Control, Surveillance, and
Privacy in Contemporary
Dystopian Fiction
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Table of contents
Introduction ... 4
Chapter One: Genre Theory ... 11
Chapter Two: Brave New World and Nineteen Eighty-Four ... 18
Chapter Three: Super Sad True Love Story and The Circle ... 32
Conclusion ... 46
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Abstract
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Introduction
Fiction is often used by writers to reflect on social and political issues in society. At the beginning of the sixteenth century, Thomas More used his writing skills to envision a society which was an improvement of his own contemporary society in every aspect, and he called this new and ideal world Utopia. More’s work of literature marks the start of the genre of utopian fiction, and many writers have since followed his example by creating idealized images of perfect societies that solve all worries and problems of the societies in which they were written. At the beginning of the twentieth century, when Western society was characterized by disease, poverty, and war, the counterpart of the utopian genre started to gain popularity, and many writers began to translate the threats and horrors they observed in their surroundings into fictional societies considerably worse than their own, which are called dystopias. As members of twentieth-century Western society were oppressed and supervised by people wealthier and smarter than they, the themes of control, surveillance, and privacy became important topics of discussion in this society, and have therefore also been much discussed in dystopian fiction. Even though Western society has gone through many changes, the themes are still relevant today. In the twenty-first century, surveillance activities in Western society have drastically increased because of the threat of terrorism, and the rise of social media and increase of Internet activities overall have led people to share more and more personal data over time.
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(2013). These particular novels have been chosen because they strongly focus on the themes of control, surveillance, and privacy, but were written in different time periods and in very different societies. While Brave New World and Nineteen Eighty-Four were written with the horrors and threats of World War I and World War II in mind, Super Sad True Love Story and The Circle were written in a society where people are constantly connected with each other through the Internet and are therefore continuously watched and judged by other members of society. It is interesting to explore how the same themes are represented as threats in societies that are so distinct.
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thinking and worrying too much about what is actually happening in the World State. A wonder drug by the name of soma is distributed to ensure that unhappiness does not exist in the World State. There is only evidence of two different kinds of places outside of the World State: Iceland, an island to which disobedient citizens are exiled, and the Reservations, where people still live the old way of life. Even though life in the World State seems utopian in some respects, in the background there is a totalitarian regime which controls every aspect of the lives that citizens are destined to have.
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can distract people from the ideas of the Party, these are strictly forbidden. About 85 per cent of the population of London is formed by the proles, who are free of the control of the Party, although their living conditions are very poor, and they are constantly threatened by bombs. The London of Nineteen Eighty-Four shows great resemblances to the city of London both during and right after World War II, and Orwell has used the horrors he observed in his own contemporary society to create a horrifying totalitarian regime that has assumed total power over its citizens.
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Dave Eggers is an American writer, publisher and human rights activist. He has won several awards for his works of fiction and non-fiction, and in 2001 he was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for General Non-Fiction for his memoir A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius. In 2013 he published his fictional novel The Circle, which describes a company, called the Circle, that has subsumed all other big media companies. By using the different services that the company provides, people are sharing more and more personal data online. This data is in turn stored and shared by the company, so that almost complete profiles of people are publicly available online. The Circle keeps developing more services that are used to make the life of its users easier and more secure, and in turn it gathers more data and more knowledge to store and to share. The company takes the view that all information should be known, and that there should be no secrets. It encourages people to place live streaming cameras everywhere, and even to carry them with them constantly so that everything people do is streamed live on the Internet continuously. This way, it becomes almost impossible for people to find any form of privacy in their lives. The novel illustrates the consequences that providing more and more personal information online can have, and the ease with which social media can gather and store our personal data.
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Chapter One: Genre Theory
Dystopian fiction stems from the genre of utopian fiction. Utopian literature has a number of distinguishing features that can in some form be observed in dystopian fiction as well. Although utopias are imaginary, they reveal a strong link to the reality in which they are written (Newman 147). Ashcroft states that the real and the imaginary become blurred in a utopia. Both exist simultaneously, which allows the reader to relate the message of the author of the utopia to his or her own world. Therefore, utopian fiction needs to be relatable and imaginable in order to work (Ashcroft 412). The aim of utopian fiction is to illustrate a world that is better than the society in which the work was written. Consequently, the characteristics of the utopian society are based on elements in the real society that can be improved. Baker-Smith indicates that these elements are often human dilemmas that utopian fiction dramatizes in order to show the possibilities and alternatives of the society in which it is written (4). Although the basic features of dystopian fiction are similar to those of utopian fiction, a dystopia is a society that is considerably worse than the one in which it was written, and is therefore the opposite of a utopia. Dystopian fiction dramatizes social and political issues in order to illustrate the negative outcomes that these can have. Therefore, just as utopian fiction, it has a strong connection to reality.
