1984 Editorial Cartoon Essay

4 Pages 894 Words

Editorial Cartoon Essay


An innovative look ahead in the future is not as far fetched as it may seem to be. George Orwell’s 1984 deals with the author’s worrisome troubles of what he thinks is to come in the future: no individual freedom and personal privacy. Bill Abbott’s editorial cartoon shows how Orwell’s idea of the future is not too far off. The editorial cartoon shows how a person’s privacy in his workspace or personal space is intruded upon so much that he has no workspace or personal space of his own. Although Orwell’s fear of the future may seem idealistic, nevertheless, a heartless reality of which the truth about people’s privacy and individual freedom is invaded with Abbott’s cartoon.
The cartoon is of a man on his phone at his desk. Then he is looking out the window where there is a huge eye looking in at him. When first looking at the cartoon the thought of big brother on the poster; “On each landing, opposite the lift shaft, the poster with the enormous face gazed from the wall. It was one of those pictures which are so contrived that the eyes follow you about when you move. BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING YOU, the caption beneath it ran” (Orwell 5), appeared in my head. In Winston’s world there are posters plastered everywhere trying to enforce the initiative that the people in his world no longer think for themselves. The people of Oceania think that a bigger, larger force controls their lives and thoughts. Little do they know that their life and actions truly rely on themselves.
In Abbott’s cartoon the eye or face in the window is similar to the telescreens that are found in almost every room in Oceania. A person could turn his or her back to the screen or man in the window and one would still be seen and watched. “You had to live-did live, from habit that became instinct-in the assumption that every sound you made was overheard, and, except in darkness, every movement scrutinize...