Forbidden by the "law", the fact that people are not allowed to have relationships with each other is just the most inhuman thing that can come up to my mind. It is just one of these elements that you do not have the right to express as a member of the party, even married people should not have any emotional link. This whole concept to me is absurd, feelings and emotions are the most natural thing a human can have. The question is where is the instinct of these people, it is quit understandable that they can obey to "basic" things such us how their work is controlled 24/7 and that they are not permitted to say anything bad about Big Brother or things like that, but once it comes to their feelings, how can you control that your whole life. I feel like this whole process is the dehumanization of the people, emprisonning them emotionally is of of course a great way to keep them in control. The less people will be attached to each other, the less chances they ever have to realize the dystopia they are living under. Also, once you allow them to surpass the limit, be allowed to develop their feelings or envies, they will indeed gain some kind of mental freedom and that is far beyond from what the government would like to see. A scene that marked me was meanwhile Winston describes the moment where he has sex with his wife. That was to me a real slaughter of desire. Desire , would be too big of a word for what he had with his wife as it was simple intercourse for the only goal of "making a baby", as she calls it. "The sexual act, successfully performed, was rebellion. Desire was thoughtcrime."In my opinion, this really is what keeps the people from rebelling, a part of their brain is shut down, their inability to express feelings, emotions is the first step for release them of the mental enslaving. The way she was just laying there, waiting for the act to be done was perturbing to me for its lack of passion. The only thing humans can ever be sure of to be true is what you feel, the way you desire somebody, love or hate them. If that is taken from you then apart of your identity as a being is stolen away from you. Once you release your instincts, how you feel, the rest will come alone, it s just is how humans are. Its for this reason that Smith strongly believes in the power of the Proles on how they are the only hope. They can love or hate, but it was given to them as a natural right so they do not know what its like without it. Meanwhile, the party members do not know what it s like to have it given. What needs to be done, to trigger a riot is for the Proles to have their right taken away and the party members have it offered. Once they will taste it, they will understand and once "the savages" will be forbidden from it they will rebel as they knew better.
It's very difficult to say one way or the other of how to cause the proles to rebel. As Ms. Cox brought up the other day, is that maybe for the proles life hasn't changed all too much. I found this almost mind blowing to think about, because going back in the novel and thinking historically how did people living in and around WW2 it doesn't seem that different. The poor are still poor, they still live day to day with industrial work. Most of all however they are given there freedoms; gambling, pornography and sports. And from Orwells point of view and that of most governments that's all it takes to keep the majority satiated. As for the control of emotions, we can see this huge internal struggle that our various protagonists face. It takes constant vigilance and self discipline in order to live without showing emotion. Thus I think that Big Brother has little control over the populations thoughts, other than its obvious propaganda and slow introduction to newspeak. I have a hard time understanding the marriage concept, in the fact that how can you even get close to the marriage part of a relationship whilst not being able to have feelings for someone and not being able to easily get in contact with that person without the thought police after you.
ReplyDeleteHafsa I believe that it would be a greater way of controlling the people, once you have control over their emotions you have full control over them. If they were to love then they were to hate and if they were to hate they were to rebel, I do find this somewhat confusing because they are still allowed to hate hence the 2 minutes of hate. They aren't allowed to feel desire because then they would want more, as humans always want more and more of things and it is a natural human instinct to want more and be greedy. Lets say you won $10000, of course you would be happy but dont you wish you won $20000 or maybe $50000. Of course someone can disagree with me just for the sake of disagreeing however it is quite evident that people will always want more. Once they get the feeling of desire there is more of a chance that they would want to rebel against the party because they want better living standards or they dont want to be followed around by telescreens and the Thought Police all the time.
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