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malice is generated towards all outsiders, since these are not worthy of life in utopia. The utopian world should be renewed, and in order to do so the past needs to be buried. This is usually done by some form of brainwashing among the inhabitants of the new world. To ensure that all rules are obeyed and everything runs smoothly in the new society, absolute obedience to one great leader is required. To prevent mutinous behaviour, some form of anti-intellectualism is often installed and simplicity, for example in costume, art, or use of language, is a virtue that is usually strived for. Another essential virtue in utopia is equality, since an equal division of attention and proceeds ensures that people will not feel like they are treated unfairly. Finally, to ensure that all citizens share the same ideologies, the education and upbringing of children are usually strictly regulated (Schulte Nordholt 53-67). These characteristics also appear in dystopian fiction, and they are all to a greater or lesser extent essential features of the novels discussed in this dissertation as well. For example, control of the past is an important theme in Nineteen Eighty-Four, the World State of Brave New World has the ascendancy on the upbringing and education of children, citizens in Super Sad True Love Story are led by the simplicity of consumerism, and in The Circle there is a strong feeling of malice against the people who do not wish to become part of the Circle society.
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discovery of a whole new and untainted part of the world had established a new literary genre, which would inspire writers for centuries to come. A few centuries after More’s literary creation, the genre drastically changed. Moylan indicates that, until circa 1850, authors wrote utopian fiction to express their hope that the world would and could become different and better. However, after capitalism began to secure influence in society around 1850, authors of utopian fiction started to focus more on the idea that the economic and political systems needed to be reformed from within. Since writers could no longer find an alternative for a better world outside their own society, they saw no other option than to reform their contemporary societal system. This led to a radical change in the genre of utopian fiction: from the late nineteenth century on, utopias would usually be located in a future time. The literary utopias described the revolutionary change that was needed to convert the contemporary society into the future utopia, as a way to improve the societies in which they were written (Moylan 6). This development can also be observed in dystopian fiction, although revolutionary changes would then convert society into a dystopia rather than a utopia. In Shteyngart’s Super Sad True Love Story, for example, the government eliminates groups of people, the Low Net Worth Individuals, in order to change society and make it suitable for the creation of the government’s version of a utopia, which is a nightmarish dystopia for the greater part of the population.
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abused to create dystopian societies in which a small number of people can assume total control.
All four novels discussed in this dissertation criticize social, technological, and political developments that were of importance in the societies in which they were written. They all have a strong connection to reality, and illustrate how these developments could eventually lead to a dystopian totalitarian society. An essential theme in each of these novels is totalitarian control, as in all four fictional societies the regime utilizes techniques to dominate citizens and ensure that they behave according to the ideologies of the authorities. In order to ascertain the desired behaviour of members of society, these are constantly surveiled. Since citizens are supervised continuously, and since they are punished whenever they do not conduct themselves the way that is expected of them, their privacy is severely threatened.
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provided voluntarily by individuals and obtained without permission, since the government is authorized to gather this information via different channels. In addition, modern technology has made it easier both for the government and for citizens themselves to collect and analyse personal data (Mills 16-18). Totalitarian regimes benefit from possessing as much personal data of their populations as possible, and therefore personal information of citizens is often gathered and stored without asking for permission. Social media, which are important tools in Super Sad True Love Story and The Circle, have made it even easier for regimes to obtain and abuse personal data. The freedom to control property, which is the third category that Mills distinguishes, can generally be divided into the rights to use property, to sell property, and to exclude others from the enjoyment of property (19). Controlling the amount and kind of property that citizens are allowed to possess can be a useful instrument for totalitarian regimes to sway not only the behaviour of members of society, but also the knowledge that they can acquire, which is clearly shown in Brave New World and Nineteen Eighty-Four. The right to control and protect physical space is a completely personal right, which entails the right to be protected from battery, false imprisonment, and search and seizure (Mills 20). In a society where people constantly have to fear for being run in and punished, such as the societies of Nineteen Eighty-Four and, to a less severe extent, The Circle, the right of physical space is severely threatened.
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Chapter Two: Brave New World and Nineteen Eighty-Four
In 1932, Aldous Huxley published his famous dystopian novel Brave New World. Even though the novel is set some six hundred years into the future, it shows strong resemblances to the society in which it was written. Higdon explains that a large part of the world in Brave New World already existed, and that Huxley just exaggerated and distorted it with satire. The novel shows the optimistic spirit of 1926 America, before the Great Depression hit (Higdon 19-25). Huxley had once visited America before he started writing Brave New World, and was at that time shocked by the artificiality, commercialization, and excesses he observed (Higdon 111). Huxley used the societal developments he observed during his travels and in his home country, Great Britain, to create the futuristic, wealthy, and technological London and World State of Brave New World.
