Inspirations
O'Brien was partly inspired by the character of Gletkin from Arthur Koestler's novel Darkness at Noon. The torture scenes (undertaken by O'Brien) were influenced in part by the stories leaked out of the USSR of the punishments inflicted on political prisoners in mental hospitals and the Gulag.
The choice of the clearly Irish surname should not be seen as anti-Irish. It is regarded as a reference to Brendan Bracken, 1st Viscount Bracken, under whom Orwell worked during the war, creating propaganda, and whom Orwell detested. Another suspected reference is to that of a Sean O'Brien who's SMU antics leads many to think it was these actions that also influenced Orwell.
Read more about this topic: O'Brien (Nineteen Eighty-Four)
Famous quotes containing the word inspirations:
“My dream is that as the years go by and the world knows more and more of America, it ... will turn to America for those moral inspirations that lie at the basis of all freedom ... that America will come into the full light of the day when all shall know that she puts human rights above all other rights, and that her flag is the flag not only of America but of humanity.”
—Woodrow Wilson (1856–1924)
“We must learn the language of facts. The most wonderful inspirations die with their subject, if he has no hand to paint them to the senses.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)