Big Brother Is Watching You

George Orwell’s novel ‘1984’ was published in 1949; it has been translated into over 65 languages and has been noted as one of the most definitive novels of the twentieth century (McCrum, 2009). The book describes a totalitarian dystopian society set in 1984, where terror and surveillance is prominent. The futuristic setting of the novel is one where citizens are in fear of technology, as it is controlled by the government to monitor man’s every move. This critical reflection highlights similarities between society today and the city of Oceania and finds that several aspects from this book relate to current social theories, such as Lyon’s ‘surveillance society’ and self‐surveillance.