Alright, so I’ve been thinking about 1984, and something popped into my brain and I got to get it out of my system: Is O’Brien Big Brother himself? Because since we only know BB from propaganda posters, then why do I get the feeling that BB is just a title for whoever the fuck is in charge of the IngSoc Party. And O’Brien seems to have A LOT of influence within the Party, possibly to the point of being a likely candidate for being BB. So, am I missing something or has anyone else gotten that same feeling?
1984 Theory about O’Brien
- Thread starter Ace009
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- 1984 george orwell
I'd always taken Big Brother to be a fictional figurehead of a regime that is run collectively by committee. As O'Brien says "‘I wrote [The Book]. That is to say, I collaborated in writing it. No book is produced individually, as you know.’"
The fact that O'Brien says that Big Brother will never die I think is a tacit acknowledgement that there's no such human being.
Given how pervasive the control of the regime apparently is, there's essentially nothing reliable to go on in the text but layers of bureaucrats thought-policing one another seems to be the modus operandi to me.
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