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 George Orwell’s 1984 and Lois Lowry’s The Giver

2. FIELD OF THE SUTDY

The study deals with literary study. There are two novels which will be going
to analyzes. 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. In which the researcher will focus on how the
government 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 the term dystopia 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,”. Martin G.
Plattel, for instance, 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 47). George Kateb (Kateb 17)
offers a more detailed description of a utopian society,
in which all conflicts of conscience and conflicts of interest are
abolished, . . . all the obstacles to a decent life for all men have been removed,
. . . the resourcefulness of modern technology is put in the unfettered service
of lessening labor and increasing and enriching labor,” with “peace,
abundance, and virtue permanently and universally obtained.

Based on the description above, 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. If utopian writers believe in the positive outcomes
of the perfectly structured life of the utopia, 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. The pursuit of perfection is at the heart of almost every
literary utopia and dystopia; it is their outcomes that distinguish them.
Dystopias invariably present a world where oppressive social control is
ubiquitous, impediments to freedom are rampant, and paranoia and fear tend
to be the dominating emotions. They often portray a stratified society, and
survival can often represent the only luxury afforded to those who find
themselves at the bottom.
One of the early dystopias of the twentieth century was written in 1921.
Yevgeny Zamyatin’s We became the first genuine dystopian novel that gave
ground and inspiration for most of the dystopias of the twentieth century. In
We, Zamyatin depicts a sterile society where people are denied any form of
individuality or creativity and are completely subjugated by the state’s
apparatus of power. The life of OneState is heavily regulated according to the
Table of Hours, which prescribes the way people dress, eat, live, sleep and
even procreate, turning them into mindless robots. People are indoctrinated to
embrace reason and logic, ignore their personal feelings and ambitions, and
idolize the collective.
Other examples of dystopian writers are George Orwell and Lois Lowry,
whose novels will be going to analyze in this research. In Orwell’s 1984 and
Lowry’s The Giver, individual and society are controlled by the government.
The vast systems of control infiltrate all aspects of human life. Orwell’s 1984
present a version of the future where repression and terror are coupled with
propaganda and thought control to create a totalitarian society. The society in
1984, Oceania, is dominated by the state and its functionaries, the bureaucratic
“Party,” and they attempt to control every aspect of life, including one’s
thoughts, perception of what is real, and sexuality. From the opening scenes,
the novel presents the reader with an oppressive landscape where citizens can
find no escape from the state. Ubiquitous reminders of the state and its power
serve to empower the Party, and the evolution of the television, the
“telescreen,” not only broadcasts government propaganda from the one
channel citizens have access to, it also gazes back at the observer, acting as a
surveillance device for the Party.
The Giver by Lois Lowry follows the themes and traditions of dystopian
literature. This novel 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.
Surveillance and propaganda has always been a staple trope for dystopian
literature, so much so that the famous line “Big Brother is watching you” has
come to be a household phrase uttered whenever there is any instance of a
power or government observing and intruding upon its people. Why “Big
Brother” wants to watch its public is of course important and can usefully be
discussed. Both of Orwell’s 1984 and Lowry’s The Giver displays all manners
of surveillance and propaganda. This research will examine both the control
that the state performs over people and ways people discover from that control
 through the lens of Foucauldian “discipline,” an idea developed in his work
Discipline and Punish.
Michel Foucault’s theory of (Foucault) Discipline and Punish examines how
surveillance has become the primary tool by which governments or other
organizing bodies retain power. He uses the panopticon, a prison designed for
total surveillance, as a metaphor for how contemporary power structures
operate.

4. RESEARCH QUESTION

The questions of this research are:

How 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).
Both utopia and dystopia explore social and political structures, but where
utopian fiction is about the perfect society and the ideal social, political
and legal system, dystopian fiction is about the nighmarish world.
Dystopian fiction concentrates on power as the prohibition or preversion
of human potential. Societal control in classic dystopias is achieved and
maintained through various modes of control and their combination that
incade all aspects of human life – religious, philosopical, technological,
corporate and bureaucratic control.
In his book Dystopian Literature: A Theory and Research Guide, Keith
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)

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

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 (lasswell, 1927), propaganda is the
control of opinion by significant symbol, including stories, rumors,
reports, pictures, and other forms of social communication.

3. Surveillance

Surveillances divide into two main kinds: panoptical and surreptitious.

