Big Brother - Myth or Threat

Will security grow if you surrender your freedom? 1984 is about the danger of governments becoming totalitarian, and taking away your freedom, dignity and individuality.

George Orwell had a vision – in 1948, after seeing all sorts of horror in World War II, and the beginning of the Cold War, he described a dystopia in the near future – the worst society that can be imagined. He saw dictatorship that changes history, individuals monitored 24h per day, and massive propaganda.

British first edition cover

The Stranger and his Trials

The Myth of Sisyphus by Titian

Albert Camus's essay, The Myth of Sisyphus, contains an addition titled Hope and Absurd in the work of Franz Kafka, dedicated to the Absurd and the killing of hope. Camus claims that Kafka fails as an absurd writer because his novels sparkle with hope here and there. (Camus shouldn't be considered a nihilist).
But he was definitely interested in Kafka's works. No surprise, Kafka was very a influential author, and one of the best writers of the 20th century. Both The Trial (Kafka, published posthumously in 1925) and The Stranger (Camus, 1942) deal with characters who are on trial, but they won't, under any circumstance, accept society's laws concerning morality or religion, because they are forced to find the meaning in the meaningless world. They won't save their lives, by accepting “illusions.”.