When writing his masterpiece, Huxley had a clear vision. Not only did he wish to provide a warning for the possibly dehumanizing effects of science, he also wanted to illustrate what overconsumption could do to human beings, and demonstrate how easy it would be for totalitarian leaders to seize power if they would only use the right tools. In 1931, Aldous Huxley wrote a letter to his father in which he explained the nature of Brave New World, which he was writing at that time:
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prolongation of youth, the devising of some harmless but effective substitute for alcohol, cocaine, opium etc: - and also the effects of such sociological reforms as Pavlovian conditioning of all children from birth and before birth, universal peace, security and stability” (qtd. in Huxley & Smith 351).
This letter demonstrates that it was Huxley’s intention to write a satirical novel, and that he believed that the society he described could very well become reality in the future. When George Orwell’s novel Nineteen Eighty-Four was published in 1949, World War II had just ended and Britain was still trying to grasp the horrors it had witnessed. Steinhoff states that Orwell had concentrated in Nineteen Eighty-Four the years of exhaustion, fear, shortages, unceasing labour, uncertainty, apathy, and hysteria that he had witnessed both in Spain and in Britain during the wars (Steinhoff 158). Orwell believed that these violent emotions had become instruments of the government to keep its population under control. Bergonzi adds to this that the novel also refers to the conditions in Britain after World War II had ended. Society still lived in a state of constant fear for sudden bombardments, shortages of food and other necessities, and bad living conditions overall (Bergonzi 213). The state of the society in which Orwell wrote Nineteen Eighty-Four influenced him to create a dystopian novel where citizens are brainwashed to an extent in which they are no longer able to think for themselves, and live in a constant fear of displaying disobedient behaviour.
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“My recent novel is NOT intended as an attack on Socialism or on the British Labour Party (of which I am a supporter) but as a show-up of the perversions to which a centralised economy is liable and which have already been partly realised in Communism and Fascism. I do not believe that the kind of society I describe necessarily will arrive, but I believe (allowing of course for the fact that the book is a satire) that something resembling it could arrive. I believe also that totalitarian ideas have taken root in the minds of intellectuals everywhere, and I have tried to draw these ideas out to their logical consequences” (qtd. in Orwell, Orwell & Angus 502).
This quote illustrates that Orwell’s intention was to write a dystopian novel that demonstrates how threats that he observed in Western society could become reality if citizens would let themselves be influenced and indoctrinated by the wrong people and the wrong ideas.
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creating human beings when he read My Life and Work by Henry Ford. In the 1920s, Ford was a living example of the American dream since he helped create a new consumer society with a strong focus on materialism. Huxley was particularly negative about Ford’s standardization of production, which he believed would lead to a dehumanization of factory workers and which formed the basis for his idea of creating foetuses in an assembly line (Higdon 76-77). In Brave New World, the assembly lines create identical human beings just like Ford’s conveyor belts enabled the creation of identical automobiles.
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Although the Party attempts to eliminate all references to the time before Oceania was created and before Airstrip One was in a constant state of war, such as literature, art, and old media, there are still some reminders of the past that serve as symbols of beauty, hope, and the reminiscence of a better time. The symbol can for example be observed in the nursery rhymes, which remind Winston and Julia of better times, and in the crystal paperweight that Winston buys in one of the prole shops. He carries this trinket with him and looks at it whenever he wants to feel rebellious, since he is not allowed to possess any personal property with emotional value. The proles themselves are a symbol of the past as well, since they are not controlled by the Party and still live a life similar to the way of living before the Party was created. Winston sees much potential in these proles that remind him of a better time, saying that “If there is any hope … it lies in the proles. If there was hope, it must lie in the proles, because only there, in the swearing disregarded masses, 85 per cent of the population of Oceania, could the force to destroy the Party ever be generated” (Orwell, Nineteen Eighty-Four 72). Bergonzi claims that in Oceania, the past is in control of the people who control the present (218). However, as long as there are still reminiscences of the past, like the proles and the distant memory of people, there is still hope, at least according to Winston and Julia, that the totalitarian regime of Oceania can be overthrown. Yet once Winston has been tortured and brainwashed by O’Brien to believe everything that the Party tells him, the past does not exist to him anymore, and as a result he no longer cherishes a hope for a different future either.
