1984 Essay
Mr. Bui’s 11th grade honours’ English
Mary McCauley


  In both fantasy and reality, we are constantly being monitored. In the silver screen, and those pages of yours it may seem glamorous and fun to live in a dystopian society, but it is anything but enjoyable. The grandeur that follows fiction is grisly and marred by paranoia.  Whether or not people make a stand, it’s always going to observe us until the day our bones turn to dust.
Whether it’s a glimmering fantasy, or harsh reality, once we allow our government to become tethered to our lives, there is no return.

In his dystopian novel, 1984, Orwell solidifies this. Throughout the whole book, the entirety of the citizens of Oceania were being observed and documented. The main character, Winston, was a part of the government guilty of annihilating the privacy of all living under its rigid and suffocating rule.  The dangers of just living in such a land were prominent. Fighting against it? Now that would be completely unfathomable to most. To the select few, it was all they really could do.  Winston defected from Big Brother, the leader and figurehead for this society, and sought to bring the truth to the people. In spite of all of his valiant efforts, the people are blissfully unaware and completely apathetic to the truth. Eventually Winston become prisoner and loses not only his dignity and sanity, but his drive to fight for what’s right. The government wins.

In modern America, we are constantly being monitored. Cameras at toll booths, IP addresses where your computer betrays your location, gps on your phone, the eerie glowing of your Alexa, it’s all being documented. Many, many people blissfully turn a blind eye. Your dignity and privacy is being torn to shreds because of the complete lack of the value of privacy. Even in your own home, you are not alone.  Even though it’s not consensual, we just accept it.


 However, in a lot of cases of being rule by a smoldering fist, there are a few who do stand up to this unethical means of control. Whether this works or not is up to debate. However, an American man by the name of Edward Snowden.  Snowden was working for the CIA and found some security protocols entailing details of surveillance of the American people without their knowledge or consent. Finding this disturbing, he fled to Hong Kong and leaked these protocols in order to warn the American people of what their government is doing to them.  Naturally, our government was furious and has been fighting to extradite Snowden for close to 6 years now. Unlike Winston, Snowden never gave up. To this day, he is still risking his life to fight for the truth.

Just like in 1984, there are people who fight for us and for the truth, and those heroes often fall silently. Will we become like Oceania? At the days pass, we’re edging closer and closer to that chasm of misery. It is a dangerous path to tread, but we need more people who can bring us the truth.