Analysis Essay – Sexuality in “1984” Have you ever questioned yourself if your children will ever turn their backs on you? Think no more, in George Orwell’s 1984, sexual acts are considered unmeasurably disgusting and rebelling against the Party’s main laws. The Party is represented as a group of security, to ensure that there’s no active rebellious acts to overthrow them. “The aim of the Party was not merely to prevent men and women from forming loyalties which it might not be able to control. Its real, undeclared purpose was to remove all pleasure from the sexual act” (Novel, page 83). Having sex, while the consequences can be death, under the law it’s accepted only to produce new members to the Party. The newborns are then taught from …show more content…
birth that sexual acts are deceiving, disgusting and isn’t allowed. “Sexual intercourse was to be looked on as a slightly disgusting minor operation” (Novel, page 84). Sex, the act of two or more people showing their intimate passion and love towards each other by using pleasure as the source of strength to keep it rolling. In 1984, sex is portrayed as an act of showing loyalty to one another which mean that love is more important than the respect and loyalty towards Big Brother, aka the government, whom watches all. Comparing the situation of having sexual intercourse to increase population for a certain to today’s world is quiet similar. In the Islamic religion for example, a man can be married to multiple wives and provide them with children.
Those children, later on, get taught about the religion and keep the tradition going. "Wealth and children are the attractions of the life of this world. But the good deeds which endure are better in your Lord's sight and better in respect of hope." (Qur'an 18:46). Another example would be forced marriage. A setup marriage which is approved by two families that had forcefully engaged two individuals into marrying the other for purposes like fortune, family tree expansion, and personal gains. That’s exactly what the Party is doing. Using sexual instances as production for personal …show more content…
gains. Winston Smith is a clerk in one of Party Ministries; in Ministry of Truth.
His job is to change written historical documents so they appear just like Party want them to look so they can show that everything what Party ever did was good and what Party is doing now is maybe even better. One day he meets Julia, an attractive young lady whom also works in Party. At first, Winston hated her, because young people could be spies for the Thought Police, and he thought she would turn him in. After she gave him an ''I love you'' note, they started a relationship. For them, it's an act of standing against Party. They shouldn't feel anything for any other men; only love for Big Brother and the Party. Therefore, they are in constant fear of the Thought Police but also, they promise each other they will go with it all until the end, because everyone gets caught and everyone confesses, according to Julia. Winston doesn't agree, even if he confess; that doesn't change his feelings. Winston and Julia are trying to become members of anti-Party Brotherhood. Winston wants it because of his belief that there was history behind the Party; that there was something else except it. Julia is not sure if Winston is right, but rebellious feel inside of her also wants to act against Party. Of course, everything was a setup by the Thought Police. They end up getting caught in the room above Mr. Charrington’s antique store; a place of their usual meetings. During the period between torture and
brainwashing by O'Brien, Winston surrenders intellectually, but keep his idea: he knows he will eventually be killed, but secretly he intends to continue hating Big Brother and Party and his love for Julia. It's his only victory against the Party, just like he said to Julia, he can confess, but they can't change his inner feelings. However, Winston's resolve to continue loving Julia is burned away when he finally enters Room 101. Winston has a particular horror of rats. Knowing this, O'Brien threatens to let rats devour Winston's face, and in utter desperation he finally begs the torturers that they do this to Julia instead. Same thing happened to Julia. She had to face with probably her greatest fear - multiple rape by Party Members. Party successfully won again. They killed the human emotions in Winston and Julia, and forced them to betray and deny one another. They meet again but realize that it doesn't matter anymore. They don't like each other anymore. Their feelings of love are replaced by greater and purer feelings. Love for the Party and Big Brother that was the greatest victory the Party could achieve. ''I love Big Brother!'' happily said Winston (Novel, page 376). In conclusion, Winston and Julia’s relationship isn’t really serious in a sense. Physically, Winston is much older than Julia (Novel, page 39). He doesn’t feel like he can attract anyone in his current state. His joints are sore, he has varicose veins and he can barely do the imposed exercises that flash on the telescreens. Julia is young (Novel, page 22). She is passionate and attractive. Julia likes Winston because they share similar hatred towards the party. Although they share plenty of "love" time together, it is not really an attraction for Julia. She likes the rebellion behind the affair. She enjoys breaking the rules with somebody with a similar ideology. Winston enjoys having sex with someone as young and attractive as Julia. She awakens a person, that long seemed dead, inside of him. Julia's intellect only goes so far. She is more concerned with breaking the rules. Winston is happy to oblige. They get emotionally attached to each other and it becomes conceivable that individual desires are way more important than of state needs. Individual desires are represented as a selfish ideology which breaks the followings of the Big Brother’s desires. Winston and Julia are just breaking those rules to show their stage of how rebellious they have become. It became dangerous for them, they were playing with fire, and ended up getting caught by the Thought Police. Mr. Charrington hid a telescreen behind the painting on the wall, which led to Winston and Julia’s capture.
