Two film versions were made, in 1956 and (appropriately) 1984 (in fact, the film was shot on the actual days from Winston's diary when possible). Questions were asked in the House of Commons when it was alleged that one viewer had actually died of shock while watching. It resulted in probably the earliest large-scale eruption of protests about 'taste and decency' involving a British TV programme. The following year, The BBC adapted the book for television with a script by Nigel Kneale and Peter Cushing as Winston Smith. The first one came out shortly after the book's publishing (as in, within the same year) as an episode of the radio anthology series NBC Universal Theater, while the first visual adaptation was as part of another anthology show, CBS' Studio One, in 1953. The book received multiple adaptations over the years. Until one day, a chance encounter with a woman might prompt him to do something about it. The novel’s protagonist is Winston Smith, a member of the middle-class 'Outer Party' who lives a dismal existence working for the Party's Propaganda Machine, secretly nursing thoughts of rebellion. And most importantly, Sinister Surveillance is omnipresent: nearly every space has some sort of monitoring device and it’s impossible to tell whether you are being watched or listened to at any time. Media, entertainment, and art are all heavily controlled and censored by the Party. Sex is banned for all Party members except for procreation, and only between state-approved couplings. Standards of living are low due to the Forever War Oceania is engaged in alongside their ally Eurasia against Eastasia (or is it the other way around?). Oceania is ruled by the totalitarian regime of 'the Party', personified by the omnipresent figure of 'Big Brother'. The book is set in London, the chief city of Airstrip One and part of the superpower of Oceania. Finished in 1948 (Orwell merely reversed the last two digits of that year to devise the title) and published the next year, it became one of the most iconic stories in the English language, and introduced the phrases ' Big Brother Is Watching You,' ' thoughtcrime,' 'Thought Police,' ' Newspeak,' and ' doublethink' into the English lexicon ( but not 'doublespeak,' 'groupthink,' or 'wrongthink'). One of the most horrifying and depressing codifiers for the Dystopian genre, ever, notwithstanding its now- outdated title.Īfter reading Yevgeny Zamyatin’s dystopian thriller We, George Orwell wrote Nineteen Eighty-Four as a Pragmatic Adaptation of the novel for non-Russian audiences, with the addition of the then-new technology of television. “If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face-forever.”

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