Inspiration

If I were to write a novel, I would take inspiration from everything around me and all of the people who have influenced me, just as George Orwell took inspiration from his surroundings. I work at a preschool and everyday I study the impact that the kids have on each other. My book would be primarily a coming of age story about a kid similar to the kids that I work with at the preschool. I watch as they grow up and shed some of their optimism and naive outlook on the world. I would take many of my experiences dealing with them and encouraging them and use those in the book, in addition to using feelings and experiences from my own childhood. The characters would be based on either the kids from the preschool or many of the friends that I had growing up.

Enemy of the State

We only saw a short clip from Enemy of the State, but it was apparent that the security in this society related to 1984. The surveillance in 1984 and in Enemy of the State was very similar. In the movie Enemy of the State, Will Smith’s character gets involved with a crime because his old college friend drops a tape in his pocket before getting hit by a car. He has no knowledge of the tape, but it is implied that it won’t be long until the government begins searching for him. The government in this society is able to search for and track down anyone that they are suspicious of using wire-tapping. In 1984, Big Brother can watch anyone from the telescreen and listen to what they are saying. This makes it easy for both societies to know when someone is doing something wrong, but it also a huge invasion of privacy. This drove people in Oceania to not trust anyone or anything. They always had to have their guard up.
I don’t agree with this type of personal invasion, and there is much debate going on today about surveillance like this. Listening in on apparent criminals could prevent crimes, but how do we draw the line between criminals and people who aren’t criminals? Like in this movie, people can be in the wrong place at the wrong time and then have their privacy completely taken away from them.

"Strength Through Unity, Unity Through Faith"

After we watched the three clips of V for Vendetta in class, I immediately went to Blockbuster and rented it because I was so intrigued. As I watched the movie the entire way through, there were many more similarities that I noticed to 1984. Firstly, their society has a strict curfew and a loudspeaker in multiple places on every street to announce things to the population. This is synonymous with the strict code and telescreen in 1984. In both societies, the people in power are attempting to control their people as much as possible so they can hold onto that control. They also aren’t given adequate food; Evey gasped when V gave her real butter later in the movie, asking him where he got it. In 1984, Julia snuck some real coffee for her and Winston as they stayed in the room. I thought the look of the film was similar to what I imagined in 1984, except it was cleaner and more modern than the way I envisioned Oceania.

Another similarity between V for Vendetta and 1984 is that their slogans and party portraits are posted everywhere. In V for Vendetta, the slogan “Strength through unity; Unity through faith” is posted everywhere in the city. In 1984, Big Brother’s face is posted everywhere. At the beginning of the movie, V said, “words will always retain their power.” As we saw later in the movie, when we were introduced to Valerie, the woman who wrote her biography on toilet paper, words changed and some were feared. Different became dangerous, as Valerie said. This relates to 1984 because Big Brother didn’t keep anyone who was a threat to the party. Different or informed or intelligent was a definite threat to the party, and if Valerie had lived in Oceania, she would have been persecuted as well, perhaps for loving someone else more than the party, or even for being different. In the clip about Valerie, she met her love in a beautiful field with rolling hills, much like the Golden Country in 1984.

Also, in the last clip that we saw, their leader was giving a lecture, telling the people listening that he wants their society to realize why they need their government. This is much like how O’Brien explained to Winston that the individual alone is flawed and cannot function properly alone. He explained that the party protects them, makes their decisions so that they don’t have to. Also in the last clip, V looks in the mirror, throwing his mask to the floor, and shatters it. This is very similar to the scene where O’Brien made Winston look in the mirror and Winston was shocked to see himself, his body resembling a skeleton. Both Winston and V hated what their government had molded them to be.

Changing the Future

In both the society in Minority Report and in Oceania, the government attempts to prevent crimes from taking place. In both cases, they are attempting to control their society to mold it into what they want it to be. In 1984, they were preventing people from turning against the party by charging people with thoughtcrime. In Minority Report, they were preventing murders. They are given images that portray elements of the crime and using those, they need to find the scene of the crime and prevent it from happening. When they do this, they charge the person with future murder. Just as in 1984, they are charging the person with something that hasn’t happened yet.
They are both changing the future. In 1984, one of the party slogans read “who controls the past controls the future, who controls the present controls the past” (Orwell 32). They control the past by changing documents and rewriting history, therefore they also control the future and what people interpret as accurate. In Minority Report, they only change the future. They do not need to go back and change the past because they have already prevented murders from taking place. Anything else that happens that passes them by they cannot change. They are only given control over the present and over the future. However, it could be interpreted that whoever controls the present and future controls the past, because the future becomes the present which becomes the past.

Eye of the Beholder

The final scene of the episode “Eye of the Beholder” was frightening, and of course surprising. The entire episode was a buildup for Janet Tyler’s face to be revealed. She was nervous to see if the injections and treatments had paid off to make her look “beautiful”. Once the bandages were taken off, she gasped and covered her eyes. Even though she was gorgeous by our society’s standards of beauty, in her society she was considered repulsive. In the scenes leading up to the removal of her bandages, the doctor shared a conversation with her that paralleled O’Brien’s conversation with Winston. The doctor explained how she would need to be to a ghetto if she didn’t respond to the injections, and she protested, telling him that she just wanted to be like everyone else. She protests that the government shouldn’t have the final say in her life. The doctor told the nurses later that he felt close to her – that he had seen more than just a face – and that he felt awful sending her away. However, he knew that that would be what he had to do.

After her mask was taken off and the rest of their faces were displayed, a man with the same frightening face appeared on a screen giving a speech about their unified society, much like Big Brother. Their main goal was to change Janet Tyler so she would fit into the rest of society. In 1984, they did the same thing to Winston; however, the Ministry of Love succeeded in changing Winston to fit the party and the hospital in the Twilight Zone did not succeed in fixing Janet’s face.