Julia instructs Winston how to return to London. The two arranged meetings where and when they would meet again. Julia reveals that she is not interested in the revolt. Although, she is a personal rebel. Winston reveals information to Julia about his wife Katherine which he decided weather to not killer her or not. Winston returned to Mr. Charrington’s offer: he had rented the room above his shop in order to spend some private time with Julia. Winston reveals his fear of rats.
Winston’s and Julia’s meeting in the woods signifies breaking the totalitarian ways of the party. Here Winston feels free from observation, and gets a glimpse of the freedom that the party opposes. It is a place for lovemaking, a utter horrendous crime in their state. Here there are only Winston’s and Julia’s eyes,
Throughout the section, the main character, Winston is constantly facing conflicts. Most of these conflicts are internal. In the society Winston lives in, he is being monitored 24/7, which prevents him from doing most things freely. The first sign of conflict is shown when he takes out the diary he bought, and starts writing things he remembers. Of course he is disobeying the law, but he is taking a risk. The “Two-minute hate” is literally a time where everyone hates on the traitors for two minutes. There, Winston faces some internal conflicts; they are internal because the other characters do not know what Winston is thinking. The girl with the dark hair is introduced. She is a bad impression to Winston, and he always feels uncomfortable around her. Later in the book, she intimidates him even more because it feels like she is watching him. Another character that Winston has an internal conflict is O’Brien. It is one of the most interesting encounters because it might have involved O’Brien himself. During the Two-minute Hate, their eyes meet together and Winston suddenly thinks that ...
The protagonist states that both Winston and Julia are the dead. Meanwhile, Winston's lover argues that the protagonist and Julia are not dead yet. After being in a room that was meant to be safe, a telescreen repeats what Winston and Julia have said. The Thought Police has finally come for Winston and Julia. While getting arrested, the glass paperweight is destroyed symbolizing the ending of the relationship Winston and Julia had. Winston has realized for the first time the protagonist is looking, with knowledge, at a member of the Thought Police, which was Mr.
Winston Smith is a thirty-nine year old man who participates in a group of the “outer-party,” which is the lower part of the two classes. Smith works in one of the four main government buildings. This building is called the Ministry of Truth; his job is to rewrite history books so those that read them will not learn what the past used to be like. The occupation Winston is the major factor that allows him to realize that Big Brother is limiting people’s freedom. He keeps these thoughts to himself as secrets because the totalitarian party will not allow those of rebellious thoughts around. The tensions between the two grow throughout the book because the Big Brother becomes very suspicious of Winston. The Big Brother becomes so suspicious of Winston that he sends a person by the name O’Brien, to watch over him. Mr. O’Brien is a member of the “inner party,” which in this book is the upper-class. Winston doesn't know of the trap that Big Brother had set tells O’Brien of his own idea and plans. He tells Winston of a rebellious leader that has been rounding up those that want to go against the totalitarian government. But like the Big Brother had done, he set a trap and O’Brien betrayed Winston. During the story the conflict between Big Brother and Winston climaxes when Winston is caught. He is taken to some sort of bright underground prison type
Throughout our history, the government has used spying to control humans, therefore dehumanizing them in order to get and keep power. In 1984 by George Orwell, The Party controls the past, the present, and the future through the records in the Ministry of Love. The Ministry of Love burns all accounts of the past, therefore the citizens of Oceania don’t know anything different about the present than what the Party tells them. The Party keeps the people in Oceania clueless about everything in their society. If the Party says something is the way it is, then that is what it is. The Party is ultimate truth. The government just wants their citizens to love Big Brother, so they can have power over them. The Party does this by making sex only about
In the 2nd part of 1984 Winston is meets a girl named Julia. At first Winston believes Julia will turn him in for committing Thought Crime. Then Julia passes Winston a note and they meet each other. The Party also does not allow association that is not goverernd. This is the start of an affair between the two, because they are not married and free love is not allowed. Winston is rebelling fully by his association with Julia. The 2nd section Winston fully rebels, he joins an underground resistance, and he believes that his life is better because The Party is no longer controlling him. At the end of this section Winston learns that he has been set-up and followed by the Thought Police the whole time. He and Julia believed that they were resisting and rebelling but had actually been entrapped by the Thought Police.
