The effects of censorship have shown to be devastating to society throughout history. Many people have fought to preserve the freedoms that so many people in the world take for granted. In most western governments freedoms such as the freedom of the press and the freedom of speech are basic rights written into their respective governments constitutions. However, in some parts of the world this is not the case. Even today, major governments limit what newspapers, broadcasting companies, and authors can publish to the world. This has major effects on these societies. Many people have fought to preserve these rights and one text and one film come to mind when thinking about works that comment on censorship. The first being Antonio Tabucchi’s novel Pereira Declares, and the other being the film The Lives of Others directed by Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck. Both of these works have the overarching theme of censorship. Tabbuchi and von Donnersmarck explore how censorship affects society and what it can drive people to do in order to get accurate information to the public. Throughout this paper I will analyze how these two works are similar and how the comment on the effects of censorship in the real world.

There are many interesting similarities between The Lives of Others and Pereira Declares. The easiest place to start is the similarities in plot. Exploring the similarities between the novel and film can help us understand how each artist makes mention of the effects of censorship. To start, in Pereira Declares we have an newspaper writer named Pereira. At the beginning of the novel he is quiet and timid, but upon meeting a younger boy who explains to him the problems with the Portuguese government, we see Pereira get more and more interested over what the government is doing to its people. By the end of the novel Pereira manages to get around the censor’s office and publish an article exposing crimes that the political regime has committed against its own people. Likewise, in The Lives of Others we are greeted with an author and playwright known as Georg Dreyman during the period after WWII when Germany was divided into the United States, France, and United Kingdom controlled West Germany and the USSR controlled East Germany. During this time many writers were blacklisted from publishing stories as their opinions contradicted the practices of the state. After learning about how the government was promoting statistics suggesting that East Germany was a great place to live and covering up less desireable facts, most notably the alarmingly high suicide rate, he decided to publish a story in the West, revealing the truth about how people were living the East.

Although the effects of censorship can have an impact on any society, it is far more complicated than just a government trying to make its ideas the only ones heard. What is really going on is that these governments are trying to establish a disciplinary society. Michel Foucault explains that the means by which a disciplinary society is established is by surveillance. He details this by stating “To achieve this, it is at once too much and too little that the prisoner should be constantly observed by an inspector: too little, for what matters is that he knows himself to be observed; too much, because he has no need in fact of being so. In view of this, Bentham laid down the principle that power should be visible and unverifiable” (Foucault 3). Surveillance is a necessary step in order to establish censorship. We see this in both the novel and the film. In Pereira Declares the government looks at every article that is to be published in newspapers and in The Lives of Others The Stasi eavesdrops on people that they think could be at odds with the government to see if they are trying to do anything they find undesirable. Both von Donnersmarck and Tabbuchi are taking stances against this action in their works. As we see at the end of both stories, the protagonist is able to get around the censor and relay what they have learned to the general public. This can be interpreted as the authors saying that no matter how much power governments exercise over their people, the people will find a way to prevail. As is still the case around the world today, people fight to get their stories heard even when they are fought by entire governments. Tabbuchi and von Donnersmarck are telling stories on how this can be done and what implications it has on society.

Next, the power that is expressed by the governments in both stories can be similarly compared to Foucault’s analysis of how power is used in the panopticon. Foucault explains the benefits of how power is used in panopticon in this quote “In each of its applications, it makes it possible to perfect the exercise of power. It does this in several ways: because it can reduce the number of those who exercise it, while increasing the number of those on whom it is exercised. Because it is possible to intervene at any moment and because the constant pressure acts even before the offences, mistakes or crimes have been committed” (Foucault 6). The power that is exercised through spying and censoring is found in the novel and film. Like it was said before both governments censor and to an extent spy on both main characters. This causes most people to practice self-censorship. We find both protagonist doing this until the work up the courage to go against the political regimes and stand for what they believe is right. This self-censorship is not just something found in the stories, this is a real world phenomenon. Kyaw Thu describes how governments can enforce censorship even before a writer has written an article in her report on how censorship affects the private press “Censorship certainly does have an impact on the quality and scope of reporting. Journalists are always going to be reluctant to chase and report on topics that they know are likely to be censored” (Thu). This is exactly what Foucault means when he states “it is possible to intervene at any moment and because the constant pressure acts even before the offences, mistakes or crimes have been committed” (Foucault 6). The importances of this comparison is that we see this implemented into both stories. Pereira is reluctant to publish anything until he is affected in a huge way by the Portuguese government and Dreyman acts after a friend of his commits suicide. These works go further than just denouncing censorship and spying, they go on to express how government’s power can get out of control.

In some parts of the world governments still censor what their citizens are allowed to see, so by understanding what censorship does in the contexts of the novel and film, we can understand how people in today’s world are affected by this act. Most people consider the freedom of the press and the freedom to express your opinion basic rights. This is what makes understanding censorship so important and why comparing these works is so important.
