Texts in Time Essay Orwell's 1984 and the Matrix
Texts in their Time essay
A text is a mirror for the concerns of a time and place.
Orwell’s “1984”and the Wachowski brother’s “Matrix” can be viewed as a mirror into the concerns of a time and place. “1984” depicts how a hierarchical world tyranny is set up, how it stays in power, how it treats people and what life is like living under such a system. The “matrix” is also a representation of how the world as ‘we’ know it can be manipulated into the unknown or changed to suit the ideology of one higher power. The matrix is also seen as a situation that the majority of human kind cannot relate to; it is a scenario that is not only out of their control but a scenario that the average human cannot comprehend it goes beyond a control system that the average human brain cannot relate to. The matrix brings forward concepts that do not play to everyday life.
Orwell vision of 1984 was shaped by his experiences though out his time as a volunteer in the Spanish civil war and upon returning to Britain post-war when the country was a place of shortages and rationing. Orwell struggled against fascism, but was intent on destroying its anarchist and Trotskyist allies. The defeat of fascism involved the success of and the emergence of the USSR as a great power. Orwell was deeply concerned about this fact. Orwell remained a believer in the fundamental goodness of the “common people”, the workers or “proles”. Due to Orwell’s personal circumstances, his fading life expectancy from tuberculosis may have influenced the bleak creation of the world that is “1984”. “1984” is a text which depicts the story of Winston smith who is a common man or a member of the outer party in the hierarchy of the ‘big brother’ system. The “1984” world is a totalitarian society where the party or big brother tries to control everything, including thought and emotion. Big brother is a dictator ship which controls every movement in society through constant surveillance and harsh penalties for
A text is a mirror for the concerns of a time and place.
Orwell’s “1984”and the Wachowski brother’s “Matrix” can be viewed as a mirror into the concerns of a time and place. “1984” depicts how a hierarchical world tyranny is set up, how it stays in power, how it treats people and what life is like living under such a system. The “matrix” is also a representation of how the world as ‘we’ know it can be manipulated into the unknown or changed to suit the ideology of one higher power. The matrix is also seen as a situation that the majority of human kind cannot relate to; it is a scenario that is not only out of their control but a scenario that the average human cannot comprehend it goes beyond a control system that the average human brain cannot relate to. The matrix brings forward concepts that do not play to everyday life.
Orwell vision of 1984 was shaped by his experiences though out his time as a volunteer in the Spanish civil war and upon returning to Britain post-war when the country was a place of shortages and rationing. Orwell struggled against fascism, but was intent on destroying its anarchist and Trotskyist allies. The defeat of fascism involved the success of and the emergence of the USSR as a great power. Orwell was deeply concerned about this fact. Orwell remained a believer in the fundamental goodness of the “common people”, the workers or “proles”. Due to Orwell’s personal circumstances, his fading life expectancy from tuberculosis may have influenced the bleak creation of the world that is “1984”. “1984” is a text which depicts the story of Winston smith who is a common man or a member of the outer party in the hierarchy of the ‘big brother’ system. The “1984” world is a totalitarian society where the party or big brother tries to control everything, including thought and emotion. Big brother is a dictator ship which controls every movement in society through constant surveillance and harsh penalties for