Atwood’s and Orwell’s novels share the fundamental idea that control of language and thought are crucial to dystopian novel. George Orwell’s ‘1984’ was written after World War Two building on people’s fear of the political stability of the world. His novel includes the all-powerful Big Brother, which monitors and controls Oceania, where the novel is set. Margaret Atwood’s delve into control of thought and language is through religion. Her novel set in the near future religious state, Gilead, in North America. The inspiration for the two dystopian novels comes from the election of conservative power, Thatcher and Regan, in the western world, and the general fears that civilisation had in the 1980’s about declining birth rates and the dangers…show more content… Similarities between dystopian novels and present day culture are evident with the way that the media distorts and controls people perspective. For instance, Nazi Germany used propaganda to manipulate the view of the Jews and grow support for them. This use of the media was of inspiration to George Orwell as 1984 was written after World War Two, as he has magnified the extremity of propaganda to it ultimate controlling form. The main role of propaganda is to maintain The Party’s absolute totalitarian regime. ‘WAR IS PEACE. FREEDOM IS SLAVERY. IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH’ and ‘Big Brother is watching you’ are clear examples of propaganda within Orwell’s novel. A critical review of the propaganda used ‘Every communication is calculated to propagate politically charged messages’ . ‘1984’ is driven by Ingsoc controlling communication types and the way which people think by forcing biased politics therefore supporting the critic. Similarly, propaganda is used in The Handmaids tale to control language and thought. The Gileadean regime prints of prayers that are recited to the different groups of women. As the definition of propaganda states ‘misleading nature to promote a point of view’, it shows a clear use in ‘The Handmaids tale’ as only small segments of the bible is being used to inflict control such as ‘Gilead is within you’ . This is similar to some Islamic extremist groups where fractions of the Qur’an are taken out of context to justify the actions that the extremist do. This real life example shows how propaganda can be taken from anything; and can turn what was intended to be good into something unreasoned. More propaganda in ‘The Handmaids tale’ is subtle through the shop names. ‘Loaves and fishes’,’ Milk and honey’, ‘All flesh’ and ‘Lilies’ are linked to biblical
