Big Brother

[genericbeyonce]

Is Big Brother an actual figure, or is he just made up to keep control of the people? I understand that the party rules with the use of fear, but I'm still confused as to whether Big Brother is real or not.

[Dreamwoven]

There is a lot of interest in Orwell's 1984 at the moment. No Big Brother is not a person, its what we have nowadays, all the cameras recording what is going on everywhere. In Swedish these are called "övervakningskameror".

In English there are called Surveillance Cameras.

[Pompey Bum]

There is a lot of interest in Orwell's 1984 at the moment. No Big Brother is not a person, its what we have nowadays, all the cameras recording what is going on everywhere. In Swedish these are called "övervakningskameror".

In English there are called Surveillance Cameras.

There is every fall, DW. I assume it is some kind of assignment some teacher regularly gives, but I really don't know. But genericbeyonce is correct that in the novel Big Brother is at least purported to be an individual. He never appears directly, though, and whether he actually exists is left ambiguous.

[Helloitsme]

I think big brother isn't real because he's too omnipresent for one person to be. I think that he's an idea created by a small group of people to keep power and to make sure that no matter what the citizens are always being watched.

[Sparrow21]

I also believe the Big Brother is not a single individual and they have one person to spend focus on precisely just to get everyone rallied up and upset. It would provide as a distraction so that the group in charge, as a whole, has control over everyone psychologically by letting them believe that there's one person they should throw their hate on and not them.

[Pompey Bum]

Yes, or for them to receive their blind love. But the story is fiction, so the real question is Orwell's intent (in other words, why did he leave it ambiguous) and its implications. This probably has to do with the idea that blinding the masses to the identity of their controllers as a domination strategy. So I am inclined to agree that Big Brother doesn't really exist and that some cabal is running things. On the other hand Stalin, who was not a little on Orwell's mind when he wrote 1984, not only existed but utterly dominated the toadies of his inner circle. There was no collectivism there. And since 1984 is ultimately about totalitarianism, I can't be entirely sure whether Big Brother existed or not. Apparently that's the way Orwell wanted it.