Why George Orwell Wrote 1984

George Orwell, the author of 1984, brings up a lot of interesting and meaningful points throughout the book. But the big question is; why did he write it? I think this question comes down to one thing; what was society like during his time period? If we can answer that question, then I think it'll answer the first one.

George Orwell wrote this book in the 1950s or 1960s, a time where things weren't necessarily all that great. Granted, I didn't live in that time period (obviously), and neither did my parents (I'm pretty sure they're not THAT old). But things were starting to change a little bit. The government was becoming slightly more strict with its policies and the way it handled things. People started to become a little afraid and paranoid when it came to technology. People thought that technology might be used to spy on people, instead of being used for the greater good. In that time, technology was new, just coming onto the scene, just beginning to advance. To people back then, the sky was the limit. If you could put a moving picture on a screen in your living room, why couldn't you invent machines that could read your thoughts? Or tiny cameras? Or listening devices that could hear your every word? See what I mean?

To sum it up, I think that George Orwell wrote 1984 because he wanted to express how people back in his time felt about technology. He wanted to, in a way, warn people about the ways that it could be abused. He also wanted to warn against someone having too much control over technology. He wanted to show people that it could bring great things, but also very bad things. He wanted to warn people back then, and maybe even people in our time, not to let technology reach that point of being used to control us and monitor our actions and thoughts 24/7. I mean, think about it... What would happen if our society became that way?

1984 synopsis and analysis: http://www.online-literature.com/orwell/1984/