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torture that citizens face whenever they do not behave exactly in accordance with the demands of the Party. This threat is symbolized in Big Brother, whose face seems to watch and judge citizens wherever they go. Winston explains how just observing the face of Big Brother induces strong feelings of terror in him: “The hypnotic eyes gazed into his own. It was as though some huge force were pressing down upon you – something that penetrated inside your skull, battering against your brain, frightening you out of your beliefs, persuading you, almost, to deny the evidence of your senses. In the end the Party would announce that two and two made five, and you would have to believe it” (Orwell, Nineteen Eighty-Four 83). In the Soviet-Union and in Germany, Orwell had observed that people are willing to sacrifice their comfort and freedom if only they are scared enough (Steinhoff 148). This is also clearly the case in Nineteen Eighty-Four, where people are so frightened that they are willing to accept that concepts like comfort and freedom do not exist anymore.
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perpetrating thoughtcrime and being together is the only way in which they can revolt against the regime. Even though they know that they will be punished for it, committing small crimes allows them to feel victorious and rebellious, and offers them hope for change and a better future.
Although Huxley’s World State does not have rules that prohibit citizens from having a different opinion than the state ideologies, power and force are still used when people express feelings that could pose a threat to the ideologies of the regime. Whenever the World Controllers feel that members of society do not behave properly, they are exiled to a faraway island on which they are no longer capable of infecting other citizens with their foul thoughts. The fact that this is a threat that people are genuinely afraid of is demonstrated when Bernard discusses the feeling that he wants to be more useful with Helmholtz: “’Hush!’ said Bernard suddenly, and lifted a warning finger; they listened. ‘I believe there’s someone at the door,’ he whispered” (Huxley 60). Members of society are afraid of being banished from the World State, which they feel is like utopia, and this anxiety aids the World Controllers in ensuring that people conduct themselves in accordance to state ideologies.
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or she is entitled to. The Director of Hatcheries and Conditioning explains that “ʽThat is the secret of happiness and virtue – liking what you’ve got to do. All conditioning aims at that: making people like their unescapable social destiny’” (Huxley 12). Huxley was first introduced to caste systems when he travelled to India, and he used this as a basis for his own castes. He observed that in this system people’s fate was determined by birth, and that there was no room for individual freedom (Higdon 47-51). Since the members of society of Brave New World are conditioned to love and accept their “unescapable social destiny”, they are living a life that they feel is perfect and will not feel the urge to revolt against the regime, as long as they do not realize that could be a better alternative for their way of living.
In Brave New World, the character John the Savage is used as a symbol to illustrate the injustice and iniquity of the regime of the World State. John has grown up in one of the Reservations, which are seen by the citizens of the World State as primitive villages with underdeveloped savages. His mother, Linda, who used to live in the World State but was forced to live in one of the Reservations before she gave birth to John, illustrates the contrast between the two societies. She is unable to live happily in the Reservations, since she has been a victim of the eugenics and conditioning of the World State, and longs for her old life where she was able to take soma whenever she did not wish to deal with her emotions. John returns with her to the World State, but is unable to understand why life there is seen as utopian by its citizens. In a conversation with Mustapha Mond, one of the World Controllers, John claims:
“’I don’t want comfort. I want God, I want poetry, I want real danger, I want freedom, I want goodness. I want sin.’
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‘Alright then,’ said the Savage defiantly, ‘I’m claiming the right to be unhappy.’ ‘Not to mention the right to grow old and ugly and impotent; the right to have syphilis and cancer; the right to have too little to eat; the right to be lousy; the right to live in constant apprehension of what may happen tomorrow; the right to catch typhoid; the right to be tortured by unspeakable pains of every kind.’
There was a long silence.
‘I claim them all’, said the Savage at last.” (Huxley 211-212).
At the end of the novel, John is so exasperated by the ideologies and procedures in the World State that he commits suicide. He is used to life in the Reservations, where concepts like family, literature, sickness, and unhappiness still exist. John is able to see the anti-intellectualism and simplicity of life in the World State, which, as the previous chapter has demonstrated, is an important characteristic of dystopian societies. He is aware of what he is missing out on while in the World State, and is therefore able to see the true horror of the totalitarian regime: every aspect of the lives of members of society is controlled and decided by the World Controllers, leaving no room for individuality or concepts like art, literature, and family, which can distract people and decondition them.
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indicates that Huxley got the idea for this wonder drug when he was in India. He was convinced that a drug that only had pleasurable effects would make a true paradise out of the world, and this is what he found in soma (Higdon 41-43). Similarly, citizens of the World State are conditioned to believe that promiscuity is a virtue, as love and relationships can lead to uncontrollable and unpredictable emotions. Hypnopaedia teaches members of society proverbs such as “everyone belongs to everyone else” (Huxley 34) and “when the individual feels, the community reels” (Huxley 81), which lead them to believe that promiscuity is in the best interest of society. Huxley explained the importance of these distractions in his introduction to the 1946 edition of Brave New World, stating that “sexual freedom, drugs, and leisure lead to servitude” (xlix). As long as people are distracted from any negativity in their lives, they will not feel the need to change it and revolt against the authorities that control society. Soma, promiscuity, and the many leisure activities that the World State provides prevent most citizens from questioning the regime.
