Love in the Novel 1984 by George Orwell, plays an important theme as it shows us how the inner party uses love as a form of control over its’s people.
One of the Parties goals in 1984 is to remove love from marriages. To no surprise, they are very much successful in doing so. The Party is able to manage this by taking away the pleasure of sex and the intimacy with the thought that of the act as being “disgusting”. We see this first when Winston talks about his marriage with his wife Katherine. His marriage had no love which made having sex simply a duty and not something that was enjoyed (Orwell 65). In the end this caused their marriage to fail as it was so cold and emotionless.
Another way the Party is able to control love in 1984 is by managing which couples are fit to be married. If members want to get married, they have to receive the approval from a
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They are all forced to believe there is no greater love then the love for Big Brother. If the people of Oceania start to go off track and begin to love anyone other than Big Brother, consequences follow. Consequences such as torture in the most unimaginable ways. For instance, when the Party heard the news of the love affair going on between Winston and Julia, the Party stopped at nothing to make sure they put an end to it. They immediately took Winston to the Ministry of Love where they tortured him until he broke down and betrayed his so-called love Julia. “There were times when it went on and on until the cruel, wicked, unforgivable thing seemed to him not that the guards continued to beat him but that he could not force himself into losing consciousness.” (Orwell 240). By using torture, the Party was able to break his loyalty to Julia and fill it with hate towards her instead. Winston eventually comes to love Big Brother and seeks O’Brien for protection even though he was inflicting torture towards
Another thing the party needed to keep in check if they wished to have full control was the way human interact and feel about each other. Specifically emotional connections between people. More often then not, sex is an act of love and therefore it was something that the party needed to control. They only wanted people to have sex if they were attempting to procreate thus expanding the people loyal to big brother. They also wished to remove all pleasure from the lives of the people. So they turned sex into a daily task with no pleasure in it. “[Winston’s wife Katherine] had two names for it. One was ’making a baby’, and the other was ’our
Stephanie Coontz is a sociologist who is interested in marriage and the change in its structure over the time-span as love became a main proponent of the relationship involved in marriages. In her article, “What 's Love Got to Do With It,” Coontz argues that the more love becomes a part of the equation the less stable the institution of marriage becomes. Marriage at one point was a social contract that bound two families together to increase their property and wealth as well as ally connections. Each party entered into the contract knowing their roles and if one partner failed to meet the expectations, they were still contractually obligated to one another and were not allowed to divorce. As love became part of the equation, each partner was less sure of their obligations and often chose to end their marriages if at all possible.
In the novel 1984, George Orwell sets up a dystopia that reveals basic human qualities occur even when the people are brainwashed out of the,. This story takes place in an alternate society where life is radically different than what the world is today. The government has an extreme control on its people, brain washing them and suppressing every aspect of human connection. The citizens are taught to think that all information from the government is true even when it is blatantly obvious it isn’t. This novel allows the reader to witness the genesis of a primal love through the action of rebellion. Winston and Julia fall in love with each other as the book continues.
Love is both the foundation and the weakness of a totalitarian regime. At the heart of any totalitarian society, love between two individuals is eliminated because only a relationship between the person and the party and a love for its leader can exist. The totalitarian society depicted throughout the Orwell’s novel 1984 has created a concept of an Orwellian society. Joseph Stalin’s Soviet regime in Russia can be described as Orwellian. The imaginary world of Oceania draws many parallels to the modern day totalitarian regime established by Stalin. For example, in the novel it was the desire of the Party to eliminate love and sex, in order to channel this pent-up passion towards the love of Big Brother. Similarly, Stalin used propaganda
In George Orwell’s novel 1984, the nature of love and friendship in the nation of Oceania that Orwell writes about, the Party tries desperately to erase love for anything but Big Brother from the lives of its members. (Reese) 1984 displays that the party’s unlimited and absolute control of the people. For an example the telescreens are used to surveillance the people in their homes. The party has eyes in many places too. For instance the love of Winston and Julia somehow compromised by Mr. Charrington when he disclosed the relationship to the Party about them. Another example of the love in Oceania is the marriage of Winston and Katharine ended horrendously. (Reese) Winston thinks deeply about the condition of the world. (Notes) He said he wanted to throw her off of a cliff.
Although the sexual instinct is severely depersonalized in both texts, depersonalization to the point of repulsion via indoctrination is the primary mode d’emploi in 1984, whereas sex has been manipulated by the slave owner into a violent act in Beloved. Sex becomes for members of the Party a task to be completed and ultimately a symbol of loyalty. Katharine, Winston’s estranged wife, is described as being entirely disgusted by sex. Winston reflects that “to embrace her was like embracing a jointed wooden image… even when she was clasping him against her… she was simultaneously pushing him away with all her strength” (Orwell 66). Yet his wife had still furtively insisted that they must copulate, to the point that she “used to remind him of it in the morning, as something which had to be done that evening and which must not be forgotten” (66-7). It is their solemn duty to the Party to produce a child, ergo, more Party members. Similarly, all marriages in Oceania must be approved by a committee, who immediately denies the request if any real affection is suggested between the potential spouses.
