Parallels have been drawn between the novel's subject matter and real life instances of totalitarianism, mass surveillance, and violations of freedom of expression among other themes. It also popularised the term ' Orwellian' as an adjective, with many terms used in the novel entering common usage, including 'Big Brother', ' doublethink', ' Thought Police', ' thoughtcrime', ' Newspeak', and ' 2 + 2 = 5'. Nineteen Eighty-Four has become a classic literary example of political and dystopian fiction. He is subjected to months of psychological manipulation and torture by the Ministry of Love and is released once he has come to love Big Brother. However, their contact with the Brotherhood turns out to be a Party agent, and Smith is arrested.

He keeps a forbidden diary and begins a relationship with his colleague Julia, and they learn about a shadowy resistance group called the Brotherhood. The protagonist, Winston Smith, is a diligent mid-level worker at the Ministry of Truth who secretly hates the Party and dreams of rebellion. Through the Ministry of Truth, the Party engages in omnipresent government surveillance, historical negationism, and constant propaganda to persecute individuality and independent thinking. Great Britain, now known as Airstrip One, has become a province of the totalitarian superstate Oceania, which is led by Big Brother, a dictatorial leader supported by an intense cult of personality manufactured by the Party's Thought Police.

The story takes place in an imagined future in the year 1984, when much of the world is in perpetual war. More broadly, the novel examines the role of truth and facts within societies and the ways in which they can be manipulated. Orwell, a democratic socialist, modelled the authoritarian state in the novel on Stalinist Russia and Nazi Germany. Thematically, it centres on the consequences of totalitarianism, mass surveillance and repressive regimentation of people and behaviours within society. It was published on 8 June 1949 by Secker & Warburg as Orwell's ninth and final book completed in his lifetime. Nineteen Eighty-Four (also published as 1984) is a dystopian social science fiction novel and cautionary tale by English writer George Orwell.

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