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disregarded altogether (Steinhoff 105-107). Winston and Julia attempt to escape the telescreens whenever they want to be together and discuss ways to rebel against the Party, but in the end it is a hidden telescreen that reveals their treason and leads to their imprisonment, which illustrate the power of these instruments. The telescreens allow the Inner Party members to detect any sign of thoughtcrime or facecrime, and to capture and brainwash disobedient members of society before they can harm the regime by persuading other citizens into questioning the Party.
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Germany as well, and Orwell called this a “peculiar horror of totalitarian society, the way in which suspected enemies of the regime simply disappear” (Orwell, Orwell & Angus 24). The strict control and force that the Party has over its population leave the citizens in such a state of terror that most of them do not dare revolt against the totalitarian regime. Even if they do have the courage to rebel, like Julia and Winston do, they are captivated before they can object to the regime and make a difference in society.
Citizens of Oceania are not allowed to have any meaningful or emotional relationships, since friends, relatives, and lovers usually talk about emotions and can therefore easily incite thoughts that could jeopardize the power of the Party. Having sex for pleasure is prohibited in Oceania, as people are only allowed to have sex to beget children. Winston uses his love affair with Julia as a way to rebel against the Party, since his wife had forced him to have sex with her on a set time each week as “a duty to the Party” (Orwell, Nineteen Eighty-Four 139). Julia explains the fact that having sex for enjoyment was considered a sin by the Party by stating that “it was not merely that the sex instinct created a world of its own which was outside the Party’s control and which therefore had to be destroyed if possible. What was more important was that sexual privation induced hysteria, which was desirable because it could be transformed into war-fever and leader-worship” (Orwell, Nineteen Eighty-Four 139). This illustrates that as long as the Party is able to oversee and manipulate the emotions of the population, they are able control citizens by converting these emotions into hatred against the enemies of the Party, and consequently into loyalty to the Party.
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Chapter Three: Super Sad True Love Story and The Circle
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Dave Eggers’ The Circle (2013) is a novel that satirizes large social media and Internet companies in modern Western society, such as Google, Facebook, and Twitter, and the way in which these track, collect, and abuse personal data of citizens. The main protagonist of the novel is Mae, a 24-year-old woman who starts working at the Circle, a large and influential Internet company. She is expected to constantly provide personal information, such as her whereabouts, activities, and thoughts, on her social media account, and to interact with other users of the Circle services in order to help create a tight community. She is introduced to the company by her best friend Annie, who has worked at the Circle for quite some time already and is highly valued in the company. The Circle is led by three men called the Wise Men, who are trying their best to convince their employees and the users of the company’s services that their services will make life easier and safer for everyone in society. Although Mae is still sceptical about the mentality of the Circle at first, after she starts using the company’s SeeChange cameras to stream live every moment of her life she is soon convinced that the sharing of personal information benefits society. Her parents and her ex-boyfriend Mercer try to convince her that the motives of the Circle are unethical, but Mae is increasingly persuaded by the ideals of the company. The character Mae is used in the novel to illustrate how the Circle persuades its users to share more and more personal data, which it later abuses to gain complete control over the citizens in society. Unlike the previous chapter, Super Sad True Love Story and The Circle will be discussed simultaneously in this chapter, since both novels criticize modern Western society on the basis of similar themes.
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citizens, and this led them to both track and store much more personal data than before (15). As Internet services became more widely available for a larger audience, Western society saw a large increase both in the number of social media networks and Internet companies and the impact that these had on people’s lives (Lee 51-66). In Super Sad True Love Story and The Circle, these two developments are combined to create fictional societies in which citizens are continuously surveiled by the government, large companies, and other members of societies, and where social media networks, used by almost all individuals in these novels, allow the regime to constantly supervise and track citizens.
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others. When Mae starts working at the Circle, she is scolded for not sharing enough personal data on her social media account. In both societies citizens need to be active members of the digital community in order to be considered valuable members of society. This expectation enables authorities to force citizens to utilize their digital services, which in turn provides them with more control over society.
Online activity is seen as a measure for success in both novels, which urges members of society to share even more details of their personal life and which allows the authorities
to gather information that they can utilize to control citizens. The societies have different
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on the way in which people in contemporary Western society are increasingly obsessed with their life online instead of their physical life. The resulting effect of this way of measuring success is that people’s digital image has become more important than their physical one. People are increasingly worried about their representation on social media, and real-life communication comes secondary.
