George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four has been considered a very powerful piece of speculative fiction since its publication in 1949. In the novel, Orwell draws on his own understanding of totalitarianism to create a very believable world dominated by a totalitarian government. Readers come to understand the potentially devastating effects of an authoritarian regime. Orwell positions readers to sympathise with his viewpoint on discourses concerning power, human nature and political ideologies. Orwell achieves this through using literary …showed first 75 words of 1027 total…

…showed last 75 words of 1027 total…various literary devices to make his viewpoint more compelling to the reader. While Orwell's speculations in Nineteen Eighty-Four did not come to fruition, his novel was a powerful warning about the potentially disastrous outcome if the rising totalitarian regimes of his time were allowed to develop unchecked. Nineteen Eighty-Four can therefore be viewed as a highly effective social and historical criticism, eloquently described by Ben Pimlott as "a volley against the authoritarian in every personality".