The works listed will allow your students to further explore the theme of the Potential Dangers of Government and other themes related to 1984:


Fiction
Atwood, Margaret. A Handmaid's Tale. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1986. A horrifying novel set in the near future. Like 1984, it is both scathing satire and dire warning. (average)

Burgess, Anthony. 1985. Boston: Little, Brown, 1978. This two-part "answer" to Orwell's novel begins by revisiting 1984. The second half is Burgess's own vision for a future whose darkness and despair rivals Orwell's work. (average)

Gibson, William. Neuromancer. New York: Ace Books, 1986. Gibson was thinking of Orwell when, in 1984, he wrote this science fiction work that has been called the first "cyberpunk" novel and that portrays some of the bleaker ways in which technology may affect human nature in the future. (challenge)


Nonfiction
Marx, Karl and Frederich Engels. The Communist Manifesto. 1948. The seminal treatise that inspired a century of political revolution. (average)

Crick, Bernard. George Orwell: A Life. Boston: Little, Brown, 1980. "At times," writes this biographer, "he almost literally cared for his writing more than his life." (challenge)

Kubal, David L. Outside the Whale: George Orwell's Art & Politics. Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1972. A critical study that demonstrates the connection between Orwell's political and artistic searches. (challenge)