Totalitarianism between Fiction and Reality In George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four

Abstract

Since the dawn of time, history and literature have been braided into each other; scholars always sought to comprehend ways in which the former shapes the latter. This dissertation aims to examine the historical facet of totalitarianism and its representation in fiction through a meticulous investigation of George Orwell’s magnum opus Nineteen Eighty-Four by shedding light on totalitarian themes. It initiates by providing sharp explanations of concepts in particular totalitarianism, dystopian literature and a take a glimpse in the author’s life sketches that carved the novel. Besides, it delimits the significance of the principles of the new historicist theory that serves as a crucial tool for the exploration of aspects of the novel and aspects of similarities between reality and fiction in the second chapter. As this dissertation submits readers ought to view the novel as a timeless cautionary narrative about the dangers and perils of tyranny.