PROPAGANDA AND SURVEILLANCE AS TOOLS TO CONTROL THE

SOCIETY IN GEORGE ORWELL’S 1984 AND LOIS LOWRY’S THE GIVER

A COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS

INSAN NUUR AKHMAD

F1F007036

THE MINISTRY OF NATIONAL EDUCATION

JENDERAL SOEDIRMAN UNIVERSITY

SOCIAL AND POLITICAL SCIENCE FACULTY

ENGLISH AND LANGUAGE LITERATURE

PURWOKERTO

2014
1. TITLE OF THE RESEARCH

The title of the research is Propaganda and Surveillance as Tools to Control

the Society in 1984 and The Giver.

2. FIELD OF THE SUTDY

The study deals with literary study. There are two novels which will be
analyzed. There are 1984 by George Orwell and The Giver by Lois Lowry.
Those two novels describe how the individuals and society are controlled by
the government. The vast systems of control infiltrate all aspects of human
life in these two novels. The researcher will focus on how the governments
use propaganda and surveillance to control the society.

3. BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY

There are a number of different definitions of dystopia; one can

basically say that it is a dark vision of the future. In order to define the term, it
is suitable contrast to more well known term, namely, utopia. The word utopia
is translated from Greek as “no place,” but can also be interpreted as “good
place” derived from the English homophone “eutopia”. The term “utopia”
originates in Sir Thomas More’s 1516 book of the same name. In his Utopia,
More describes a perfect island society, where everyone lives in happiness
and considerate reciprocity. This system assumes that people are essentially
good, so long as they are raised in the right conditions, in an environment free
of greed, commercialism, and poverty. Martin G. Plattel, suggests that “the
utopian searches of happiness dream of a new earthly paradise, in which an
authentic freedom reigns and happiness is sought in unbridled sensuous
delight” (Plattel, 1972, p. 47). The idea of utopian fiction mainly depicts an
ideal, imaginary society with a perfect socio-economic and political system
superior to the present-day version of it where people live carefree, in
abundance and happiness.
Utopian and dystopian visions are not necessarily diametrical
opposites. Both of them tend to criticize a certain social and political
condition, the difference is in how the way they work. Utopian writers believe
in the positive outcomes of the perfectly structured life of the utopia while
dystopian writers are not too eager to conclude that the rigid planning of the
utopian society will go flawlessly. They reveal and caution us about what
happens to a utopia when something breaks down in its immaculate order or
does not go according to the plan: whether it is a dystopian citizen who does
not want to conform to the collectivism of the state or a governmental
apparatus that becomes corrupt and too hungry for power. Martin Booker in
his book The Dystopian Impulse in Modern Literature: Fiction as Social
Criticism considers dystopia as a general term encompassing any imaginative
view of a society that is oriented toward highlighting in a critical way
negative or problematic features of that society's vision of the ideal (Booker,
1994, p. 22). In other words, dystopia is a form that portrays what can happen
when people attempt to create a utopian world: some problems are fixed, but
new ones are created.
Most dystopian novels depict the government as an absolute power:
oppressive and domineering, controlling all aspects of human life. For
example, Orwell’s 1984, portrays a society under a brutal dictatorship with
secret surveillance, never-ending wars and horrible living conditions, where
individuality is considered a thought crime and people live in constant fear
and misery. Various forms of propaganda are employed to control the society
in 1984, such as the ideology to worship of the Party’s ruler, Big Brother,
manipulation of the historical events of the past, the invention of Newspeak,
the telescreen, two minutes hate are some examples of propaganda which can
also be used as a constant surveillance. Another example we can found in The
Giver by Lois Lowry; the story follows the life of Jonas, a twelve-year-old
 boy, who at first seem to live in a regular live in a peaceful society where
people are taken care of and there are no societal problems. As the story
progress, the story appears more and more dystopian, as the main goal of the
society is revealed; “sameness”. To achieve this state where nothing stands
out, the society has erased all the memories of the past and removes external
sources of differences such as physical distinctions and color through genetic
scientific engineering. To maintain this artificial state of “sameness”, the
society has instituted a strict system of control, surveillance and punishments.
The inhabitants of this society are constantly observed and controlled in every
aspect of their lives.
Both of Orwell and Lowry’s novels show us how the government used
the power to control their society. In order to maintain their power, discipline
is employed on all levels of society as the most crucial tool to establish
supreme control. The idea of discipline as an essential component of political
power is the focal point of Michel Foucault’s book Discipline and Punish;
where he examines various ways discipline functions in society. Foucault
believes that discipline is a powerful agency used to govern people’s lives “to
produce subjected and practiced bodies, docile bodies” that can be
“manipulated, shaped,” and “trained” for the benefit of the state (Foucault,
1995, pp. 136-138). Discipline in Orwell’s 1984 and Lowry’s The Giver is
employed in most important aspects of human life and is practiced on multiple
levels. Propaganda and constant surveillance is some form of “discipline”
since the government utilized them to control people’s everyday lives.
Overall from the explanation above, the researcher will try to analyze
how the governments in 1984 and The Giver maintain their control over the
society. Particularly, how the governments use propaganda and surveillance as
part of “discipline” to control the society.

