The Invisible Source of Nineteen Eighty-Four

Rose, Jonathan. "The Invisible Sources of Nineteen Eighty-Four". JPC 26.1 (Summer 1992): 93-107.

Literary sources of G. Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four in popular dystopias. See esp. for Olaf Stapledon's Darkness and Light (London: Methuen, 1942), where "Each citizen ourside the ruling class has implanted in his skull a device that permits the police to read his thoughts and transmit propaganda directly to the brain (66-67). The is cheap Buck Rogers stuff, too incredible to be really frightening.  Orwell made the some concept more plausible and (hence) much more terrifying with his telescreen, which was based on technology that already existed in 1948" (JR 96). Note also discussion of bureaucracy generally and particularly in C. S. Lewis's That Hideous Strength. (RDE, 07/01/93)