All 50 Uses of
Big Brother
in
1984, by Orwell
- BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING YOU, the caption beneath it ran.
p. 2.0 *Big Brother = an organization that attempts to exercise total control over people and that invades their privacy to do soeditor's notes: That is the common meaning of the expression today. The expression was popularized by this novel where it references the government in the story.
- BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING YOU, the caption said, while the dark eyes looked deep into Winston's own.
p. 2.7Big Brother = an organization that attempts to exercise total control over people and that invades their privacy to do so(editor's note: This expression and definition were popularized by this book. In the book, the expression refers specifically to the government described in the story.)
- Goldstein was the renegade and backslider who once, long ago (how long ago, nobody quite remembered), had been one of the leading figures of the Party, almost on a level with Big Brother himself, and then had engaged in counter-revolutionary activities, had been condemned to death, and had mysteriously escaped and disappeared.
p. 12.0Big Brother = an organization that attempts to exercise total control over people and that invades their privacy to do so
- He was abusing Big Brother, he was denouncing the dictatorship of the Party, he was demanding the immediate conclusion of peace with Eurasia, he was advocating freedom of speech, freedom of the Press, freedom of assembly, freedom of thought, he was crying hysterically that the revolution had been betrayed — and all this in rapid polysyllabic speech which was a sort of parody of the habitual style of the orators of the Party, and even contained Newspeak words: more Newspeak words,…
p. 12.8Big Brother = a person or organization that attempts to exercise total control over people and that invades their privacy to do so
- Thus, at one moment Winston's hatred was not turned against Goldstein at all, but, on the contrary, against Big Brother, the Party, and the Thought Police; and at such moments his heart went out to the lonely, derided heretic on the screen, sole guardian of truth and sanity in a world of lies.
p. 14.9
- At those moments his secret loathing of Big Brother changed into adoration,
p. 15.1
- ...Big Brother seemed to tower up, an invincible, fearless protector, standing like a rock against the hordes of Asia, and Goldstein, in spite of his isolation, his helplessness, and the doubt that hung about his very existence, seemed like some sinister enchanter, capable by the mere power of his voice of wrecking the structure of civilization.
p. 15.1Big Brother = (of an) organization that attempts to exercise total control over people and that invades their privacy to do so
- But in the same moment, drawing a deep sigh of relief from everybody, the hostile figure melted into the face of Big Brother, black-haired, black-moustachio'd, full of power and mysterious calm, and so vast that it almost filled up the screen.
p. 15.9Big Brother = an organization that attempts to exercise total control over people and that invades their privacy to do so
- Nobody heard what Big Brother was saying.
p. 16.1
- Then the face of Big Brother faded away again, and instead the three slogans of the Party stood out in bold capitals: WAR IS PEACE FREEDOM IS SLAVERY IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH But the face of Big Brother seemed to persist for several seconds on the screen, as though the impact that it had made on everyone's eyeballs was too vivid to wear off immediately.
p. 16.2
- Then the face of Big Brother faded away again, and instead the three slogans of the Party stood out in bold capitals: WAR IS PEACE FREEDOM IS SLAVERY IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH But the face of Big Brother seemed to persist for several seconds on the screen, as though the impact that it had made on everyone's eyeballs was too vivid to wear off immediately.
p. 16.3
- Partly it was a sort of hymn to the wisdom and majesty of Big Brother, but still more it was an act of self-hypnosis, a deliberate drowning of consciousness by means of rhythmic noise.
p. 16.9
- His pen had slid voluptuously over the smooth paper, printing in large neat capitals DOWN WITH BIG BROTHER...
p. 18.7Big Brother = a person or organization that attempts to exercise total control over people and that invades their privacy to do so
- DOWN WITH BIG BROTHER
p. 18.7
- DOWN WITH BIG BROTHER
p. 18.8
- DOWN WITH BIG BROTHER
p. 18.8
- ...DOWN WITH BIG BROTHER over and over again, filling half a page.
p. 18.8
- Whether he wrote DOWN WITH BIG BROTHER, or whether he refrained from writing it, made no difference.
p. 19.1Big Brother = an organization that attempts to exercise total control over people and that invades their privacy to do so
- He began writing in a hurried untidy scrawl: theyll shoot me i don't care theyll shoot me in the back of the neck i dont care down with big brother they always shoot you in the back of the neck i dont care down with big brother—
p. 19.8
- He began writing in a hurried untidy scrawl: theyll shoot me i don't care theyll shoot me in the back of the neck i dont care down with big brother they always shoot you in the back of the neck i dont care down with big brother—
p. 19.8
- DOWN WITH BIG BROTHER was written all over it, in letters almost big enough to be legible across the room.
p. 20.2
- On the walls were scarlet banners of the Youth League and the Spies, and a full-sized poster of Big Brother.
p. 21.4
- The songs, the processions, the banners, the hiking, the drilling with dummy rifles, the yelling of slogans, the worship of Big Brother — it was all a sort of glorious game to them.