Panoptical surveillance is interiorized self-surveillance. In the belief that
one is under surveillance, one censors oneself so as to avoid unorthodoxy,
the detection of which would be detrimental. Michel Foucault has
taken Bentham's panopiticon is an "ideal" or "architectural figure" of
power in modern society. He argues that it is not just a model for
institutions, but something whose principles are the principles of power in
society at large:
"The Panopticon... must be understood as a generalizable model of
functioning; a way of defining power relations in terms of the
everyday life of men... Bentham presents it as a particular
institution, closed in upon itself... But the Panopticon ... is the
diagram of a mechanism of power reduced to its ideal form; its
functioning, abstracted from any obstacle, resistance or friction,
must be represented as a pure architectural and optical system; it is
in fact a figure of political technology that may and must be
detached from any specific use." (Foucault, 1995)
Surreptitious surveillance works on the opposite belief: believing that one
is in a private space not under surveillance, one is disinhibited and acts
 and thinks freely, thus making it possible for an unsuspected spy to detect
what one really believes.

4. Foucault’s Discipline and Punish.

In Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison, Michele Foucault uses
a prison as model of a complete and austere institution that models the
rest of society. Foucault describes how discipline was used in early
political systems to “linked the absolute power of the monarch to the
lowest levels of power disseminated in society, it filled in the gaps, linked
them together, guaranteed with its armed force an interstitial discipline
and a meta-discipline through which the sovereign accustoms the people
to order and obedience (Foucault, 1995). Foucault’s understanding of
discipline led him to believe that discipline created individuals by
encouraging norms so that those who did not fit in could be distinguished
through examinations. Furthermore, Foucault stated that discipline was
used to create individuals in time and space, but that it served to keep
everyone at the same pace, even within their individual confines.
Furthermore, Foucault claims that discipline “may be identified neither
with an institution nor with an apparatus; it is a type of power, a modality
for its exercise, comprising a whole set of instruments, techniques,
procedures, levels of application, targets; it is a ‘physics’ or an ‘anatomy’
of power, a technology. And it may be taken over either by ‘specialized’
institutions… or by institutions that use it as an essential instrument for a
particular end (schools, hospitals), or by pre-existing authorities that find
in it a means of reinforcing or reorganizing their internal mechanisms of
power” (Foucault, 1995). Thus the party utilized discipline to maintain
power of its members by controlling every detail of their lives: from what
time they woke up, to the contents of meals, to the thoughts they could
express, to the marriage partners they were assigned.

The Party, under the figure head of Big Brother, is able to exert discipline
through a relatively easy method: surveillance. This discipline links each
Party member under the power of surveillance that maintained control of
solitary individuals who formed a collective, yet isolated group. “In
appearance, the disciplines constitute nothing more than an infra-law.
They seem to extend the general forms defined by law to the infitesimal
level of individual lives; or they appear as methods of training that enable
individuals to become integrated into these general demands”.
The method of control used by the party parallels Foucault’s description of
the power of surveillance as a type of discipline. In particular, the use of
surveillance in Orwell’s 1984 finds resonance with Foucault’s discussion
of Jeremy Bentham’s Panoptican in which the power of an authority’s
“gaze” exerts discipline. The power of the structure rests in the
architectural design that allows those in power to observe others without
them knowing if they are being watched. Because of the perpetual
prospect that someone could be watching, Foucault saw the panopticon as
the ultimate device of discipline through surveillance. Bentham said that
the Panopticon presented “a new mode of obtaining power of mind over
mind” (Foucault, 1995). Bentham’s Panopticon is a circular structure with
a tower in the center. Around the outer edge of the structure are individual
cells with windows along the back wall to let light in so that an overseer in
the tower can see all of the cell’s occupants.
Foucault describes the effect of the Panopticon to “induce in the inmate a
state of conscious and permanent visibility that assures the automatic
functioning of power” (Foucault, 1995). The panopticon lauded by
Foucault was designed by Jeremy Bentham in the late 18 th century as a
structure that allowed a few number of guards to control a large number of
occupants. When applied to prisons the architecture of the Panopticon
allowed guards to maintain surveillance over all prisoners. The structure
exerts discipline because inmates are constantly under the gaze of a guard,
or at least they should assume that they could be watched at any time.
 REFERENCES

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

Conn: Greenwood Press.

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

Huntington, J. (1982). Utopian and Anti-utopian Logic: H.G.Wells. 124.

Kateb, G. (1963). Utopia and Its Enemies. New York: Free Press of Glencoe.

lasswell, H. D. (1927). The theory of political propaganda. . The American Political

Science Review , 627-631.

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