Mark Scout’s fight against the faceless authority in Severance definitely has parallels to one of the darkest dystopian books ever written. George Orwell’s classic 1984 delves into the consequences of mass surveillance and based his book on the Soviet Union under Stalinism and Nazi Germany. Ben Stiller’s show is however set in the corporate world, possibly a satire of the entire system.
Severance follows a group of office employees entering the ‘Severance’ project which makes it impossible for them to remember their office life at home. Interestingly, the premise came to creator Dan Erickson when he was fantasizing about work-life balance while going to work one day.
The parallels between Severance and George Orwell’s 1984
George Orwell’s timeless classic, 1984, introduced us to Big Brother, an authoritarian figure ruling a totalitarian state using complete surveillance and brainwashing. For fans of the book, seeing AppleTV+’s Severance was a pleasant surprise due to the striking similarities.
Fans instantly related the cult-like Lumon and its figurehead Kier to Big Brother in 1984. You can’t deny that “Lumon is Listening” is just another version of “Big Brother is Watching You.” Reddit fans have found more such parallels between the book and the TV show.
One fan compared the different characters in both fictional stories, sharing that Kier is similar to Big Brother, Milchick is O’Brien, Helly is Julia, and Mark is Winston. Another user mentioned that the Break Room in Ben Stiller‘s show was similar to Room 101 in the book, with both places acting as torture rooms in the respective stories.
Another comment mentioned how Mark and Helly’s s*x scene in the show and the one between Winston and Julia in 1984 are symbolic of their respective rebellious natures. Some of the Reddit reactions included:
The similarity between George Orwell’s 1984 is INSANE
byu/No-Fan5769 inSeveranceAppleTVPlus
Comment
byu/No-Fan5769 from discussion
inSeveranceAppleTVPlus
I watched Severance while I started reading 1984 a few days ago. It seems like both of them came together and completely made me lose faith in the corporate world.
byu/shreya15092001 inSeveranceAppleTVPlus
A user on X also made a few comparisons that were hard to ignore in both the show and the book. Some of them included:
“Big Brother is Watching you”
“Lumon is Listening”The 2nd season premiere includes this eery animation about the reform and this “Lumon is Listening” is kind of up in your face.. Oh boy they are listening alright! pic.twitter.com/hLJerRmkWR
— Astral (Anam) (@terra_civic) January 24, 2025
Of course the god like being that everyone worships willingly or unwillingly. And the head of it all are similar in nature.
Big Brother = KierAnd the company or the party here ofc are Lumon = Ingsoc
They are again not ideally similar but the sprinkles are there. pic.twitter.com/b1S3QCTUbo— Astral (Anam) (@terra_civic) January 24, 2025
In both cases the offices gives also almost similar retro style.
We still don’t know what those numbers does from MDR. Even though in 1984 we know what they do for example erasure of memories and altering history records. But the vibe and style here are really close. pic.twitter.com/eRzUMicZcY
— Astral (Anam) (@terra_civic) January 24, 2025
Fans on Reddit also noted that the show had references to the Black Mirror episode White Christmas, the sci-fi films Total Recall and 2001: A Space Odyssey, and the belief system of Scientology.
Not 1984, but the idea of Severance came to the creator while fantasizing about work-life balance
Severance creator Dan Erickson was a corporate employee when he came up with the idea for the show. He shared that after finishing grad school, he took the first Craigslist job that he could find. He reportedly had this loathing that it wasn’t what he wanted to do.
He worked at a company in Los Angeles that distributed doors and gates and described it as a “kind of mind-numbing work.” On the way to work one day, Erickson had this wishful thinking that he would disassociate for the next eight hours completely.
He thought to himself that he would do it if he could, later realizing that it was a messed up thing to wish for. However, his guilty fantasy gave us one of the best sci-fi shows. Erickson shared with IndieWire:
The idea for the script came because I was walking into work one day and just found myself wishing that I could skip the next eight hours entirely, and I could just disassociate. I was like, ‘I would totally do that if I could,’ and realized that was kind of a messed up thing to catch yourself wanting, so the idea for the show kind of germinated from that.
Erickson shared that he worked on the pilot of the show based on that idea for the next couple of years. He added that during this time, he worked in a string of jobs, with one of them being a proper corporate job. It was at this place that he learned a lot of “corporate doublespeak” which later ended up in the show.
Severance Seasons 1 & 2 are now available for streaming on AppleTV+.
This post belongs to FandomWire and first appeared on FandomWire
