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¶ … 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...
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 demise of Hitler's Germany and imperial Japan. The era of the "Red Scare" and McCarthyism epitomized 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…
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.
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