Comment by casenmgreen
5 hours ago
I looked to see if I could find anything asserting 1984 was about propaganda at BBC - nothing.
I found no interviews, no recordings - it seems what survives are his notebooks.
Can you describe the basis for the claim?
https://www.orwellfoundation.com/the-orwell-foundation/orwel...
Dig deeper. Orwell was a child of the empire, born in Bengal and served with the Indian Imperial Police in Burma. His service affected him deeply.
He wrote of it, and in some ways his writing on those times is better than his fiction.
Its definitely an element, but it also mirrors some experiences in spain and ripping off Zamyatin's "We".
Like if you take Zamyatin's "We", and make the main character a propagandist working for the government, you get 1984.
ChatGPT says his experience did make him think about bureaucracy in organisations leading to untruths but to say it’s the basis of 1984 is clearly absurd, it’s a much more complex book than an allegory of propaganda for the BBC.