Becoming Big Brother: On the Role of Surveillance in Power Structures in George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four and Dave Eggers' The Circle

Abstract

This Bachelor's thesis deals with the shift from disciplininary societies to the societies of control by taking two novels into account, namely George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four and Dave Eggers's the Circle. This thesis focuses on the role of surveillance in the functioning of power in these novels by taking the societies in these novels into account; the focus is placed on The Party, Winston, and technology of surveillance in Nineteen Eighty-Four, and on The Circle, Mae, and technology in The Circle. By comparing these novels a shift can be discerned in the functioning of power, and there is a difference to be discerned in the warning that these dystopian novels give.