War Is Peace, Freedom Is Slavery, Ignorance Is Strength

1984 For as long as governments have existed, the people they ruled feared them. This fear and the desire to improve these governments have let to countless different attempts to perfect government. From the most liberal democracy to the most crushing dictatorship, governments have all faced some shortcomings. Because of the faults inherent in all governments, various types of governance have been the topic for many authors. The late novelist Ayn Rand wrote many books on the trouble that a socialist government could bring and espoused the virtue of individualism. She felt that by allowing government to limit our individual freedoms, we were sentencing ourselves to a certain death. She wrote that “We are fast approaching the stage of the ultimate inversion: the stage where the government is free to do anything it pleases, while the citizens may act only by permission; which is the stage of the darkest periods of human history, the stage of rule by brute force” (Rand). Rand realized that a government with too much control would not be able to help but overreach. Although George Orwell died seven years prior to the publication of Ayn Rand’s most well known novel Atlas Shrugged, he held the same fear of an all-powerful government. Orwell felt that with the new technology appearing during his life and the ever-increasing power of government, the politicians could choose to rule every facet of the citizens’ lives. The novel 1984 is a depiction of what Orwell thought would happen if a totalitarian regime were left unchecked by the people. He paints a stark picture of this dystopia in 1984 by the masterful use of both symbolism and irony. Orwell lets almost no time pass before he introduces symbolism and irony into his story. He begins his novel by saying that “it was a bright, cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen” (Orwell 1). By saying that it was a bright day in April, Orwell gives the reader a sense that there is hope. April, a

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