Surveillance, Fear, and the Human Condition: Comparing 1984 and Far Away Anonymous 12th Grade

George Orwell’s novel Nineteen Eighty-Four, (1949), and Caryl Churchill’s play Far Away, (2000), explore the harsh truths of the human experience through dystopian concepts. Acting as political statements these texts juxtapose their respective socio-political contexts to a dystopian future to convey the deterioration of the human condition due to the totalitarian regimes depicted within both texts. Orwell uses third person limited narration within his novel to convey the impact of constant surveillance and violence on individual human qualities, such as empathy and the ability to form meaningful relationships, confronting the reader with the harsh truths of the human experience via the experiences of Winston Smith. Churchill similarly employs stage directions and monologues to explore the impact of violence on the main characters by providing the audience with a glimpse into the characters thoughts and their subsequent loss of humanity. In doing so the composers ignite new ideas within the reader and challenge them to act in order to prevent the dystopias depicted in their texts from occurring. As such, storytelling acts as a reflection of the human experience, highlighting and critiquing the harsh realities of human existence....