1984 #2 Blog

1984 #2 Blog

There are numerous references to children and familial relationships in book one, chapters two through four, especially chapter two, in 1984. During chapter two, Winston goes to the Parsons apartment in Victory Mansions. The Parsons are a family of four, consisting of a mother, father, son, and daughter. The children run around calling Winston every enemy of the Party, such as traitor and thought-criminal. Winston compares them to tiger cubs: their actions seem playful now, but they are really preparing for their future expectations of viciousness towards enemies of the Party. However, Winston describes the boy and girl differently. The boy is vicious, ferocious, and violent. He only speaks in yells, roars, and accusations. He represents the darker side of the Party, which is filled atrocities. Meanwhile, the girl seems a little more whimsical and playful. She represents the public’s view of the Party, which is that the Party is a wonderful thing that brings joy. Throughout Winston’s time near the children, the mother, who is fairly young, is described as old and tired looking. When with her own children, she is said to be “half-apprehensive” (21) and have an expression of “helpless fright” (24). Winston goes on to state that most parents were like this with their children. The Party turns them into “ungovernable little savages” (24) through the use of fun activities. Winston says that it “was all a sort of glamorous game to them” (24). The children become so engrossed by the Party that they want to destroy anything that would threaten it, even if it was their own parents. Although children can be easy to manipulate, the Party’s ability to turn them against their parents shows that the Party is supposed to be the main focus of a person’s life in this society, and it will do whatever is necessary to assure this. In chapter three, Winston compares this experience with the Parsons children to his own relationship with his mother. She sacrificed her life for him because they used to live in a time when there was “privacy, love, and friendship, and when the members of a family stood by one another without needing to know the reason” (30). He sadly realizes that this can no longer happen. Parents fear their children too much to risk anything for them, and children are loyal only to the Party. To again exemplify how much these familial relationships have changed over time, Winston makes up the perfect member of society, Comrade Ogilvy. As  children, Ogilvy “refused toys except for a drum, a submachine gun, and a model helicopter” and joined the Spies a year earlier than most (46). As an adult, he believed “marriage and the care of a family to be incompatible with a twenty-four-hour-a-day devotion to duty” (47). Winston’s fake character shows that children are raised to accept, if not adore, violence, and family is seen as low priority compared to duty to the Party. The Parsons embody this depiction of the perfect kids, though Winston longs for the days when families has nothing but unconditional love for and loyalty to each other.