Tuesday, October 5, 2010

1984 and Little Brother

As I work on the paper that is due tomorrow (ah!) I'm seeing more and more parallels between Doctorow's Little Brother and Orwell's 1984. Some of them are quite obvious- the title Little Brother is in itself a literary allusion to 1984. Other names are parrallel too- Marcus's screen name w1n5t0n is reminiscient of Winston Smith, the main character of Orwell's novel. (This one actually took me quite a while to realize...).

The more I look at these two novels, the harder it becomes for me to not think of Little Brother as a blatant warning that our country is getting scarily close to becoming Airstrip One of Oceania closed tightly in the Party's fist.

Also as I reread Little Brother I find that I am becoming more paranoid. I emtpy out my cookies and cache on the internet whenever I leave a public computer, and sometimes even my computer at home. I've started using cash more often than my debit card. I don't know if this was an intentional side effect, but the book has certainly made me more aware of how easily trackable I am. Marcus's spirit of jamming has gotten into me!! However, I still haven't deduced a way to get into the parking garage without swiping my act card and having my picture taken...

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