4. RESEARCH QUESTION
 The questions of this research are:
How do the governments in 1984 and The Giver use propaganda and
surveillance to control the society?

5. RESEARCH PURPOSE

The purposes of this research are:

To find out how the governments in 1984 and The Giver use propaganda
and surveillance to control the society

6. LITERATURE REVIEW

1. Dystopian Literature

The dystopian genre that blossomed in the literature of the nineteenth

century emerged and developed mainly as a critical response and an
antithesis to utopian fiction. Though dystopia or anti-utopia has mainly
manifested and gained popularity as a skeptical reaction to utopian vision,
it surprisingly shares a lot of characteristics with utopia. Huntington points
out some certain similarities between utopia and dystopia:
“Both utopia and dystopia are exercises in imaging coherent wholes,
in making idea work, either to lure the reader towards an ideal or to drive
the reader back from a nightmare. Both are the synthetic imagination, a
comprehension and expression of the deep principles of happiness or
unhappiness. (Huntington, 1982, p. 124)
Both utopia and dystopia explore social and political structures, while
utopian fiction is about the perfect society and the ideal social, political
and legal system, dystopian fiction is about the nighmarish world. In his
book Dystopian Literature: A Theory and Research Guide, Martin Booker
defines dystopian fiction as a “critique of existing social conditions or
political systems, either through critical examination of the utopian
premises upon which those conditions and systems are based or through
the imaginative extension of those conditions and systems into different
contexts that more clearly reveal their flaws and contradictions” (Booker,
1994, p. 315).

1.1 About 1984

Orwell’s novel, Nineteen Eighty-Four (1984), was published in 1949 and

is still considered to be one of the most famous novel in dystopian genre.
Winston Smith, the main character of the novel, is a thirty-nine year old
man living in London. Winston works for the Ministry of Truth, where
his job is to alter the past and present by removing things from
newspapers, records, and other such documents and, in essence, to rewrite
history. Winston, despite his job at the ministry, secretly questions the
society of Oceania. The Proles, those members of society who do not
belong to the party and who live largely outside of Party dictates,
fascinate Winston because of his unhappiness with the society of
Oceania.
At work, Winston is approached by a woman, Julia, who slips him a note
that says “I love you” and Winston is instantly intrigues, despite the
prohibition on relationships put in place by the Party. Eventually the two
arrange a secret meeting and begin a secreted romance. The two
eventually take up residence in the attic of an old junk shop in the Prole
area. After the two have solidified their love affair, Winston has another
strange encounter. An inner Party member, O’Brien, arranges to give
Winston his address. This is uncharacteristic, but Winston suspects that
O’Brien may be a member of the Brotherhood, an anti-party, underground
counter movement. Winston and Julia eventually meet at O’Brien’s home
and, after O’Brien confirms his Brotherhood membership, he gives them
 a copy of The Book, which he claims exposes the Party and Big Brother.
Once back in the junk shop the two are just about to read the book when
the Party police arrive to arrest the two, and we learn that O’Brien is
indeed a Party agent. Winston and Julia are taken to the Ministry of Love,
where O’Brien oversees their “reintegration” through torture and
brainwashing. As final proof of Winston’s absorption by the Party, he
betrays Julia and is eventually released to live out his days as a defeated
and derelict man.

