Love and Friendship in George Orwell\’s 1984

The stories written by George Orwell feature several critical themes. Orwell wrote several books which held stories of interest to the life of people during his days and the prospects of the future. His narrations dealt with the issues that affected society during his time and what he considered would be the case in the future. Most of his books, therefore, became good for the audiences who read them in later days and have interested readers to this day. However, perhaps the most interesting of his books is the one called 1984. In this book, several themes appear although perhaps the most imperative are the way the government controls love and friendship. The government of Oceania controlled love and friendship amongst its citizens. The story of 1984 presents a government which attempted to hold the lives of its citizens at ransom and which insists the life of these people maintain an allegiance to the big brother only. This meant that the people could only concentrate on loving and dedicating themselves to the big brother alone. This paper will analyze the themes of love and friendship in the book 1984. Similarly, this study will examine the way that the government ensured that these two subjects were controlled. Finally, this study will give examples of how the ruling party ensured the elimination of love for the benefit of the government through giving examples.

Friendship in Oceania

The big brother and the inner party of Oceania tried to ensure a state of complete friendlessness. In the book 1984, the author displays a state where all the activities are centered on trying to please the big brother. All the jobs are made to create the will of the inner party and the big brother without the inclusion of the friendliness of normal society. This can be seen from the instances in which Winston moves around town with several screens and cameras pointed at him. The importance of a society which does work without any happiness or communication with other workers shows just how well the inner party eliminated friendship.  Therefore, friendship in Oceania was virtually nonexistent as everyone was concentrating on their jobs and their association with the big brother. The inner party also eliminated association in the workplaces and communities. This fact can be seen when first Julia and Winston meet. Winston sees Julia as a spy to the inner party who might give him up because of his thoughts against them. Julia also sees him as a traitor who might give her up. These images show how well the government of Oceania had eliminated friendship as every individual considered the other to be a spy. The inner party, as an agent of the big brother, therefore controlled friendship in Oceania completely. Through such actions as the time when Obrien betrays the two lovers to the inner party, the reader can realize that Oceania is full of traitors and liars and lacks true friends who can tell the truth. Similarly, when Winston betrays Julia by shouting that Obrien should hurt Julia and not him, the level to which the governance controls friendship becomes evident. Therefore, it is easy to determine that the big brother and the inner party successfully managed friendship in Oceania and virtually destroyed it.

Love in Oceania

The nation of Oceania lives in love of the big brother rather than love of each other. Every ting in Oceania is controlled to maintain the dedication to the inner party and the big brother. This strategy involves limiting love between couples and married people to retain the love for the big brother. From these systems, sex is also reduced to the bare minimum and treated as a useless formality for making children rather than a thing of love. This makes the people of this nation fret upon sex as they view it as unimportant.  By this system, the government controls love in Oceania by limiting the attachment that should come from sex to couples and makes the people direct their love to the state only. Through the story such as that of Julia and Winston, 1984 shows how love is controlled in Oceania. Julia and Winston fall in love but they are betrayed, and they face torture by the betrayer to divert their love to the big brother. This is not unlike his earlier marriage which failed because the government refused sex and intimacy. However, in a twist of fate, the government agent Obrien is able to change his view due to the torture which makes Winston lose love for Julia. This experience shows how the government insists on diverting the love to one direction only. In conclusion, the themes of love and friendship appear severally in the book called 1984. Showing how the government of that nation refuses these two important things and denies the citizens their rights, this book becomes important to society of today. It serves an important point to show that certain notions such as complete dedication to the government can eliminate the importance of life itself.

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