Essay Instructions: This is the proposal that you guys have helped me write; now I need help writing the research paper.
The Accuracy of George Orwell?s Predictions
George Orwell chose a specific date, 1984, for the title of his novel predicting the evolution of society by that date. However we are now 18 years past that date and his predictions have not come true. How could Orwell have been so wrong? Or was he only wrong about the exact timing and still correct about his general predictions? To understand Orwell?s view of the future, it is necessary to put Orwell?s work in the context of contemporary events just after the conclusion of World War II. His lifetime only spanned the first half of the twentieth century, a period of tremendous conflict, particularly in the ?civilized world? of Orwell?s experience. Much of the conflict occurred in Europe and impacted the United Kingdom dramatically. The power vacuum resulting at the end of World War II allowed the growth of totalitarian regimes in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. From the viewpoint of the democratic governments, communism was the next great threat after the downfall of Hitler?s Germany and imperial Japan. The era of the ?Red Scare? and McCarthyism characterized the extreme reaction of the ?free? countries to the stated goal of communism to overwhelm the democratic societies. Orwell could not help but be influenced by this tremendous fear and the subsequent response.
How could any rational person living at that time expect anything other than the open societies evolving to the situation Orwell predicted in his novel? Couple this climate with the development of more and more sophisticated technology to not only invade personal privacy, but also to manipulate people?s view of their own country and prejudices against people who did not share the same values. Ironically Orwell portrayed the follies of communism in Animal House and yet the perceived threat of communism twisted his view of the world, as it might look 35 years in the future. In this paper, I will show how logical and obvious were Orwell?s conclusions and how 35 years would seem to be such a long time when less than 35 years had seen two World Wars, the Great Depression, the rise and fall of Hitler?s Germany and imperial Japan, and the rise of world wide communism.
My note
(Orwell died before the red scare and McCarthyism became issues in the public''s consciousness. Instead I think it is more accurate to say that what Orwell worried about in the USSR was not communism, per se, but Stalin. He was right about Stalin long before others recognized Stalin''s brutality...this is where I would want the paper to make a strong argument at)
The paper must include:
Bibliography
Works Cited
page numbers
footnotes
table of contents
The paper must employ a minimum of eight sources, both primary and secondary, both book and periodical, and at least one half must be scholarly/professional sources.
The paper must incorporate quotes/paraphrased materials from both your sources listed in your bibliography and from 1984.
Sources
Bloom, Harold. ?George Orwell?. New York: Chelsea House, 1987.
Davis, Robert Gorham. ?Ten Masters of the Modern Essay: Forster, Lawrence, Huxley, Orwell, Auden, McCarthy, Baldwin, and Gold?. New York: Harcourt, Brace, & World, 1966.
Gross, Miriam. ?The World of George Orwell?. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1972.
Orwell, George. ?The Collected Essays, Journalism, and Letters of George Orwell?. New York: Harcourt, Brace, & World, 1968.
Orwell, George. ?The Orwell Reader; Fiction, Essays, and Reportage?. New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1956.
Steinhoff, William R. ?George Orwell and the Origins of 1984?. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1975
