1984

The Party employs technological advances to constantly watch the populace, and throughout the novel, this surveillance—or its threat—takes a significant toll on the characters’ psychological wellbeing. The telescreen acts as a two-way television and radio that operates in live-time, giving those in control the ability to watch over individual movements and listen in on conversations at any given moment. Party members use speakwrites to compose messages and written material, a device that requires people to say words aloud and therefore puts them in danger of being recorded. Writing with an old-fashioned pen might be looked upon suspiciously, and an ink-stained hand is “exactly the kind of detail that might betray you” (36) if someone begins asking questions about what and why a person might be writing with a pen instead of a speakwrite.

Modern readers are familiar with the idea that personal devices might transmit and record data, but this was not the case in the late 1940’s when Orwell wrote the novel. The idea of constant surveillance via technology was not a daily reality for readers when this novel was published, and readers at that time would have looked upon such widespread government use of technological devices as even more extreme.