Similarities Between 1984 And The Truman Show

Utopia: an imagined place or state of things in which everything is perfect. In both the novel 1984 by George Orwell and the movie The Truman Show a perfect society is presented. But as the two pieces of work continue the viewer comes to find what is told to be a utopia really is a dystopia.

In both pieces of work Winston and Truman, the two main characters, both are being controlled by someone of a higher power. In Truman’s case it is the director of the TV show that he is on, and in Winston’s situation it is Big Brother or the government. They both show the sense of being controlled. For example, in the movie when Truman is trying to escape the island there becomes a lot of traffic on the bridge so that he cannot leave. Although Truman does not realize it the complete control to the viewer is shown. In the novel Winston’s job show the control the government has over the people. His job is to change the past history to agree with anything and everything the government says to be true. The government has the power to make people believe what they want them to believe and does not allow them to know the truth of what has actually happened. Another similarity both the book and the movie

have are the fact the that governing powers, the government and the director, both want the characters to remain in the utopian society they have created, even though both of them want to escape their world. In the movie when Truman tries to escape and gets caught out on the water, the director almost kills him. The director becomes so obsessed with keeping Truman in the utopia that he inflicts a storm upon Truman and does not stop until he is nearly dead. In the novel the government scares the citizens by torture, jail time, and by death. If Winston were to escape he would risk any of these punishments happening to him.
Although both the setting in the novel and movie are both told to be the same there are many different things about them. The utopian society Winston lives in is in poverty. There is not enough food, clothing and shoes for everyone living in the society, where as in Truman’s society there is. Truman has a nice neighborhood, car and friends. Although these things did not really exist he got to enjoy them as if they did. In both the movie and the book they were being watched, but the concept was very different. In the novel the government wanted the people to know that they were being watched. The government wanted them to know this because they wanted the citizens to obey the rules and not start to live a lifestyle that was unexpected. In the movie Truman did not know he was being watched. He did not know he was part of a TV. The director did not want him to know he was being watched because then he would no longer want to participate in the show. Also if Truman found out he was on a TV show it would make him realize that the whole life he was living was simply a lie, the director wanted him to believe his life was complete reality.
Both pieces of work explain what the government and leader explain to be a perfect society.

The viewer of both the movie and the novel comes to realize that neither of these are utopias. In the perfect society or a utopia there is not death, harm, pain, suffering or hatred. Although the leaders of each society believe that what they have made is perfect it is not. Both pieces of work show the signs of a dystopia. Winston is always watched, controlled by the government and is scared into thinking certain things. Winston lacks any privacy and feels like a complete outcast to the others in his society. Truman is living a life that seems perfect besides the fact that it is a complete lie. Nothing that is “perfect” is real so therefor it really is not a utopia because nothing is

real.
The utopian society remains as only a dream to people. A utopian society can never exist because no one and nothing is ever complete perfection. Although it may be present in fictional pieces of literature and movies the ending usually brings a down fall. An ending to a piece of work with a utopia usually ends in discovering what the society truly was which is the complete opposite, an imperfect utopia, a dystopia.