1.2 About The giver

The Giver follows the life Jonas, a 12-year-old-boy living in a community

that has embraced “Sameness,” an intensely ordered world without fear,
pain, or prejudice, sacrificing love, colors, and knowledge of history. On
his twelfth birthday, Jonas is chosen to be the Receiver of Memory, a
position of great honor in the community. He quickly learns that with this
honor comes great responsibility and sacrifice, for he must receive all the
memories of the past from his mentor, The Giver, and carry them so that
the community is spared the burden of knowledge. He begins to feel
isolated with all his beautiful and painful memories in such a simple,
bland community and struggles to understand his role. Eventually, he and
The Giver make plans for him to escape the community and thus force the
citizens to face the memories and learn to deal with them.

2. Propaganda

a. Definition
As the term is used loosely today, propaganda pervades the full range of
communication genres. Any medium that can propagate messages can be
used for propaganda. So too can every communication genre, from news
to novels and from social marketing to social networking. Numerous
studies have attempted to define and distinguish different types of
propaganda. According to Lasswell, propaganda is the control of opinion
by significant symbol, including stories, rumors, reports, pictures, and
other forms of social communication. Jacques Ellul (Ellul, 1973, p. xv)
focused on propaganda as technique itself. He regarded propaganda as
sociological phenomena, not as something made or produced by people of
intensions. Furthermore, Jowett and O’donnell’s give more specific
definition of propaganda:
Propaganda is the deliberate, systematic attempt to shape perceptions,
manipulate cognitions, and direct behavior to achieve a response that
furthers the desired intent of the propagandist. (Jowett, S G; O'donnell,
Victoria;, 2012, p. 6)

b. Forms of Propaganda
Although propaganda takes many form, it is almost always in some
form of activated ideology. Sometimes propaganda is agitative,
attempting to rouse an audience to certain ends and usually resulting in
significant change; sometimes it is integrative, attempting to render an
audience passive, accepting, and nonchalenging (Jowett, S G;
O'donnell, Victoria;, 2012, p. 17). Propaganda is also described as
white, grey or black, in relationship an acknowledgement of its source
and its accuracy of information.
- White propaganda comes from a source that is identified correctly
and the information in the messages tend to be accurate. White
propaganda attempts to build credibility with the audience, for this
could have usefulness at some point in the future.
- Black propaganda is when the source is concealed or credited to a
false authority and spreads lies, fabrication, and deceptions.
Another term used to discribe black propaganda is disinformation.
 Disinformation means “false, incomplete, or misleading
information that is passed, fed, or confirmed to a targeted
individual, group, or country”.
- Grey propaganda is somewhere white and black propaganda. The
source may or may not be correctly identified, and the accuracy of
the information is uncertain. This propaganda is also used to
embarrass an enemy or competitor

3. Surveillance
Literally, surveillance means to “watch over” and as such it is an everyday
practice in which human beings has been done routinely. Parents watch
over children, employes watch over workers, police watch over
neighbourhoods, guards watch over prisoners and so on. In most instances
however, surveillance has a more spesific usage, referring to some focused
and purposive attention to objects, data, or persons. According to Lyon, he
define surveillance as any focused attention to personal details for the
purposes of influence, management, or controls (Lyon, 2001).
Furthermore, Michel Foucault stimulated a new approach to
understanding surveillance. . In his book, Discipline and Punish, he used
Jeremy Bentham’s panopticon, a building designed by Jeremy Bentham to
allow an easy observance of inmates, whether they are prisoners, patients,
or pupils. The building consists of cells facing onto a central tower from
which a supervisor can constantly observe the individuals in each cell.
Foucault explains that the effect of the Panopticon was “to induce in the
inmate a state of conscious and permanent visibility that assures the
automatic functioning of power” (Foucault, 1995, p. 201). This building
serves as a metaphor for the workings of surveillance in any society.

