1984
by George Orwell
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In George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four, one of the more memorable quotes is “Big Brother is watching you.” Big Brother serves as the figurehead of the Party, the image of the oppressive government ruling Oceania, but after reading it, I was still asking myself the question “Who is Big Brother?” Perhaps it's a difference of opinion between generations, but I was waiting for the grand plot twist as the climax approached.
There's certainly enough evidence to suggest that Big Brother is not what he seems. I first started seeing cracks in the facade when Winston described his job at the Ministry of Truth. His job is to go back through the media archives and revise them to reflect the expectations, forecasts, results, and opinions given that day, including the opinions of Big Brother himself. It's mentioned that the archives that he is revising have already been revised countless times, enough that no one is even aware of the past. This makes me ask the question of “How can one man change his opinion that often, from day to day, and still be in power without being overthrown by someone with stronger ideals?” Sure, there is the Thought Police, but what's to stop an coup by the Inner Party, unless Big Brother is nothing more than a creation of a government.
Winston shows that in his job he can even create a person who will be more real than most people he knows. He makes up a lifetime Party member, who selflessly sacrificed himself for the good of Oceania and practically worshiped Big Brother. The person is nothing more than a couple paragraphs, but he is made to be part of national history as a hero. If Winston can do this casually for some rank-and-file Party member, what's to stop the Inner Party from making a leader they can shape to support whichever policy they need enforced?
I'm left with this question about the existence of Big Brother throughout my reading of the story, and in the end I'm left somewhat unsatisfied. While Winston is told during his interrogation and torture by the Inner Party that “there will always be a Big Brother”, this only adds fuel to the speculation, rather than answering it. Was there a Big Brother once, and his image is carried on? Does an Inner Party member assume the mantle of Big Brother when he or she takes control from the other members? The questions are never really answered.
It could be said that giving a plot twist like revealing the non-existence of Big Brother would force the plot to go into a new direction, changing the outcome of the story and possibly having Winston reveal to the public that Big Brother is a lie and starting up the revolution, but I believe it could be revealed by some sort of dramatic irony. Winston is tortured, brainwashed, and made to betray the woman he loves (though some would say he gave her up a little too easily), what's to say he couldn't learn the true secret of Big Brother before his mind is broken and remade as the Party wants it to be? This leaves the terrible truth in the hands of the one person who will know everything and be powerless to change anything: the reader. It could even make the ending all the more terrifying: knowing the truth as the reader watches Winston give up and profess his love to a character that does not exist.
Then again, this could simply be the expectations of a younger generation that sees too many stories having a horrible twist, such as Soylent Green being people and Bruce Willis's character having been dead and the Planet of the Apes having been Earth and Jack and Tyler Durden being the same person. After being exposed to plots like these, in Nineteen Eighty-Four I see set up for a plot twist that is never resolved. Perhaps it's left to keep you wondering intentionally, but it's difficult not to feel a little cheated.