Reproduction is not merely an act of meaningless pleasure. The drive to pass on genes in the creation of offspring is also a legitimate instinct. For example, Katherine’s urge to procreate directly contradicts the rest of her orthodox personality (pg 148). This is because children bring overwhelming feelings of joy. The Party sees children quite differently: children are a force that brings people together. A parent’s love for their child is extremely powerful. For instance, though Winston was naive and greedy as a child, his mother, an impoverished widow, still loved him, and was extremely selfless in the face of his narcissistic personality (pg. 229-232). The Party views this as a potential threat, as the loyalty of a parent to its child can escalate into a type of assembly the Party cannot altogether control. In response, the government of Oceania has not only found a way to tackle this problem, but to further promote societal stability. It is important to note that children are very impressionable. The Party uses this notion to their advantage: by incorporating political propaganda into primary and secondary education systems, children will be under the impression that political excitement is a desirable trait. For instance, Mrs. Parson’s children adore Big Brother and everything that revolves around him (pg. 109 to 111). Furthermore, children learn to denounce suspicious activity, as shown when Mr. Parson’s daughter reports someone for wearing the wrong type of shoes (pg. 139 to 140). This forces party members to be completely orthodox in their homes as well as in public. The Party’s education system not only taints the relationship between parent and offspring, but they conveniently extend surveillance over its citizens. Though sex and children ensure emotional stability and joy, environmental stability is just as crucial to the human
George Orwell creates a dark, depressing and pessimistic world where the government has full control over the masses in the novel 1984. The protagonist, Winston, is low-level Party member who has grown to resent the society that he lives in. Orwell portrays him as a individual that begins to lose his sanity due to the constrictions of society. There are only two possible outcomes, either he becomes more effectively assimilated or he brings about the change he desires. Winston starts a journey towards his own self-destruction. His first defiant act is the diary where he writes “DOWN WITH BIG BROTHER.” But he goes further by having an affair with Julia, another party member, renting a room over Mr. Carrington’s antique shop where Winston conducts this affair with Julia, and by following O’Brien who claims to have connections with the Brotherhood, the anti-Party movement led my Emmanuel Goldstein. Winston and Julia are both eventually arrested by the Thought Police when Mr. Carrington turns out to be a undercover officer. They both eventually betray each other when O’Brien conducts torture upon them at the Ministry of Love. Orwell conveys the limitations of the individual when it comes to doing something monumental like overthrowing the established hierarchy which is seen through the futility of Winston Smith’s actions that end with his failure instead of the end of Big Brother. Winston’s goal of liberating himself turns out to be hopeless when the people he trusted end up betraying him and how he was arbitrarily manipulated. It can be perceived that Winston was in fact concerned more about his own sanity and physical well-being because he gives into Big Brother after he is tortured and becomes content to live in the society he hated so much. Winston witnesses the weakness within the prole community because of their inability to understand the Party’s workings but he himself embodies weakness by sabotaging himself by associating with all the wrong people and by simply falling into the arms of Big Brother. Orwell created a world where there is no use but to assimilate from Winston’s perspective making his struggle utterly hopeless.
The focus of this essay is to explore sexuality presented by Philoclea in the New Arcadia. Philoclea cultivates a relationship towards another women in the book. Yet readers understand that Zelmane is in fact Pyrocles. Sidney allows the reader to be given the impression that until Pyrocles admits to be Zelmane, Philoclea would be shown to have a homosexual tendencies. Philoclea herself is certain that a same-sex friendship is giving way to sexual desire.
The conflict between Winston and Big Brother starts from the beginning of the novel when Winston begins to keep his secret diary about Big Brother. Winston Smith is a third-nine years old man who is a member of the 'outer-party'--the lower of the two classes. Winston works for the government in one of the four main government buildings called the ministry of Truth where his job is to rewrite history books in order for people not to learn what the past used to be like. Winston's occupation is the major factor which lets him to realize that Big Brother is restricting people's freedom. However, Winston keeps his complains about Big Brother and the party for his own secret because the party will not allow anyone keeping a rebellious thought. The tension between them gets serious when Big Brother becomes suspicious of Winston. Winston is therefore watched by O'Brien, an intelligent execute at the 'Ministry of Truth', who is a member of the 'inner party'--the upper class. Without doubting Big Brother's trap, Winston shares his ideas with O'Brien. O'Brien mentions a gentleman named Emmanuel Goldstein whom he claims to know the leader of the rebels against the party. O'Brien also promises to help winston, and promises him a copy of Goldstein's book. But O'Brien betrays him as Big Brother has planned.
The Party redirects society’s desire for sex to obsessive dedication to Big Brother. Two Minutes Hate, marches, constant propaganda and public executions pave a manipulative path for the government. In 1984, sex is not a pleasurable act but merely a means to reproduce more party members. Chastity and pent up desire also serve a purpose in that, “the Party attempts to sustain in its members a state that permanently anticipates pleasure and then channels that energy for its own purposes"(Trihol). In this society, passion is converted into love for Big Brother. Constant supervision and sex crimes help to maintain sexual activity as a political act. The natural human instinct is influenced by the government, for the government. Because sex produces private allegiances, the Party must regulate these public norms and use them as fuel for...
Unlike sex, the history of sexuality is dependant upon society and limited by its language in order to be defined and understood.
The term “compulsory sexuality” refers to a set of attitudes, institutions, and practices that enforce the belief that sexual...
From birth, one's sexuality is shaped by society. Cultures institute behaviors that are to be seen as the societal norms, which work to constantly reinforce societal expectations of how genders should act in relation to one another. Although some may argue that one's sexuality is an innate characteristic resulting from genetic makeup, there is a large amount of evidence pointing to its social construction instead. Through the power differences between males and females, established gender roles, and drastic economic shifts, society establishes sexuality and reinforces the behaviors that are expected of its citizens.