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Love Story Shteyngart is criticizing the exaggerated fixation of contemporary American society on longevity, youth, and beauty, and that the Post-Human Services are modeled after the modern life sciences labs with life enhancing technologies (Kriebernegg 61-63). So much value is attached to wealth and beauty that members of society are willing to give up almost anything to look younger and be loved and respected by peers.
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they seem willing to give up parts of their privacy in exchange for being connected, and that people appear to be less concerned about their privacy altogether (13-15). The Circle offers its services for a low and affordable price, in order to enable all members of society to utilize them. The promise of a better, uncomplicated and more secure life persuades people to use the facilities of the Circle and to provide personal data in return.
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enjoy these improvements of life. As has been indicated in Chapter One, utopias are usually only accessible to a privileged group of people, and consequently the services lead people to believe that they can enjoy utopian ideals. Just like the citizens of Brave New World, the members of the Circle society are willing to accept intrusions of their privacy as long as they believe that it will make their lives safer and happier.
The fact that citizens in Super Sad True Love Story and The Circle are continuously connected to the Internet and social media allows the regimes of these societies to track and store all personal information that people transmit. While the members of Shteyngart’s society are obliged to carry their äppärät with them at all times, the employees of the Circle are compelled to wear a bracelet that keeps track of all their vital information, which is then backed up on the company Cloud that also stores all personal data that have been shared by means of the Internet services that they use. The Circle states that all the personal information it possesses of its users, which includes its employees, is utilized to develop more services that can aid members of society to lead a better and simpler life. This is commensurable to what happened in Western society after the terrorist attacks of September 11, since according to Lyon more personal data has been gathered and used to identify people and protect their safety and freedom ever since the outbreak of the war on terrorism (15). Although people feel like they provide personal information voluntarily, the Circle obtains much more data than they realize and also forces people to transmit information, as employees are obliged to wear company bracelets and users are compelled to share data in order to be able to use the services of the Circle.
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surveillance of the government and large companies. As citizens are willing to trade their own personal information for that of others, this allows the authorities to gather and use this data unhindered. Members of Shteyngart’s society use their äppäräti to search for data of people around them whenever they please, and they can find out everything they want to know about other human beings on the Internet by pointing their äppärät at them. Keeping track of others is even seen as a form of affection, which becomes apparent when Lenny is looking up Eunice’s whereabouts: “It pleased me, in a parochial way, the fact that I could always count on her being there” (Shteyngart 213). Citizens don’t mind that their personal information is gathered and used by the regime, since they are able to utilize the information of others for their own benefit as well, and this makes their lives easier as almost all communication is done digitally rather than face-to-face. Consequently, this leads to a deterioration of both the language and the quality of communication. People are ‘verballing’ and ‘emoting’ rather than talking and sharing feelings, and books are seen as weird, outmoded media artefacts. Lenny is actually one of the few people left who owns and reads books. When he carries one with him at an airport, a young man tells him that it “smells like wet socks” (Shteyngart 37). Similarly, when Eunice catches Lenny reading a book, she writes to one of her friends that “I was so embarrassed I just stood there” (Shteyngart 144). In an interview with World Literature Today, Shteyngart indicates “the death of literature … it’s something I’m very worried about, obviously. Where things are trending” (Brown & Celayo 29-30). As citizens of Shteyngart’s society are obsessed by their physical images, they do not notice that the regime is gaining more power and control over them. Their lives have become simplified, and this is illustrated by the deterioration and the simplification of their communication.
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other people’s data, which provides them with a strong tool to control their population. Since people are constantly faced with both other people’s data and their own, they are forced to continuously conduct themselves well in order to be valued as a member of society. In Super Sad True Love Story, there are so-called Credit Poles everywhere, which display people’s credit rankings whenever they walk past them. Similarly, the buildings of the Staatling-Wapachung Corporation contain boards that automatically show the moods and cortisol levels of its employees. As a result, citizens value other human beings based on these rankings rather than their character, and Malewitz states that, since äppäräti are able to physiologically monitor its owner’s body and vital information, the characters of Super Sad True Love Story tend to view their bioinformatics patterns as purified and enhanced representations of their messier conscious thought (115). In The Circle, the health of employees is constantly monitored, and staff members are scolded whenever they do not take good enough care of themselves. Also, users of the Circle’s social media network are encouraged to share every aspect of their life on this Zing account so that others can enjoy and learn from their experiences, and the SeeChange cameras that are used by an increasing number of citizens ensure that members of society can be observed in a way that measures up to the telescreens of Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four. As citizens in both novels are constantly surveiled, not just by the regime, but by other members of society as well, they are never able to live a careless life in which they can do whatever they please, since misconduct is always observed and reprimanded.
