Orwell says he wrote the book to show where the world was headed. Another writer notes, "When asked about the world he had described in 1984, Orwell responded that he was not saying such a future would occur, but that a future something like it could happen because that was the direction in which the world was going" (Goodman)
The Patriot Act has limited personal freedom and privacy in this country, and it gives the government too much control over information in people's lives, more like the government in Orwell's novel than ever before. In Orwell's novel, the government, (he calls it "Big Brother,") controls every piece of life and the Thought Police make sure that people think about nothing but approved statements (Orwell 3)
All throughout the book, Orwell develops images of "rotting nineteenth-century houses" (Orwell 3), the "boiled cabbage smell," (Orwell 21), filth, and an overwhelming sense of rot and poverty to indicate just how the government influences every aspect of the people's lives, and how it is ruining society. Another writer notes, "As Orwell points out, for as long as there are gross inequalities in society people will never feel a sense of solidarity or of belonging to the same social project -- for equality is the condition for fraternity or community with others" (White)
As Fromm notes, many people may look to Communism and totalitarianism as representative of Orwell's thoughts - something that we feel could never happen to us - but there are many areas of our everyday lives that are not that different from these very controlling types of society, we simply choose to ignore them and so accept them in our daily lives. As one critic writes, "Modern technology is great, however in the wrong hands it can be a dangerous weapon of mass destruction, and worse yet, mass control" (Caminiti)
These devices give off information when hit by bursts of electromagnetic radiation, and they can give off the information anywhere. Why are these bar-code devices so disturbing? Because "all kinds of information could theoretically be transmitted about an individual without their knowledge or consent, by tags in their shirts, shoes, gloves, belts, car seats, credit cards, and so on" (Dixon)
" As Orwell states early in the book, "Asleep or awake, working or eating, indoors or out of doors, in the bath or in bed - no escape. Nothing was your own except the few cubic centimeters inside your skull" (Orwell 26)