Similarities Between 1984 And The Truman Show

A dystopian text is a genre that is an allegory written by the author to demonstrate the dangers within our current political climate, often exaggerated in a future context. Using techniques of oppression and a totalitarian regime ruling groups are often able to take control of societies. Today I will compare George Orwell’s iconic dystopian text 1984 and Peter Weir’s film, The Truman Show. Written in 1949, 1984 is set in society which is terrorised by the ideologies of a totalitarian government. Orwell focusses on parallels between Stalin’s Soviet Union and the Party in 1984 in relation to the toxic nature of the totalitarian regimes. Similarly, The Truman Show depicts a man that’s unknowingly the star of a TV reality show about his own life.

The hierarchical societies in ‘The Truman Show’ and ‘1984’ destroy familial instincts through suppression of identity, creative expression and heritage. Manipulating the masses to render themselves to be dehumanised and stripped of their identities.
In both texts, the traditional familial instincts of love, trust and loyalty are redirected towards the governing bodies by manipulating and indoctrinating individuals from childhood. The values that we associate with a traditional family are not present in the families of Oceania. Ostensibly a traditional family that is depicted in ‘1984’ is the Parsons family. This family is broken and artificial having no intimacy or trust within the family. Tom and Mrs Parsons are the parents of two treacherous children who belong to the Spies and Youth Lead. Their children are just waiting for the chance to denounce their parents to the thought police. In 1984, ‘it was almost normal for people over thirty to be frightened of their own children.’ (p29) The Party manipulates the minds of individuals to make them do anything and everything for the Party so when the Parsons children exposed their parents to the thought police, Tom Parsons ‘[was] proud of [his daughter as] it shows [he] brought her up in the right spirit.’ (p291) The party undermines family structure by brainwashing and encouraging children to spy on their own parents and report any instance of disloyalty to the party.

The children are represented as extensions of the aggressive ideology of the party. Brainwashing the minds of the children forms a sense of control as their alliance lies with the party and omniscient Big Brother, creating a constant threat of fear and antagonism in the household. It makes the totalitarian regime of the party seem inevitable, as each generation will be clones of the ideal human of Oceania. The party enforces this control over families as any loyalty and love towards each other is a direct threat to the Party’s absolute power. The Party severs human relationships in order to redirect love and devotion upon itself which allows them to maintain ultimate control. Similarly, in The Truman Show, the relationship between Truman and Meryl is based on deception and pretence. There is no loyalty in their marriage and the relationship is very manipulative. Meryl is forced to control and take advantage of any of Truman’s weaknesses such as his fear of the ocean. By conditioning him to fear water, Meryl is able to distract him and make him stay in Seahaven. Meryl is an ideal wife in the fake society of Seahaven. Her

role is to act as a distraction for Truman to keep his thoughts occupied. She does this by playing a damsel in distress; constantly flirtatiously smiling; and endlessly supporting and lionizing him. Truman’s framed photograph in their house of Meryl is symbolic of their relationship. In the frame she is juxtaposed, fake, and is represented as a woman who shares her whole life with Truman. She was merely just an actor in the fictional world in which he lives and her sole purpose was to entertain. The incessant control of the director of the show, Christof, was so extreme that Meryl started to crack and therefore allowing Truman, similarly to Winston, to start questioning his existence in the world. Calling out ‘someone help!’, when Truman was trying to expose her was a key example of how Meryl’s character starts to break and show weakness. Allowing the higher parties to control these relationships in these dystopian worlds therefore shows their true strengths and how powerful they really are.
In both Weir’s and Orwell's dystopian visions, the controlling bodies seek eradication of heritage and ancestry, resulting in the severing of familial ties.

Throughout the novel, Winston’s humanity starts to immerge and the basic human instincts of desiring love and relationships start to surface. He has distant memories of his mother and ‘knew [that] in his dream[s] that in some way the lives of his mother and his sister had been sacrificed for his own.' (p35) These vague memories serve to demonstrate what a traditional family used to be like and just how distorted the concept of family has become in Oceania. Through the Party’s need to control the past, present and the future, the current memories that Winston holds are distorted. The memory holes placed throughout Oceania forbid members to keep written records of their lives and mandates that any photographs or documents are to be destroyed. 'His mother's memory tor at his heart' (p35) as he could only think of what hardship he brought upon her. The imagery of water which is associated with Winston’s memories and dreams about his family alludes to these memories being hard to grasp leading him to be unsure whether they are real or not. The party asserts their control by distorting his memories of his family to make him focus on the party. To the members of Oceania, the party is your family, Big Brother is your brother. The Party redirects his human need for love and family to sole commitment and unquestioning love to the

Party; absolute and complete love for Big Brother becomes instinct. The distortion of memory of family is also present in the Truman show. Truman yearns for his father whom he believes is dead due to Christof’s decision to manufacture a storm that led to his drowning. Christof does this in order to instil a fear of water in his mind ensuring Truman’s isolation. The soul reasoning behind the sudden death of his father was simply to entertain the viewers of the Truman Show, not regarding the detrimental psychological impact this would have on Truman. Never allowing Truman to live in a world other than the dome of Seahaven creates no tangible memories of anything other than the scripted life that has been created for him. Christof has controlled his memory of his past therefore making him not question his current life. Truman “accepts the reality of the world with which [he is] presented” as he has no reason to question it. Both of the protagonists are at an attempt to ‘anchor’ themselves to a sense of history and a sense of belonging somewhere. This is what might help them survive the circumstances of their adult lives. Clearly, both men yearn for intimacy and love as these are ways to survive the horrors of a completely controlled, defined existence.
The traditional familial relationship that Orwell bemoans and warns of how complacency against hierarchical powers of the state can ultimately lead to a demise of one self. Both texts demonstrate the importance of familial instincts by showing how the dissipation of traditional family relationships can lead to the downfall of the human spirit.