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Foreshadowing
Genre
Explanation and Analysis:
1984 is a work of dystopian fiction, which itself belongs to the broader category of speculative fiction. Speculative fiction is an umbrella of genres that imagine alternate worlds, histories, or futures, and thereby encompasses genres like science fiction, fantasy, and magical realism. While some might be tempted to call 1984 a work of science fiction, this label would not be entirely appropriate, as the laws of science in the world of Big Brother seem to correspond with the laws of science in the real world. They certainly possess technology in Oceania that did not yet exist in the 1940s, but this is not enough to qualify the novel as science fiction. Rather than creating a world with its own scientific laws for the novel, Orwell speculates about what happens when totalitarian repression roots out freedom of thought.
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