Snowden Comparison Essay

I can’t believe how comparable the movie Snowden is to the fiction-novel 1984 that was written almost seventy years ago. As terrible as George Orwell made the government seem to be, after watching Snowden, a movie based on true events, I realized our government is sadly not that much better as we share many similar concepts as 1984. For instance, Orwell uses telescreens in his novel and describes them as: “an oblong metal plaque like a dulled mirror” (Orwell 3). This can be compared to the rectangle TV’s that we all have now in our homes, and similar to our laptops and computers that have cameras and can receive and transmit simultaneously on video chat and instant message. This also made me think back to how the hackers, NSA, and CIA workers
The way that we naively believe whatever the government tells us, is similar to the way that the people of Oceania are glued to their telescreens, devouring the fabricated news being fed to them. Another similarity I noticed were the main characters in both the novel and movie. Winston and Snowden both work for the government and are aware of the brainwashing being done on civilians, and have the drive to rebel against the government and expose the contained secrets. Although Winston never got the opportunity to inform Oceania on what he discovered, like Snowden was able to, they both disagree with the immoral measures the government makes to protect their nation. Winston even comments on the corrupt ways of the government lying to civilians on page 34, “And if all others accepted the lie which the Party imposed – if all records told the same tale – then the lie passed into history and became truth” (Orwell). Reading 1984 relieves us that we don’t live in a world like the people of Oceania, but then after watching Snowden, a movie based on true events, it makes us wonder: are we living in a 1984