As Winston is captured by the government, he is told that there are three stages of his “reintegration”; learning, understanding, and acceptance. Winston refuses to betray his lover Julia until the last stage as he yells to his tormentors, “Do it to Julia! Do it to Julia! Not me! I don’t care what you do to her. Tear her face off, strip her to the bones. Not me! Julia. Not me!” (300). , Orwell) Spewing such harsh and petrifying phrases about his past lover, showcases that Winston under the torment and oppression of the Party has capitulated and accepted Big Brother while breaking the final bonds of his romantic relationship with Julia. Instilling oppression on romantic love ensures that the citizens of Oceania love Big Brother and the government with their full capacity; confirming that the individual will never favour their loved one over the government. Once a courageous individual rebelling against the government, using his relationship with Julia as a weapon, now merrily a shadow of his former past, broken down by the oppression instilled by the government. By betraying his lover, Julia, Winston demonstratesions that the government has won. Contradictory to his initial feeling towards Big Brother, Winston’s love is now dedicated towards the government. In the aftermath of his “reintegration”, “[Winston] loved Big Brother,” (311) , Orwell) leaving no additional room in his damaged heart for Julia. However, Winston is not the only character who suffers with the decision of betraying their loved
George Orwell presents us with an interesting portrayal of love in his novel 1984. In the nation of Oceania, the government tries to eradicate love in order to isolate deviation to solely Big Brother. In many ways, it is successful in doing so. The absence of love caused Winston 's marriage with his wife Katharine to be indifferent, cold, and to end in separation. Even occasional affairs that seem to sneak by the Party 's watchful eyes, like Winston and Julia 's, are eventually stopped and the two are forced to stop loving each other. Perhaps, the strongest love that remains in Oceania is the love of Big Brother. This love is displayed when Winston is tortured by O 'Brien so that
In 1984, Winston Smith is a rebellious character who is against the inner party and Big Brother. The party believes in complete loss of privacy, power of rewriting the past to agree with the present, the change in meaning of marriage, as well as diminishing any form of rebellious language. They control privacy with surveillance cameras, microphones, the telescreens that are never allowed to be turned off, monitoring every motion and word spoken. Furthermore, they say whatever they feel is necessary to remain in power over the people and if it doesn't agree in the future, they will change the past to agree with the present and destroy any evidence that they were ever wrong. Nevertheless, marriage is only kept in the eyes of the party as a duty to have children; any sex outside of the marriage is rebellious. Finally, they create new dictionaries of newspeak where words are removed in order to remove any form of communication that is considered personal to prevent rebellious thoughts and conspiracies.
In the book 1984, some major themes are; totalitarianism, love, loyalty, and independence. Throughout the book totalitarianism is present constantly. The party doesn’t want anyone to have freedom and independence, they always want to be in control of every move. The people stay loyal to the party because otherwise they know that life wouldn't be good. The party would catch them and most likely kill them. That's where love joins in, two characters try to pursue love as a rebellious act against the party. These two characters don't end up very well in the end.
Equally important, the party strives to remove love from marriages by taking away the pleasure of sex and the intimacy that married couples are typically able to have. As i said earlier marriages were very cold and ended in separation which was encouraged by the party “in cases where there were no children”(57). " Sex And Love In Orwell's 1984 English Literature Essay." UKEssays.com. 11 2017.
In the book 1984, the IngSoc political party filters knowledge and that terrifies the people of the modern world. Yet through this nation’s dependence of technology that is exactly what is being done. Indeed, no longer does the seeker of information have to sift through kimberlite to find diamonds. Instead just searching for carbon on the Internet search engines will produce coal that feeds the machine of advertisement. Now Generation Z is learning to search on the Internet for information instead of using critical thinking to searching the world for wisdom. Speaking on a similar matter, Plato argued that the invention of written language would be just a counterfeit idea of true wisdom; more of a reminder. What would Plato say if all the available knowledge of the world was at a push of the enter button? Also a consideration should be what psychological damage has occurred due to what the Professor Constantine Passaris of the University of New Brunswick, Canada calls Internetization and “It describes the pervasive and far
In George Orwell's novel 1984, we explore intimate human relationships, as experienced by the protagonist Winston Smith. Not many bonds are stronger than those developed among family, friends, and lovers. In Oceania, those bonds were made but they've always had a dim side to them, since the only thing you could openly be loving about was the Party and Big Brother. This limitation was one of the most necessary in order to achieve complete power and control over the citizens. The reason for this limitation was the never-ending need of the Party to dissolve all loyalties derived through sex, love, and family and redirect them to the Party itself. Another limitation enforced by the Party was the destruction of trust. The Party invaded the trust between parent and child, co-workers and most importantly between man and woman.
The party also controls love between men and women. For example, the party must give approval for marriages and never lets a compatible couple wed. Similarly, the Party highly discourages sex through the Junior Anti-Sex League and permitting sex for procreation only, never pleasure. This is well described when Winston recalls his relationship with Katherine, "As soon as he touched her she seemed to wince and stiffen... She would lie there with shut eyes, neither resisting nor cooperating, but submitting."(58). This shows how the party successfully morphed the act of sex into dirty and painful, there by taking control of yet another aspect of love.
1984 focuses in on the life of Winston Smith who is a member of the Party and does not get to choose who he wants to be with. He fell in love with a spunky young girl with a heart filled with rebellion. She sparked a flame inside Winston’s heart, sadly it would never work out due to the dystopian world they now inhabited. The party in 1984 designates who the party members marry, “All marriages between party members had to be approved by a committee appointed for the purpose (…) permission was always refused if the couple concerned gave the impression of being physically attracted to one another.”(Orwell 65). Winston had already gone through one loveless marriage that made him truly value the idea of love and want. Winston knew they could get caught at one time or another, which portrays the idea of it was hopeless love from the moment they started engaging in love affairs.