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__Stick it to the Man__

When Rosa Parks decided not to get up from her seat on the bus, she challenged racial segregation and with her civil disobedience declared she would not accept being bossed around anymore. In //Little Brother// by [|Cory Doctorow] and //1984// by [|George Orwell], the characters also defy the system. Marcus, in //Little Brother//, is a teenager living in San Francisco. He is hanging with his friends when the [|Department of Homeland Security], acting on its own accord, picks him up. They think Marcus is a terrorist, so they interrogate him for 5 days on a secret island. Marcus is furious that the DHS has taken him in, and he’s had to give up all his technology. Marcus’s anger leads him to create a revolt in the middle of downtown San Francisco. With many adults around, the police use pepper spray to subdue the crowd. Then Marcus goes public, and tells his story to a reporter who publishes it. Finally, the DHS captures him because he’s shared his story about being on the island. State Troopers walk in just as the DHS is about to torture him for blabbing. In //1984// Winston lives in Oceania, a dystopian society, as a member of the party in control. Winston learns of an underground rebellion and starts to have thoughts of joining the rebellion. He meets O’Brien, who he believes will tell him about the rebellion and the brotherhood. Then the thought police catch Winston, and they brainwash him so he gives in to loving Big Brother for ever. Winston in Orwell’s //1984// and Marcus in Doctorow’s //Little Brother// show the government is not helping people; therefore, people should challenge the system so it benefits them. “Go big or go home” explains what people have to do if they want to challenge the government. In [|1984] and //Little Brother the// characters who were challenging the system had to be willing to risk it all. Marcus in //Little Brother// could not suppress the thought of his friend, Darryl, being imprisoned any longer, so when he went to the reporter, the whole country heard about what had happened to Marcus and his friends. The Department of Homeland Security threatened to keep Marcus on Treasure Island forever, if he told anyone about his experiences there, but he was willing to take that risk. Winston, in //1984//, had heard about “The Book,” and he became really interested in joining the rebellion. However, “The Book” that O’Brien had given him was the wrong book. Winston trusted his instincts about O’Brien, but he was wrong and Winston was turned over to the thought police. In the end, the government was never overthrown. Winston did try his best, but he learned to love Big Brother. Teamwork will lead to victory, band together to win. One can make a bigger difference, if the group all works together. In //Little Brother,// Marcus leads a group of his friends to play a [|LARPing]game called VampMob in the middle of downtown San Francisco, while many businessmen are around. Once the group banded together, the DHS could not arrest them, so they had to send them all home. In //1984// Winston knows that he must have the proles support to overthrow “The Party”. “ If there was hope, it must lie in the proles, because only there, in those swarming disregarded masses, eighty-five percent of the population of Oceania, could the force to destroy the Party ever be generated."(Orwell 208) Unfortunately, his futile attempt ends with his imprisonment for a long time. Risking everything with rebellious attitudes does not always end well. In Marcus’s situation he is captured by the DHS and taken in for interrogation and torture because of his publicity. Once they begin to torture him the California State Troopers come in and put DHS’ whole operation out. Winston on the other hand gets captured and tortured for many days. The suffering for him becomes unbearable and so he gives in to loving Big Brother, and tells them to torture his friend, Julia, because everyone always wants to save themselves. “ And perhaps you might pretend, afterwards, that it was only a trick and that you just said it to make them stop and didn’t really mean it. But that isn’t true. At the time when it happens you do mean it. You think there’s no other way of saving yourself and you’re quite ready to save yourself that way. You want it to happen to the other person. You don’t give a damn what they suffer. All you care about is yourself.” (Orwell 292) There were ideas in both //1984// and //Little Brother// that were difficult to understand - when to challenge the government; if an outside force could have had an impact on the story; and, were all the members of the inner circle brainwashed. Throughout both books there were challenges to the government, but it was never completely clear when to take this action. One could conclude from what happened in //Little Brother//, it is not good to question the government during wars or acts of terrorism, because the officials might think that you are on the side of the enemy. In //Little Brother// when Marcus was out of the shelter and he was not obeying the government, they thought he was a terrorist. If there had been an outside influence could there have been a change in the story? In //1984// if there had been a true war outside Oceana could that have made a difference in how the government treated its people, and maybe there would not have been a rebellion. At the end of //1984// Winston feelings towards Big Brother changed radically. “He loved Big Brother.” (Orwell 297) He’d been very rebellious, and then he was brainwashed by the government and started worshipping Big Brother. Were all the inner circle party members rebellious at the beginning? When students and adults start rebelling against authorities or their elders, because they are sick of taking orders from them, there may be serious consequences. If children see adults becoming less respectful towards authority and disobeying the law they will model that behavior. Students will become more independent and not feel they need to listen. "Nearly all children nowadays were horrible. What was worst of all was that by means of such organizations as the [|spies] they were systematically turned into ungovernable little savages, and yet this produced in them no tendency whatever to rebel against the discipline of the Party. On the contrary, they adored the Party and everything connected with it... All their ferocity was turned outwards, against the enemies of the State, against foreigners, traitors, saboteurs, thought-criminals. It was almost normal for people over thirty to be frightened of their own children."(Orwell 24) This unruly behavior from all people demonstrates how the government cannot control everything and if people want to they can take over. Anarchy can easily become another major issue, when the party in control can not keep the society down. Throughout //1984// Winston wanted to join the rebellion and knew that this was the way to overthrow the government. In //Little Brother// Marcus talked about 3,000 college students surrounding a truck to keep the government from taking their friend away. Government tries to push the society down and sooner or later the people will push back and riots break out. This can be seen in the situation in Iraq because the government didn’t control the people and the terrorists rebelled. In //1984// the proles were being pushed down along with the middle class. In the book Winston talks of how the middle and upper class are always fighting and after a while the middle class brings down the leaders and they switch positions while the proles are kept down. Society rebels against the government if it feels that the system can do no more good for that group of people. They will bring it down, even if it takes a while, like what happened in //1984//. The books //Little Brother// and //1984// had very similar issues, though totally separate plots. There are many Ideas that can be learned from reading these books because of the storyline and how the individuals challenged the system. Many questions come up regarding when one should question the government and how to do so. Also, could there have been an outside influence on all the characters to help them make better decisions. Many predictions could be made about how lives could go on and what would happen in that society to make a change. "It's not where you're from; it's where you're going. It's not what you drive; it's what drives you. It's not what's on you; it's what's in you. It's not what you think; it's what you know."(Gatorade)

Works cited

Apple. 1984 Apple MacIntosh Commercial. January 22, 1984. 

Doctorow, Cory. School used student laptop webcams to spy on them at school and home. February 20, 2010. []

Doctorow, Cory. Little Brother. New York: Tom Doherty. Associates 2008.

Gatorade. It's not where your from. Way Cool Quotes. May 10, 2008.[]

Meyer, Brad. Class Lecture. 14 Jan 2010

Orwell, George. 1984. New York: New American Library. 1950.