Big Brother
The Big Brother ( English Big Brother ) is a figure in the novel 1984 by George Orwell , who no one ever saw, and who is only the fictional personification of a collective rule of the so-called Inner Party of the nearly two percent of the population totalitarian state "Oceania", whose members are all wearing glasses . Seemingly at the top of the hierarchical structure, Big Brother looks down from the omnipresent posters at the oceanic people who are bound to love him. Orwell mainly used the Soviet dictator Stalin as a model for his literary figure .
role
In the society Orwell describes, everyone is under full government surveillance . Big Brother is omnipresent and haunts citizens into the most intimate areas of their lives. Big brother's constant control doesn't stop at sexuality either. The population is through the constant mention of the propaganda - slogans Big Brother is watching you (Engl. Big Brother is watching you reminded of this fact). The character of Big Brother , regardless of whether it is real or imaginary, primarily has the function of focusing libidinal desire on itself and expressing the absolute group unity of the ruling caste.
The permanently waged wars that the super-states wage against each other in 1984 and in which only a small part of the population is involved are always about marginal advantages and profits, in which the existence of the states is not at stake. The population is constantly frightened by the threatened or actual defeat and incited by hate campaigns against the respective enemy, while occasional victories lead to experiences of success, which cause the population to identify with the party and leave all power to the small leadership caste in return makes people believe in the semi-divine abilities of a leader, Big Brother . The wars served as
“A pretext for any kind of tyranny and inequality ... Big Brother reigned in people's hearts because he saved them from imaginary dangers and because he flattered their vanity with imaginary victories. Instead of freedom, they had a sense of salvation, and instead of physical well-being, they had military glory! "
Present reception
Based on Orwell's novel, the term “big brother” is used for a (state or private) surveillance apparatus that one is powerless to face. Since personal data seldom converge in just one place, and networking is seen as problematic, the image of just one big brother does not always appear adequate, although in the novel the big brother is only a symbolic icon of state control, the actual one Existence is unexplained. Since 1998, so-called “ Big Brother Awards ” have been given in many countries to authorities, companies, organizations and people who in a special and lasting manner impair people's privacy or have made personal data available to third parties.
The television show Big Brother , created in 1999, also alludes to Orwell's term , in which a group of people live completely under video surveillance and cut off from the outside world.
Visual origin of the figure
Orwell was mainly modeled on the Soviet dictator Stalin for the figure of Big Brother . Orwell evidently took his bearings from a well-known poster from the beginning of the First World War , on which the British Minister of War Lord Kitchener invites his compatriots to do military service with a suggestive look. Another influence was the advertising figure of a distance learning institute in the 1930s, which advertised with the slogan "Let Me Be Your Big Brother".
Individual evidence
- ↑ Hans-Christoph Schröder : George Orwell. An intellectual biography. Beck, Munich 1988. pp. 254f.
- ↑ Hans-Christoph Schröder: George Orwell. An intellectual biography. Beck, Munich 1988. p. 261.
- ↑ Hans-Christoph Schröder: George Orwell. An intellectual biography. Beck, Munich 1988. pp. 260f.
- ^ Die Welt, Wolf Lepenies, June 8, 2009: Anyone who read Orwell's "1984" went to the GDR jail , accessed May 21, 2013
- ↑ Hans-Christoph Schröder : George Orwell. An intellectual biography. Beck, Munich 1988. pp. 254f.