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Tired of getting the third degree from your parents? Tired of feeling like your life is under a microscope? Then you wouldn’t do very well in the world of 1984. In George Orwell’s twisted society, there’s always someone watching. More on the symbol of Big Brother in this Recap.

Video Transcription:

He’s larger than life. He exists but he doesn’t exist. And HE’S WATCHING YOU.

He’s here. I can feel him.
He knows what I’m thinking!
What I’m doing!
He’s my protector!
He’s my enemy!
Big brother!
Big brother!
BIG BROTHER!

He’s also this novel’s most significant symbol.

Big Brother. He’s the leader of the nation. He’s the head of the Party. He’s a reassurance, and he’s a constant threat. He is immortal—He exists in the past, and in the present.

Big Brother is also everywhere: Remember that Winston encounters posters of his picture all over London. Always with the warning (the reassurance?) that Big Brother Is Watching You.

Now, on a very basic level, Big Brother symbolizes the Party in its public form. He’s the Party’s face. A threat and a promise.

On a deeper level, Big Brother symbolizes the fiction on which the Party is built. Like the history the Party has created, like the so-called economic and military data it releases in the present, Big Brother is a manifestation of the lies upon lies upon lies that allow the Party to maintain absolute control. There’s no substance to their lies (just like there’s no substance to Big Brother) but with no facts, no truth, to prove them otherwise, the Party—and Big Brother—remain untouchable.

And in the end, that’s what makes Big Brother so powerful … so God-like.