Ege, Emsal SemaHay, Funda2022-04-282022-04-282013http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.12575/79705The main objective of this dissertation is to explore the transformation of different ideologies into an oppressive regime through the power elements in Jack London's The Iron Heel and George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four. The Iron Heel and Nineteen Eighty-Four illustrate the political climate of their times with an emphasis on the authoritarian governmental regimes and their inhumane social practices. The political systems of the authors' own periods are discussed in light of the diaries, letters, articles and the other novels of the writers in order to clarify the political approach of the writers. The first chapter analyzes the ways in which such social structures as institutions of religion, systems of education and justice, and journalism can be construed as power elements of capitalist governments in Jack London's The Iron Heel. The text itself reflects striking parallelism between the political systems of the period and the fictional regime London creates in the novel. Influenced politically by Social Darwinism and Marxism, London is critical of the manipulative economic power of capitalism in its attempt to acquire and control all social institutions and agencies. The novel offers socialism as a powerful solution to the social ills and mismanagement of the existing government. The second chapter likewise discusses the destructive misuse of power of the totalitarian governmental regime by manipulating technology, the police power, and rhetorical use of the language and by establishing a ruthless surveillance mechanism over fundamental human values such as family, marriage, privacy and even love. Though Orwell evades a specific reference or allusion to German Nazism and Russian Communism, the text discloses remarkable similarities in his construction of his own formulation of a totalitarian regime, "Big Brother". This study argues that illustration of distinct examples of oppressive regimes in these novels reveals the misuse of power in the transformation of even humanitarian social or political systems into dictatorial governments. In their political fictions which have dystopian features, London and Orwell focus on different power elements. London deals with the agencies and institutions such as education, law and religion while Orwell presents various elements such as technology, language, rhetoric, love and family which form human life. As a consequence, this study discloses that different ideologies could be transformed into a totalitarian regime on the purpose of getting absolute power.trEdebiyatLondon, Jackİngiliz edebiyatımasterThesis