresses a deeper denunciation of totalitarianism and, in particular, Stalinist communism, in the short novel "Animal farm". It is a sharp satire of the degeneration of the Russian Revolution.

1984 and dystopian warning

In 1949, George Orwell published his latest novel, "1984", and thus continued his social criticism through the science-fiction genre, inspired by another important author: Huxley and his masterpiece “Brave new world”.

“1984” by Orwell is set in the future and launches a warning about the disturbing prospects of a society characterized by the suppression of every individual freedom and absolute control exercised by a political power identified in the mysterious nilpotent figures of the Big Brother.

Organization of the world and society in 1984

1984 is composed by 3 sections which are about a future world (it is said future because the novel takes place in 1984 but it was written in 1949 so the future is related to Orwell’s time) where three nations are fighting each other for a territory. This is the cause, in fact, of the Third World War.
The first nation is called Oceania and it includes America, UK, Ireland, Australia, New Zeland and South Africa; the second one is Estasia and it includes Japan, China, Tibet, the north of India; the third one is Eurasia and it includes Europe and Russia.
The remain territory (North and Centre Africa, Middle East and the South East of Asia) is what is contended.

The main setting of the story, however, is London where the socialist government, represented only by one party and based on Socing (acronym for English Socialism) ideas, has all the power.
The supreme role of this politic is given to the Big Brother who is unknown but spies everyone through cameras collocated in every house and centimetre of the city. This figure seems also to recall dictators like Stalin or Hitler.

There are also four Ministries: Minluv (Minister of love) whose aim is to guarantee internal security through the so called psycopolice; Minipax (Minister of peace) that focuses on the war in progress; Miniplenty (Minister of abundance) which manages finances; Minitrue (Minister of truth) that has a strong influence in the party propaganda and distorts information in books, news and magazines from a revisionist perspective.
As a matter of fact, censorship is really harsh since every idea or vocabulary not aligned with the government principles are eliminated.
There is also a social class called Prolet where the workers are collocated. They sustain themselves with manual works and they live in separated neighbourhood.