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which his peers behave, even he secretly enjoys the opportunity to watch and judge other human beings: “I felt the perfunctory liberal chill at seeing entire races of human beings so summarily reduced and stereotyped, but was also voyeuristically interested in seeing people’s Credit Rankings” (Shteyngart 54). Since members of society in The Circle know that they receive more positive feedback from peers when they are more active on social media, they start to share more details about their personal life online and use the services of the Circle more often. Once Mae has turned into one of the most important figures of the Circle and becomes addicted to all the positive attention she receives, she states that “most people would trade everything they know, everyone they know – they’d trade it all to know they’ve been seen, and acknowledged, that they might even be remembered. We all know we die. We all know that the world is too big for us to be significant. So all we have is the hope of being seen, or heard, even for a moment” (Eggers 470). This phenomenon can be observed in contemporary Western society as well, as Lee states that in the twenty-first century social media have brought the peer pressure of the physical world into the digital world, which has led to a new era of exhibitionism and voyeurism. As a result, people create a digital version of themselves online, so that they will receive the respect and attention that they crave (20-24). In the fictional societies of the novels, the belief is that a more detailed digital image of a person makes him or her a more interesting individual, and as a result citizens share more details about their personal life and thoughts online than they do face-to-face in their physical worlds.
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any meaningful way to anyone” (Shteyngart 270), but the loss of their device drives other people so mad that they commit suicide. The control of the regime in Super Sad True Love Story leads to even greater disaster when it becomes clear that the distinction between High Net Worth Individuals and Low Net Worth Individuals is used to determine which individuals deserve to live and which should be eliminated. America has planned a bankruptcy to create the possibility to start anew, but only the most valuable human beings can be included in this plan. Therefore, attacks are planned on Low Net Worth Individuals, so that these will no longer remain an obstacle in the life of people that are actually worth living. Citizens only realize how they and their data have been misused once a ferry full of Low Net Worth Individuals is sunk. As Lenny witnesses this, he describes this feeling as “as the first part of our lives, the false part, came to an end, the question we had forgotten to ask for so many years was finally shouted by one husky voice, stage left: ‘But why?’” (Shteyngart 248). This illustrates exactly what Lee calls one of the dark sides of social media: since our location and data are continuously transmitted, they are easily shared with third parties, and consequently easily abused. Even if we would refrain from using any Internet services, plenty of our personal data would still be accessible (51-66). The authorities in Super Sad True Love Story are able to assume total control unnoticed, and citizens only realize the effects of the surveillance and lack of privacy when it is too late. The totalitarian regime has gained so much power that they can decide which members of society are allowed to live, and which are not.
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employed rather than physical torture. The extent of the damage that constantly being connected can do becomes more apparent throughout the novel. Mae experiences this for the first time when she realizes that her love interest Francis has videotaped them during a sexual encounter. When she urges him to delete the files, she realizes that erasing data is no longer an option in the Circle, as Francis says “ʻdid you say ‘delete’? … the meaning was clear: We don’t delete at the Circle” (Eggers 205). The power of the Circle becomes even more evident when politicians who oppose the Circle are suddenly found guilty for possessing illegal files on their digital devices. Mae’s ex-boyfriend Mercer warns her for the danger that she is getting herself and the rest of society into, saying that what the Circle is doing “sounds perfect, it sounds progressive, but it carries with it more control” (Eggers 260). He adds to this that “here, there are no oppressors. No one’s forcing you to do this. You willingly tie yourself to these leashes” (Eggers 262). Although Mercer tries his best to escape the invasion of the Circle, the company forces him in the end to make a choice between submission to the Circle and death, and he chooses the last option. Atwood explains this phenomenon by saying that the more of ourselves we make public, the more we start living in a sort of supervised prison of which we can no longer escape (par. 32). The Circle has obtained so much power that members of society can no longer escape its control. Just like the citizens of Brave New World and Nineteen Eighty-Four, people either accept the rule of the Circle, or they disappear.
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Conclusion
In the previous chapters, the themes of control, surveillance, and privacy in Brave New World, Nineteen Eighty-Four, Super Sad True Love Story, and The Circle have been analysed and compared to the socio-historical contexts of the societies in which these novels have been written. Although the novels were written in different time periods, the themes are equally important in all four fictional dystopian societies. With the analyses from the previous chapters, it can now be established how the threats that these concepts pose in contemporary Western society are utilized to create the dystopian societies of these novels, and whether social, political, and technological advancements in Western society have led to a different representation of these themes in dystopian fiction in different time periods.
