Ariel H. answered • 09/07/22
Honors BA in English Recipient and Freelance Tutor
The historical context surrounding 1984 when Orwell was writing it, after it was published, and how it's endured today is enough to be a lesson, school lecture, or book all on its own. The short answer is essentially that Orwell wrote 1984 right after World War II, which was a very strained and tense period throughout most of the Western world. Orwell traveled to Germany and Italy and saw how their governments and people functioned during the war firsthand. 1984 is meant to describe a totalitarian society at its extreme, aided by technological advancements (which came to the forefront of Western society with WWII's advanced weaponry and communication systems). This is shown in the novel through the fact that people are monitored and controlled by their TVs. It uses psychological and totalitarian governmental concepts to illustrate governmental/technological power and, essentially, mind control. You'd have to find particular quotes from the book and possibly from Orwell himself on why and how he wrote the book for more specific examples, but that's the basic historical context surrounding the book and why Orwell originally decided to write it.
As far as literary styles go, many characterize the 1940s and 1950s as the beginning of true modernist novels. While 1984 isn't really modernist in style (at least as we know modernism today), the plot is very modernist in that it deals with the future and relies heavily on technology and technological terms, as well as deals directly with human psychology in a more abstract way than human psychology had been dealt with before.
