Nineteen Eighty-Four

1984 imagines a dystopian Great Britain that has come under the rule of a totalitarian party, Ingsoc, led by the omnipresent Big Brother. Winston Smith, a low-level bureaucratic worker, navigates between conformity and resistance in a society where individuality has been systematically obliterated. Debuting popular phrases like ‘Thought Police’ that remain relevant today, Orwell’s critique of government surveillance and propaganda in the novel has acted as both a reminder of the past and a premonition of the future since it was first published.