p. 24.8
- There, too, in tiny clear lettering, the same slogans were inscribed, and on the other face of the coin the head of Big Brother.
p. 27.1
- From the age of uniformity, from the age of solitude, from the age of Big Brother, from the age of doublethink — greetings!
p. 28.2
- With its grace and carelessness it seemed to annihilate a whole culture, a whole system of thought, as though Big Brother and the Party and the Thought Police could all be swept into nothingness by a single splendid movement of the arm.
p. 31.2
- He tried to remember in what year he had first heard mention of Big Brother.
p. 35.9
- In the Party histories, of course, Big Brother figured as the leader and guardian of the Revolution since its very earliest days.
p. 36.1
- For example, it appeared from The Times of the seventeenth of March that Big Brother, in his speech of the previous day, had predicted that the South Indian front would remain quiet but that a Eurasian offensive would shortly be launched in North Africa.
p. 38.8
- It was therefore necessary to rewrite a paragraph of Big Brother's speech in such a way as to make him predict the thing that had actually happened.
p. 38.9
- A number of The Times which might, because of changes in political alignment, or mistaken prophecies uttered by Big Brother, have been rewritten a dozen times still stood on the files bearing its original date, and no other copy existed to contradict it.
p. 40.5
- In Oldspeak (or standard English) this might be rendered: The reporting of Big Brother's Order for the Day in The Times of December 3rd 1983 is extremely unsatisfactory and makes references to non-existent persons.
p. 44.2
- Big Brother's Order for the Day, it seemed, had been chiefly devoted to praising the work of an organization known as FFCC, which supplied cigarettes and other comforts to the sailors in the Floating Fortresses.
p. 44.4
- Very likely as many as a dozen people were now working away on rival versions of what Big Brother had actually said.
p. 45.4
- Perhaps Big Brother was merely getting rid of a too-popular subordinate.
p. 45.6
- Winston decided that it would not be enough simply to reverse the tendency of Big Brother's speech.
p. 46.1
- There were occasions when Big Brother devoted his Order for the Day to commemorating some humble, rank-and-file Party member whose life and death he held up as an example worthy to be followed.
p. 46.5
- Winston thought for a moment, then pulled the speakwrite towards him and began dictating in Big Brother's familiar style: a style at once military and pedantic, and, because of a trick of asking questions and then promptly answering them ('What lessons do we learn from this fact, comrades?')
p. 46.7
- Pursued by enemy jet planes while flying over the Indian Ocean with important despatches, he had weighted his body with his machine gun and leapt out of the helicopter into deep water, despatches and all — an end, said Big Brother, which it was impossible to contemplate without feelings of envy.
p. 47.3
- Big Brother added a few remarks on the purity and single-mindedness of Comrade Ogilvy's life.
p. 47.3
- A sort of vapid eagerness flitted across Winston's face at the mention of Big Brother.
p. 51.8
- He might be denouncing Goldstein and demanding sterner measures against thought-criminals and saboteurs, he might be fulminating against the atrocities of the Eurasian army, he might be praising Big Brother or the heroes on the Malabar front-it made no difference.
p. 54.4
- He believed in the principles of Ingsoc, he venerated Big Brother, he rejoiced over victories, he hated heretics, not merely with sincerity but with a sort of restless zeal, an up-to-dateness of information, which the ordinary Party member did not approach.
p. 55.1
- All over Oceania this morning there were irrepressible spontaneous demonstrations when workers marched out of factories and offices and paraded through the streets with banners voicing their gratitude to Big Brother for the new, happy life which his wise leadership has bestowed upon us.
p. 58.2
- It appeared that there had even been demonstrations to thank Big Brother for raising the chocolate ration to twenty grammes a week.
p. 58.7
- By 1970 none of them was left, except Big Brother himself.
p. 75.4
- They had confessed to intelligence with the enemy (at that date, too, the enemy was Eurasia), embezzlement of public funds, the murder of various trusted Party members, intrigues against the leadership of Big Brother which had started long before the Revolution happened, and acts of sabotage causing the death of hundreds of thousands of people.
p. 75.8
- He had the feeling, though already at that time facts and dates were growing blurry, that he had known their names years earlier than he had known that of Big Brother.
p. 76.3
- He picked up the children's history book and looked at the portrait of Big Brother which formed its frontispiece.
p. 80.3
- The face of Big Brother swam into his mind, displacing that of O'Brien.
p. 103.9
Definitions:
-
(1)
(Big Brother as in: Big Brother is watching you.) a person or organization that attempts to exercise total control over people and that invades their privacy to do soThis use of the term "Big Brother" was popularized by George Orwell in his novel, Nineteen Eighty-Four. In the novel, citizens were under constant surveillance by an authoritarian government that was personified through a nominal leader, Big Brother.
-
(2)
(meaning too common or rare to warrant focus) meaning too common or too rare to warrant focus:
More commonly, especially when not capitalized, big brother generally refers to an older or larger brother. Big Brother can also refer to a member of the organization, Big Brothers.