Final Paper

"If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face-for ever." This quote was from the novel/movie "1984" written by George Orwell. It portrays his vision and thoughts of the future and how he predicts it will be at some point in time. There are other ways in which his novels depict on what the future will consist of and what it will look like, such as in Animal Farm. However, there are other authors that can be compared to how Orwell see's the future and how they view it. The greek play writer Sophocles is an example of another author who's views of the future differ from Orwell's.

In Orwell's novel "1984", citizens live in a totalitarian society. He portrays a world where one person (Big Brother) controls everything. From what you eat, to what you wear, and what you do. One would be monitored throughout there whole day. From this novel, Orwell is giving a warning of what is to come in the near future. This is a taken as more of a warning than a prediction because he knew that sometime in the future this would become of our society. And the fact that he had written a novel about it was smart because in a way by reading this us as humans could prevent all that from happening. Orwell views the future as dull and consisting of pain and misery. Although society will be upheld, the people will be put through torture. This ties into his novel Animal Farm. The main theme of this novel was to not let power over rule everything. When Major died the animals were in need of a new leader. At first snowball was the fit leader for all the animals. However, Napoleon ran him out of the farm and there was no choice but to have him be the ruler. From then on the pigs started adapting to the human life and soon enough they become just like them. They had let all the power of taking care of the farm get to there heads. Thus the main theme of the novel being power. Orwell's view of the future from both of these books is that our society will become overpowered by one person and all of our lives will be monitored. Civilians will not have a say in anything they do. We will end up living in a totalitarian/dictatorship. He not so much predicting what will happen but warning us, we can change it so society doesn't end up like this.

While Orwell used his novels to portray what his view of the future was, Sophocles a greek play writer, views were determined by the oracles. In his play Oedipus, Sophocles uses oracles predictions to determine what will happen in the future. These predictions would not always be straight forward. Thats why the main theme for this was to just let it be. Don't try to change fate because it will end up just happening, Sophocles was more of predictions than warnings. Every prediction that was said came true. In the play Oedipus, Oedipus is told by the oracle that he will end up marrying his mother and murdering his father. In order to prevent this from happening he moves away from home and all the people. In the end the prophecy had come true. The Biggest thing that differs from Orwell's view and Sophocles view of the future is one is driven by just their own mind and the other is driven by the Gods and what they predict. However, some similarities between them are that there predictions/warnings had somewhat come true and they both were in there own way tragedies.      

The view of the future can be seen in so many ways through many eyes. Whether its an author, artist, or even a religious figure. Orwell suggests that sometime in the near future we will go through what he has portrayed in his novel's "Animal Farm" and "1984", which would be a world where power corrupts everyone and the laws are unfair. He is giving us more of a warning than a prediction. Whereas Sophocles uses the predictions of the oracles in his plays to portray the events that will happen in the future, like in Oedipus.