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“Surveillance plays a key part in creating an atmosphere of horror in dystopian fiction” By
comparing The Handmaid’s Tale and Nineteen-Eighty-Four discuss how far you agree with
this statement.
Surveillance is a key theme within The Handmaids Tale and Nineteen-Eighty-Four and dystopia in
general. Atwood and Orwell creates an atmosphere of horror by emphasising the paranoia
surveillance creates, as well as how this paranoia generates civilians to conform to totalitarian
governments. However both novels contain different themes of surveillance and both novels have
different impacts of surveillance.
In both Nineteen-Eighty-Four and The Handmaid’s Tale (TMT) there is a variety of ways in which
surveillance is established. Within Nineteen-Eighty-Four Oceanians live in a constant state of being
monitored by the Party, through the use of advanced, invasive technology such as the telescreens.
The telescreens are extremely efficient in surveillance, as a “nervous tic, an unconscious look of
anxiety [...] anything that carried a suggestion of abnormality” could give you away. The telescreen
also acts as a panopticon, as it is uncertain that anyone watches behind the telescreen constantly,
however the thought of being watched continuously creates obedience, especially on a device that
“can be dimmed but not turned off”. In fact, Orwell himself writes that “in principle a Party member
had no spare time, and was never alone except in bed,” knowing that the telescreen watched them
unremittingly.
“Surveillance plays a key part in creating an atmosphere of horror in dystopian fiction” By
comparing The Handmaid’s Tale and Nineteen-Eighty-Four discuss how far you agree with
this statement.
Surveillance is a key theme within The Handmaids Tale and Nineteen-Eighty-Four and dystopia in
general. Atwood and Orwell creates an atmosphere of horror by emphasising the paranoia
surveillance creates, as well as how this paranoia generates civilians to conform to totalitarian
governments. However both novels contain different themes of surveillance and both novels have
different impacts of surveillance.
In both Nineteen-Eighty-Four and The Handmaid’s Tale (TMT) there is a variety of ways in which
surveillance is established. Within Nineteen-Eighty-Four Oceanians live in a constant state of being
monitored by the Party, through the use of advanced, invasive technology such as the telescreens.
The telescreens are extremely efficient in surveillance, as a “nervous tic, an unconscious look of
anxiety [...] anything that carried a suggestion of abnormality” could give you away. The telescreen
also acts as a panopticon, as it is uncertain that anyone watches behind the telescreen constantly,
however the thought of being watched continuously creates obedience, especially on a device that
“can be dimmed but not turned off”. In fact, Orwell himself writes that “in principle a Party member
had no spare time, and was never alone except in bed,” knowing that the telescreen watched them
unremittingly.
