The educated man pictures a horde of submen, wanting only a day's liberty to loot his house, burn his books, and set him to work minding a machine or sweeping out a lavatory. 'Anything,' he thinks, 'any injustice, sooner than let that mob loose.' He does not see that since there is no difference between the mass of rich and poor, there is no question of setting the mob loose. The mob is in fact loose now, and--in the shape of rich men--is using its power to set up enormous treadmills of boredom, such as 'smart' hotels.

The Thought Police are those who suppress all dissenting opinion. He also often stayed at the homes of Ruth Pitter and Richard Rees where he could "change" for his sporadic tramping expeditions. He received electrotherapy treatment and was declared medically unfit for service.

In 2008 The Times ranked him second on a list of "The 50 greatest British writers since 1945". Considered perhaps the 20th century's best chronicler of English culture Orwell wrote literary criticism poetry fiction and polemical journalism. Orwell's work continues to influence popular and political culture and the term Orwellian — descriptive of totalitarian or authoritarian social practices — has entered the language together with several of his neologisms including Cold War doublethink thoughtcrime Big Brother and thought police.