No one can see him. No one knows who he is. All anyone knows is that “Big Brother is watching you.” Big Brother is an omniscient entity from George Orwell’s novel Nineteen Eighty-Four. He oversees the entire country of Oceania (a fictional setting Orwell created as the base of his novel) through screens installed in every home, lane, road, and workplace as a part of his totalitarian regime. Anyone who dared to defy him or speak ill of him or his regime even in their sleep would get “vapourized” and “purified” of those thoughts.
Orwell wrote this novel after closely witnessing totalitarian and fascist regimes like Nazism and Stalinism. Just like these regimes exercised full control over their respective countries, Big Brother’s “Ingsoc” practised a total surveillance of the citizens as well as systematic manipulation of their thoughts to an extent where they would themselves coerce their own mind into believing otherwise from what was actually in front of them.
Big Brother is unseen but omnipresent throughout the novel and though he is a totalitarian, terrifying figure, he certainly did catch a lot of attention as a mysterious entity back in 1949 when it was published as well as in contemporary times.
Context
Orwelll published this novel shortly after the lived experience of World War II which had left a significant mark on history as well as the psyche of all those who witnessed the events unraveling around them, including Orwell. The end of World War II marked the beginning of what came to be known as the postmodern age of humanity where humans had lost all hopes of betterment, there was a flux of technological advancements, and a total disconnect with religion and just like any other age, it was bound to leave its impact on the literature being produced. Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four is a product of postmodernism and hence, showcases a distraught, dystopian world under a party like Ingsoc and a leader like the Big Brother.
Big Brother is the leader of the English Socialist party named Ingsoc in the novel who has maintained a system of total control and power in Oceania by installing surveillance screens in every home, office and street. While the state is immersed in constant war either with Eurasia or with Eastasia and the citizens suffer from starvation, the party devotes its time and funds in more technology that would aid them surveille the common masses and psychologically hegemonize them to ensure a long-lasting power position. He is like a totalitarian “overlord” for the people of Oceania who are his mercy for their entire lives.
Despite being published in 1949, Orwell titled it “nineteen eighty-four” to hint that the novel is based in the future of his contemporary time. It is a reflection of an upcoming future that Orwell predicts is inevitably approaching. As he had witnessed the atrocities that the leaders like Hitler and Stalin had unleashed upon the world, he predicted several more leaders like that in future which he depicted through the figure of Big Brother.
What makes Big Brother so unique
Big Brother is unique and quite different from other similar characters we come across in novels or even on screen because of the very fact that he may or may not be. He is present everywhere yet he is not. He watches everything but nobody has ever seen him. He dictates Oceania but somehow no one has ever heard him speak. He supposedly hides behind the screens that are installed everywhere in Oceania but no one knows what he actually looks like. This ambiguity of his existence creates an eerie effect in the minds of the reader as Big Brother is presented like a Godlike figure yet far from it.
Since his existence is debated, he is more of a symbol than a human which places him in a more fearful position as it is but human nature to fear the unknown or unanticipated. His face is projected on the screens as a still figure with eerie features yet his identity is debated and that image on the screen becomes a mere illusion, hiding something terrible behind it. He is symbolic of terror, surveillance, autonomous control over truth, manipulation of reality, and psychological domination. This makes him different from ordinary antagonists or “villains” in literature as he represents not only the protagonist’s but the entire humanity’s fear.
Popularity
Though popular from the very time Orwell published his seminal novel, Big Brother gained an even widespread popularity when in 1999, a reality television show called The Big Brother aired in Netherlands based on the concept of the novel, initially as a mere social experiment where a group of strangers were locked inside a single, very basic house which had the basic facilities but no extra “luxuries” they enjoyed in the outside world. They were isolated from the outside world and were made to live there for 100 days to see how people adapt and perform under such pressure. They were kept under constant surveillance where every aspect of their lives were monitored for those 100 days.
Soon, this show became a sensation and a blockbuster, inspiring similar shows with the same title in the USA and the UK. In 2006, a similar show aired in India with the title Bigg Boss which functioned on the similar concept where the contestants could hear the instructions through the monitors fit in the house they were locked inside but never see the instructor. These shows still run on television and are relevant still, showing that not much has changed in the world since Orwell warned us about it.
FAQs
Q. Is Big Brother a real person?
Ans. No, Big Brother is not based on any real life personality. He is a completely fictionalized entity created by Orwell to demonstrate a totalitarian regime. Even in the novel the readers never get to know if Big Brother actually exists or not so it is safe to say that Big Brother is not a real person but what also needs to be kept in mind is that Orwell wrote this novel after witnessing fascist regimes like Nazism and Stalinism so it can be inferred that the idea for a dystopian society like Oceania and a tyrant like the Big Brother seem to reflect the realities of the age Orwell lived in.
Q. Did Winston actually love Big Brother at the end of the novel?
Ans. Whether Winston loved Big Brother at the end of the novel or not is ambiguous as in a dystopian state like Oceania, love itself is an ambiguous term. It is made clear by Big Brother’s “ministry of love” which claims to make people understand and love Ingsoc and Big Brother but actually is a hub that tortures the citizens who think differently from the party ideology and can be potential rebels. The same happens with Winston: he is taken to the ministry of love or “miniluv” and “purified” into loving Big Brother which is just another way of saying that he was heavily tortured and manipulated into coinciding with the party ideology. So, the confession in the end that Winston loved Big Brother can be simultaneously true and false.
Q. Why did Orwell feel the need to create an entity like the Big Brother?
Ans. Orwell wrote in the 20th century that saw the rise of dictators like Hitler and Stalin who used manipulation and surveillance to promote their propaganda and maintain their regime. Orwell wanted to mirror the current scenario in his novel as well as warn humanity of the possible future dangers if such regimes were not identified and put to rest. Also, Big Brother is not just a political leader but a symbol of terror, tight surveillance, lack of right to express, and mass manipulation all of which, as Orwell believed, would be the end of a free and liberal society so he created Big Brother as a totalitarian evil people need to be wary of.
Q. Why is “Big Brother” relevant in contemporary times?
Ans. Orwell’s Big Brother used technology to monitor people of Oceania 24/7 and kept tabs on their every activity all the time so he could act on them accordingly. If we take a closer look at contemporary society (not any single state but the world as a whole), not much has changed from when Orwell predicted this. The common masses are no less than slaves to technology and the entities in power use this to keep constant check and surveillance on them in order to plan their next move accordingly so that they can maintain control for long.
Q. Why the name “Big Brother”?
Ans. Big Brother sounds like a friendly and warm salutation to someone whom one holds in high regard. Making the citizens call their tyrant as Big Brother is another way of manipulating the masses so that when they hear or read “Big Brother is watching you”, they wouldn’t oppose it as it sounds like a caring figure is watching over them when actually it is the other way around. This can be seen as just another way to aid his party propaganda.
By: Plakshi Kapoor
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