4. Foucault’s Discipline and Punish.

Michael Foucault work’s Discipline and Punish is a study a history of the
modern penal system, from eighteenth-century torture and killing to
modern imprisoning system. In first part of his book, Foucault seeks to
analyze punishment in its social context, and to examine how changing
power relations affected punishment. He begins by analyzing the situation
before the eighteenth century, when public execution and corporal
punishment were key punishments, and torture was part of most criminal
investigations. Punishment was ceremonial and directed at the prisoner's
body. It was a ritual in which the audience was important. Public
execution reestablished the authority and power of the King. Through
discussion on development of discipline, Foucault presents four basic of
techniques of discipline: the art of distribution, the control of activity, the
organization of geneses and the composition of forces. Moreover,
Foucault follows the four techniques with development of docile bodies
through the discussion on Jeremy Bentham’s Panopticon.
In this study, the researcher will focus more on issues of discipline and
docile body since these issues of discipline and docile body is about the
power to control people which will help us to understand the discourse of
the state’s control and its effects on society. As Foucault describe that
discipline is a powerful agency used to govern people’s lives “to produce
subjected and practiced bodies, docile bodies” that can be “manipulated,
shaped,” and “trained” for the benefit of the state (Foucault, 1995).
Four basic of techniques of discipline
- The art of distribution
Discipline proceeds from the distribution of individuals in space,
and employs several techniques (Foucault, 1995, pp. 141-148):
1. Discipline sometimes requires enclosure in a protected
place,e.g. a school, factory, or barracks.
2. Disciplinary machinery works on the principle of partitioning
space; it is always cellular.
3. The rule of functional sites would gradually code a space that
architecture left at the disposal of several sites.
 4. In discipline, the elements are interchangeable because each is
identified by its place in a series. The key unit is the rank or
place in a classification. Rank begins to define the distribution
of individuals in educational space.
- Control of activity
1. The timetable is an old inheritance, suggested by monastic
communities. The division of time in disciplinary authorities
increased (Foucault, 1995, p. 149).
2. The temporal elaboration of the act. Time penetrates the body
with all the meticulous controls of power (Foucault, 1995, p.
150).
3. The correlation of body and gesture. Disciplinary power
imposes the best relation between gesture and the overall
position of the body. In the correct use of the body, nothing
must remain useless (Foucault, 1995, p. 152).
4. Body-object articulation. Discipline defines each of the
relationships between body and the object it manipulates
(Foucault, 1995, p. 153).
5. Exhaustive use. The traditional timetable forbids men to waste
time. Discipline provides a positive economy, and poses the
principle of ever-expanding use of time. The "natural body,"
which is manipulated by authority and classified, supercedes
the mechanical body (Foucault, 1995, p. 154).
- The organization of geneses: As the eighteenth century progressed,
different arrangements of time were evident; new technology
developed in the classical period for regulating time, bodies and
forces.

The Panopticon

The panopticon represents the way in which discipline and punishment

work in modern society. It is a diagram of power in action because by
looking at a plan of the panopticon, one realizes how the processes of
observation and examination operate. According to Foucault, the
Panopticon design is perfect for surveillance not just in prisons but in
society in general because it allows the power to be both “visible and
unverifiable” (Foucault, 1995, p. 201). He explains that “the prisoner
should be constantly observed by an inspector” and always “have before
his eyes the tall outline of the central tower from which he is spied on”;
however, he “must never know whether he is being looked at any one
moment,” and yet “must be sure that he may always be so” (Foucault,
1995, p. 201). In brief, to ensure that the body is “docile,” it needs to be
under regular scrutiny, and the body has to be aware of it. This awareness
will guarantee discipline on the body’s part because there is no way to be
certain whether you are being watched or not. The main objective of this
 system is to always monitor what the body is doing, so that one day the
body will be so disciplined that it will start regulating its actions of its
own and become the subject of self-surveillance (Foucault, 1995, p. 212).

REFERENCES

Booker, M. K. (1994). Dystopian Literature: A Theory and Research Guide. Westport:

Greenwood Press.

Booker, M. K. (1994). The Dystopian Impulse in Modern Literature: Fiction as Social Criticsm.
westport: Greenwood Press.

Ellul, J. (1973). PROPAGANDA, The Formation of Man's Attitude. New York: Vintage.

Foucault, M. (1995). Discipline and Punish. New York: Vintage.

Huntington, J. (1982). Utopian and Anti-utopian Logic: H.G.Wells and his successors. Science
Fiction Studies 9 , 124.

Jowett, S G; O'donnell, Victoria;. (2012). Propaganda & Persuasion. Los Angeles: Sage
Publications, Inc.

Lyon, D. (2001). Surveillance Society: Monitoring Everyday Life. Milton Keyes: Open
University Press.

Plattel, M. G. (1972). Utopian and Critical Thinking. Pittsburgh: Duquesne.