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It is a cautionary tale of a totalitarian government exercising control over society through the use of language manipulation and threat.

George Orwell wrote "1984" as a warning. He wanted to demonstrate what could happen if citizens allowed their governments to hold as much power as they desired.

George Orwell, ca. 1940. As a self-described democratic socialist, Orwell believed in active government, yet his alertness to the excesses of official power informed Animal Farm and 1984, his two masterpieces about totalitarianism.

Orwell is most famous for his dystopian works of fiction, Animal Farm and Nineteen Eighty-Four, but many of his essays and other books have remained popular as well. His body of work provides one of the twentieth century's most trenchant and widely recognized critiques of totalitarianism.

Orwell's message is this: Malicious groups of people, like the pigs, will continue to use propaganda to usurp power, to exploit the vulnerable, and to control the masses, unless courageous individuals spread the truth and stand up for those who cannot fight for themselves.

The primary theme of 1984 by George Orwell is to warn readers of the dangers of totalitarianism. The central focus of the book is to convey the extreme level of control and power possible under a truly totalitarian regime. It explores how such a governmental system would impact society and the people who live in it.

Who controls the past controls the future; who controls the present controls the past.

Today, Nineteen Eighty-Four comes across not as a warning that the actual world of Winston and Julia and O'Brien is in danger of becoming reality. Rather, its true value is that it teaches us that power and tyranny are made possible through the use of words and how they are mediated.