Many readers have noted the similarities between George Orwell's Big Brother and twentieth century dictators like Joseph Stalin and Adolf Hitler. Like these real totalitarian authority figures, Big Brother is worshipped by his followers and rules absolutely all aspects of his subjects' lives. Also like Hitler and Stalin, Big Brother skillfully uses propaganda and paranoia in order to control the populace and maintain a firm grip on power, and he relies upon constant surveillance and...
Many readers have noted the similarities between George Orwell's Big Brother and twentieth century dictators like Joseph Stalin and Adolf Hitler. Like these real totalitarian authority figures, Big Brother is worshipped by his followers and rules absolutely all aspects of his subjects' lives. Also like Hitler and Stalin, Big Brother skillfully uses propaganda and paranoia in order to control the populace and maintain a firm grip on power, and he relies upon constant surveillance and cruelty to instantly squash any sign of disobedience. In creating Big Brother, Orwell is clearly commenting on the very real totalitarian regimes of the modern era.
However, there is one major difference between Big Brother and his real-life counterparts. While both Stalin and Hitler cultivated personal mythologies to strengthen their claim on legitimacy, they were still actual people who really created policies and interacted with their subordinates. In contrast, Orwell suggests that Big Brother isn't actually a real person. Rather, he's an idea, a symbol created by political elites to control the masses. As such, if one were to contrast Big Brother with actual totalitarian rulers, then one should definitely acknowledge that, while people like Hitler and Stalin existed, Big Brother is a construct created by the ruling political party to maintain power.
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