George Orwells novel 1984 explores intimate human relationships in a bleak futuristic society as experienced by protagonist Winston Smith. Since there are few bonds stronger than those developed from loving relationships among family, friends, and lovers, the only entity acceptable to love in Oceania is the face of the Party, Big Brother. This restriction is necessary to achieving complete power and control over its citizens, as the Party must dissolve all loyalties derived through love, sex, and family and redirect them upon itself. By destroying trust the Party has \u201ccut the links between child and parent, and between man and man, and between man and woman\u201d(220).<\/p>\n
To train the citizens of Oceania for complete submission and devotion to Big Brother and the Party the family bond has been completely devalued, as \u201cNo one dares trust a wife or a child or a friend any longer.\u201d(220) The Junior Spies are an organization in which children have become the police and denouncers of their parents in the name of Big Brother. By this means, the Party has managed to wedge itself between one of the most powerful instinctual bonds to turn parental devotion into fear and children into faithful machines of the Party as an extension of the Thought Police. Parsons\u2019 remark \u201cIn fact I\u2019m proud of her. It shows I brought her up in the right spirit, anyway\u201d(193) in response to his daughter\u2019s betrayal, clearly portrays the Party\u2019s influence in the family institution. Not only does the daughter value the Party\u2019s approval more than her father\u2019s life, but also Parsons\u2019 appropriate response is to be grateful for the betrayal and to those who enforce it.<\/p>\n
The betrayal of the family bond is a common theme in 1984. Orwell illustrates how weak that loyalty has become with the skull-faced man\u2019s desperate begging to watch his wife and children\u2019s throats be slit as an alternative to the Ministry of Love\u2019s room 101 with a complete lack of \u201cprivate loyalties\u201d(136). Winston\u2019s memories of his mother\u2019s love \u201cin a time when there were still privacy, love, and friendship, and when the members of a family stood by one another without needing to know the reason\u201d(28) confront his suspicions that to \u201cremain human\u201d, one was \u201cnot loyal to a party or a country or an idea, they were loyal to one another\u201d(136).<\/p>\n
Technically, consorting with prostitutes is forbidden, but it seems to be tacitly encouraged just the same, as a means of relieving natural tensions. The more serious crime involves relations between Party members. The Party does not wish to allow the development of loyalties to any other acts or persons than itself, so it tends to deny permission of marriage to couples who appear attracted to one another, and it campaigns actively against sex as anything other than a slightly disagreeable duty whose sole purpose is propagation of the species. The Party feeds off the hysteria produced from sexual privation, as it is conveniently transformed into \u201cwar fever and leader worship\u201d(110).<\/p>\n
Through its control of marriages and sexual mores, the Party resembles a conservative religious institution. By attempting to control people\u2019s loyalties and loves, and redirect those towards itself, the Party posits itself as the end and the ultimate salvation. Katharine even calls sex \u201cour duty to the Party,\u201d and it is a weekly ritual almost like a martyrdom, in which both she and Winston are uncomfortable but must suffer through it anyway.<\/p>\n
Clearly, Winston\u2019s desire to have a woman of his own with whom sex could be pleasurable is yet another instance of his heretical tendencies. It does not seem something that he has experienced yet, since his encounter with the prostitute was somehow dirtying in every sense. His desire to evoke desire is itself thought crime, and part of his overall rebellion against the world he lives in.<\/p>\n