How does the Novel Nineteen Eighty Four anticipate social changes Essay

How does the Novel Nineteen Eighty Four anticipate social changes after WW2 - Essay Example 3). Characterized as dystopian fiction, Nineteen Eighty-Four gives expression to the aftermath of the Second World War and the onset of the Cold War by depicting a largely â€Å"impoverished world† (Booker and Thomas 2009, p. 193). In Orwell’s world, a harsh dictatorship has risen to power following a global nuclear war that occurred during the 1950s. Put in its proper context, this abrasive regime in Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four is particularly thought provoking because the novel is written when â€Å"memories of European Fascism were still fresh and anti-Stalinist rhetoric was on the rise† (Booker and Thomas 2009, p. 193). A major theme in Orwell’s novel is anti-totalitarianism. Reed and Spring (1984) maintain that Orwell wanted to demonstrate what can occur when governments are prescribed too much authority (p. 24). Ultimately, those self-empowered governments will take control to such an extent that is meant to ensure that their power is sustai ned (Reed and Spring 1984, p. 24). Orwell wastes little time introducing the extent of that power and its system of control. Through his protagonist Winston Smith who is a civil servant for the ruling dictatorship, the reader learns of the extent of the ruling dictatorship’s control. ... representative of the government’s warning that it was constantly watching and that any sign of revolt or opposition against the government would not go unchecked. Indeed it can be argued that Orwell predicted or forewarned with a reasonable degree of precision what would unfold in the future. Tinpots, as described by Wintrobe (2000) are governments that permit conventional ways of living, but uses repression and oppression in order to remain in power and â€Å"collect the fruits of monopolizing political power (p. 11). Latin American dictators typically epitomize this image of the tinpot regime (Wintrobe 2000, p. 11). In the aftermath of the Second World War, Latin American regimes have been characterized by economic growth and lulls and political instability facilitated by tumultuous outcries for democracies (Leonard 2006, p. 123). This political instability may be a direct reflection of Orwell’s forecast of totalitarian rule in Nineteen Eighty-Four. The drive to do all that is necessary to retain power by these kinds of regimes remains intricately connected to political unrest and instability. When power is centralized, maintaining power becomes a virtual struggle with the result that economic policies are not a priority. As Sloan (1984) puts it, in Latin America, policymakers are so determined to obtain legitimacy â€Å"or at least survival† that development suffers (p. 19). Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four however, forecasts Asia, rather than Latin America, as â€Å"a region dedicated to death worship and the obliteration of itself† (MacKinnon and Powell 2007, p. 86). This death knell however is not relegated to Asia alone in Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four. Orwell’s novel acknowledges that the world’s three super-states, Oceania (Britain, the Americas, South