The societies in all four novels are controlled by totalitarian regimes. However, whereas Huxley’s World State and Orwell’s Oceania are both controlled by governments, in the societies of Super Sad True Love Story and The Circle power is assumed by large commercial companies, Staatling-Wapachung and the Circle respectively. As a result, it is more difficult to blame someone for the oppression and tragic fate of members of society in the latter two novels. While the World Controllers of Brave New World and the Inner Party members of Nineteen Eighty-Four are the obvious perpetrators of the crimes against their populations, there is no one in Shteyngart’s and Eggers’ societies who claims to be the leader of the population, even though Staatling-Wapachung and the Circle have assumed total control over society.
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societies, and it is also the only system that predestines its members for a certain caste before they are born. In the other three novels, people can climb the hierarchy ladder if they conform enough to the expectations of the party in control. Party members can become Inner Party members, members of Eggers’ society can become Circle employees and later even Inner Circlers, and Low Net Worth Individuals can become High Net Worth Individuals if they start making enough money. The members of society who hold the highest position in hierarchy have the most privileges and are able to exert control, and the lower people are in the hierarchy rankings, the less freedom they are allowed and the more they are controlled by higher society members.
In order to ensure that members of society behave according to the laws of the regime, each society employs instruments to prevent people from disobeying the rules. In Brave New World, Super Sad True Love Story, and The Circle, citizens are distracted by matters that make them happy so that they will not feel the need to revolt against the regime. The World State has its orgies, feelies, and the wonder drug soma, and the members of the societies that Eggers and Shteyngart have created are distracted with material goods and with social media, which is no less addicting to them than the drug that is freely available in Huxley’s society. Happiness is a concept that is virtually unknown in Nineteen Eighty-Four, and instead a constant feeling of terror is induced in the citizens of Oceania. It is this fear that prevents them from revolting against the Party, since they are continuously distracted by their anxiety of thinking or behaving wrongly and being severely punished for doing so.
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such a great impact that citizens are only able to think in terms and phrases that the World State has taught them. Disobedient citizens of Oceania are brainwashed with the use of physical and psychological torture, which is aimed at breaking people down mentally so that they can be forced to accept and believe the state ideologies. The citizens of Shteyngart’s New York are so dependent on their äppäräti that they are seized by panic when they cannot use their devices anymore. Members of society have become so used to living their lives digitally via their äppäräti that they no longer remember how to live when the authorities deprive them of their cherished gadget. In The Circle, the leaders of the company present their ideas and services in a way which leads their users to believe that these can improve their lives immensely. Since the ideals of the company are described in a utopian way and users are confronted with these ideals constantly, they begin to believe that the ideologies of the company are true and in the best interest of society. The Circle does not indoctrinate its users with its ideologies in a forceful way, but rather persuades them slowly into thinking that there are no negative sides to the Circle’s gadgets and services.
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move of citizens is observed, and the Party therefore automatically knows and possesses al personal details of the Party members. However, in Super Sad True Love Story and in The Circle citizens voluntarily transmit personal data and details of their personal life by using social media and the Internet. The regimes do not have to utilize any form of force, as they can easily persuade people to share the data that they want to possess by encouraging them to use their services. In fact, the citizens in Shteyngart’s and Eggers’ societies do not even realize how much of their personal data has been gathered and abused until this has led to a fatal ending.
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is able to control all digital flows of information in society. This also allows it to blackmail and defame people when they speak negatively about the company.
Continuous surveillance is used as a tool in the societies of all four novels to discourage citizens to misbehave in any way. Although most members of society in Super Sad True Love Story and The Circle are happy enough to not feel the need to rebel against their leaders, they live in a state of constant alertness and anxiety of behaving the wrong way, since citizens are constantly being monitored to an extent that is similar to that of the society in Nineteen Eighty-Four. While the citizens of Oceania are monitored both by their leaders via telescreens and by other members of society whenever they are in public, citizens of The Circle and Super Sad True Love Story are constantly judged by other members of society, as citizens entertain themselves by continuously monitoring the people around them. This incessant surveillance is utilized in all three societies to ensure that citizens always behave their very best, since they do not want to be punished for incorrect behaviour. Such mechanisms are unnecessary in the World State, as all members of that society have been thoroughly conditioned ever since they were children, and consequently they do not even know how to misbehave or rebel.
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America are more concerned with the life inside their äppäräti then with the physical life in front of them, and users of the services of the Circle are continuously planning everything they say and do when communicating with other people so that they can improve their own image. In short, people in these societies have become so concerned with themselves that they are no longer thinking about their true personality and the way in which they would like to behave themselves, but are instead obsessed with the image that other people have of them.
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bombed, which means that they are compelled to live in a constant state of fear as well. In Super Sad True Love Story and The Circle citizens basically have only two choices: they either submit themselves to the ways of their totalitarian regimes, or they will eventually die. In these societies, the parties in control have invaded so deeply into people’s personal lives that there is no more room for citizens to escape than there is for the Party members of Nineteen Eighty-Four.
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