Big Brother (Nineteen Eighty-Four)
Big Brother is a fictional character in George Orwell's novel Nineteen Eighty-Four. He is the enigmatic dictator of Oceania, a totalitarian state taken to its utmost logical consequence – where the ruling Party wields total power for its own sake over the inhabitants.
In the society that Orwell describes, everyone is under complete surveillance by the authorities, mainly by telescreens. The people are constantly reminded of this by the phrase "Big Brother is watching you", which is the core "truth" of the propaganda system in this state.
Since the publication of Nineteen Eighty-Four, the term "Big Brother" has entered the lexicon as a synonym for abuse of government power, particularly in respect to civil liberties, often specifically related to mass surveillance.
Read more about Big Brother (Nineteen Eighty-Four): Purported Origins, Legacy
Famous quotes containing the words big and/or brother:
“...deep down, deeper than everyday gets me, I am still one of them and will be till I die. In my heart and soul I belong to the lot and the red wagons and the Big Top.”
—Josephine Demott Robinson (1865–1948)
“All my life long I have been sensible of the injustice constantly done to women. Since I have had to fight the world single-handed, there has not been one day I have not smarted under the wrongs I have had to bear, because I was not only a woman, but a woman doing a man’s work, without any man, husband, son, brother or friend, to stand at my side, and to see some semblance of justice done me. I cannot forget, for injustice is a sixth sense, and rouses all the others.”
—Amelia E. Barr (1831–1919)