Though 1984 was written well before the year 1984 and it is now 2007, there are many similarities between the book and today’s society. Relationships of all kind have less value, the government watches one’s every move (or at least has the capability to), and large groups of people are influenced to believe opinions at school due to the government. The government has regulations and records on everything and everybody. George Orwell may not have been very far from predicting the truth when writing 1984 in 1948.
In the United States today, anywhere from something as harmless as television shows to the government itself promotes less sanctity of a loving family much like 1984. In the book, children went to school and were trained to be spies and turn adults into the thought police. Parsons (Winston’s comrade and neighbor) was turned in by his own children. He had committed a “thought crime”. This shows what little respect the children in the book had for their parents, and the baffling effect was the parents getting use to and accepting it. Parsons had told Winston that he’s actually kind of proud of his child.
“Big Brother” discouraged emotions and anything with meaning in families. Children are raised today with households based on financial support, affairs, and anything but real love. Children are taught that divorce is okay, and the value of marriages has greatly decreased. “Till death do us part” may now really mean “Till death do us part or if you can’t work out any problems and do things my way”. In 1984, Winston “separated” with his wife Katherine. By law he could not get married again unless Katherine died but this was strictly to discourage love and sexual relationships. Today’s definition of love has changed tremendously. The Merriam Webster’s second definition out of ten is “attraction based on sexual desire : affection and tenderness felt by lovers”.
Love today is overlooked and a family based on love can rarely exist in the right tense as it use to years ago. Percentage of divorced people in the United States has gone from 6% of the population to 10% in 2002, and the numbers are still rising (CITE). A few percent does not seem like much until one looks at the millions living here in the United States and th[IMAGE]e statistic including people who have never been married and/or do not have children. Television shows influence many children, the average teenager watches four to six hours of television a day. It s very rare that a television show has a whole, normal family. It is very common; however, that a television show displays a dysfunctional one. The government also has a role in society as it did in 1984. The government continually passes laws that makes divorce easier and easier to occur. (CITE?)
The easier it is, the more frequent it will happen in our society. The sanctity of marriage…degraded once again. The government we have today can track almost anything, making evidence of a crime much easier to find. In 2002, the United States passed the Patriot Act, allowing the government to look at all public college and school information, one’s personal internet, and even library records. In 1984, evidence for crimes were set up in the form of microphones , “telescreens”, spies, and “Thought Police”. Both invading privacy, it is hardly noticed by the people, and they accept it. n the book, children were trained to tell on every person they could to the Thought Police. They were sent to places where they were told how to think and who they would eventually become as a person. School is much like this today.
School has the power to influence children on how to act, how to think, and who to become. Sometime the schools contradict information the children is given from the parents. The theory of evolution for example, has been taught as a theory and not creation. Parents may not spend much time teaching their children about creation and the child has only the school’s information to turn to. Sex education being another excellent example, students in high school are taught to have “safe sex” instead of no sex at all.
This may also contradict parents and their teachings. With relationships downplayed, the government having access to one’s private life and their children, George Orwell was very correct about the future of society and humans alike. Though the book was rather intense when it came to the outcomes, Orwell described a world of the government brainwashing the people. Much of society does not realize what is going on or think it is a negative effect.
