Big Brother is watching you...
By Rebecca / Spinebreakers Crew
When I read 1984 (one of the best books I’ve ever read – ingenious and captivating) the description of the posters of Big Brother staring down on everyone with the slogan ‘Big Brother is watching you’ made me think of the wartime posters saying ‘your country needs you’.
The propaganda posters had a big effect on people and Orwell might have remembered that when writing 1984. The face of Big Brother is also described as ‘The black-mustachio’d face’ with dark eyes that ‘looked deep into Winston’s own’. When researching this poster out of interest the face from it was so like the description in the book that I am half convinced it was the on Orwell had in mind.
The Party in 1984 is full of forgery (that is Winston’s job) and I find it easy to believe that Orwell would have hoped people would recognize the reference as an example of yet one more thing The Party had forged and therefore give the reader the knowledge that Big brother himself was a fabrication.
As Big Brother and The Party are the most influential themes of 1984 I think the poster alone would make the perfect cover for 1984 as everyone recognizes where the phrase ‘Big Brother is watching you’ comes from.