Ministries of Nineteen Eighty-Four omniscience of the state in the society of "Nineteen Eighty-Four" that even a citizen's nightmares are known to the Party. The nightmare, and therefore the threatened punishment, of the protagonist Winston Smith is to be attacked by rats. This is manifested in Room 101 by confronting Smith with a wire cage that contains two large rats. The front of the cage is shaped so that it can fit over a person's face. A trap-door is then opened, allowing the rats to devour the victim's face. This cage is fitted over Smith's face, but he saves himself by begging the authorities
Nineteen Eighty-Four before publication, Orwell wrote about hesitating between that title and "Nineteen Eighty-Four". Warburg suggested choosing the main title to be the latter, a more commercial one. In his 1978 novel "1985", English author Anthony Burgess suggests that Orwell, disillusioned by the onset of the Cold War (1945–91), intended to call the book "1948". The introduction to the Penguin Books Modern Classics edition of "Nineteen Eighty-Four" reports that Orwell originally set the novel in 1980 but that he later shifted the date to 1982 and then to 1984. The introduction to the Houghton Mifflin Harcourt edition of "Animal Farm and 1984"