This is also relevant to today’s society because of our extensive use of social media. It shows how surveillance destroys the beauty of human interaction and shows how relationships change when using technology. The Circle shows how surveillance interferes with human freedom and human nature. The Circle confronts readers with several themes related to technology with surveillance being a big part in the movie The Circle where the company is over-run by technology. You think no one is watching? Think again.

According to the novel the public had “no way of knowing you were being watched.” We put our thoughts on social media. Nineteen Eighty-Four delivers this concept of thought police the thought police were hired by the government to monitor all telescreens to find certain people who commit a crime against the party. Today, there is no need for ‘Big Brother’ as we volunteer so much personal information about ourselves on social media already, we’re basically handing it to the government. In Nineteen Eighty-Four technology was a new way to control people with fear, with the party in power, they easily manipulated people with technology and brainwashed the public by putting telescreens in private areas and microphones around the town. 'Day by day and almost minute by minute the past was brought up to date.'Īfter the edits are made by Smith, the original copies are tossed down 'memory holes,' where they are incinerated.Technology, a concept in Nineteen Eighty-Four that is still relevant in modern society today, with the TV show Big Brother, inspired by this novel, it just shows that Nineteen Eighty-Four essentially predicted the future we live in today.

'This process of continuous alteration was applied not only to newspapers, but to books, periodicals, pamphlets, posters, leaflets, films, sound-tracks, cartoons, photographs - to every kind of literature or documentation which might conceivably hold any political or ideological significance. 'As soon as all the corrections which happened to be necessary in any particular number of 'The Times' had been assembled and collated, that number would be reprinted, the original copy destroyed, and the corrected copy placed on the files in its stead.'

This passage, from an accurate edition of '1984,' explains the process: The ministry, which is responsible for propaganda, employs Winston Smith - the novel's de-facto narrator and protagonist - to edit and amend literature, re-writing history as the ruling party sees fit. Account icon An icon in the shape of a person's head and shoulders.

1984 novel