1984: The Totalitarian Aspect of Isolationism and its Impact on Relationship Building
Alexandra Strapko
The sterile cage was closing in, the ravenous creatures scraping at the metal rungs, craving the smell of any semblance of fresh meat; he anticipated the sour smell of their breath and the cold wire against his cheek as the cage door began to open. He was past the cross-roads in his mind, he had taken the leap toward self-preservation; “Do it to Julia! Do not release them unto me! Do it to Julia instead of me!”, and just like that with a swift click of the cage door shut he was left cowering in Room 101, utterly alone. In George Orwell’s 1984, Winston’s initial view toward relationships with family and women is overshadowed by guilt and hate instilled in him by the Party, therefore, expressing the totalitarian aspect of isolationism, or atomization as Hannah Arendt defines it in her philosophical work Origins of Totalitarianism, a totally immersive society of loneliness that enables the replacement of all human connection with a universal ideology. Big Brother’s main goal is to prevent its Party members from forming closer bonds with one another than their loyalty to the Party itself. This mentality is engrained into its members to perpetuate fear within society to “survive at any price”, as Alexander Solzhenitsyn described it in his historical work, The Gulag Archipelago; guaranteeing your own survival through sacrifice of others to satisfy the needs of the Party. In today’s COVID ridden world, individuals are isolated from one another in fear of spreading a virus, incapable of being eradicated even with modern medicine, that cost the population their close ties to family and friends due to public health precautions.
As he woke with tears in his eyes, still feeling the remnants of his dream, the sticky chocolate in his hand, his sister’s wail, and his mother’s eyes burrowing holes into the back of his head: he knew he was to blame for their vaporization. Winston’s preliminary reservation to form close relationships stems from his guilt regarding his mother and sister’s disappearance, therefore, furthering his isolation from all members of society. In his adolescence, Winston was confronted with the trials and tribulations of living in a poor household. Growing up during war time, food shortages were extremely common and Winston and his mother were constantly at odds about the lack of food in their home. Without a father figure in his life, Winston was never taught how a man of the household must take care of his family, not to mention the lack of encouragement from the government to take on that role. As a result, he grew tired of the poverty that was consuming their lives and instead of helping his family he took for himself what he felt he deserved (Orwell 143).
Orwell, after visiting Burma as an imperial policeman, was deeply interested in helping the poor and delving into the perspectives of those people who suffered most from an oppressive government power (Agathocleous 23). Orwell’s rejection of British Imperialism and sympathy for the under privileged is expressed through Winston’s upbringing in a poor household and the challenges they faced emotionally and physically.
As a young boy of only ten or twelve years, selfishness is an inevitable consequence but should be taught to control. His mother acknowledged that he should have the largest portion – because he was “the boy” of the house – yet no matter how much she gave him he still demanded more of her (Orwell 143). He knew his baby sister was sick and something, of which they never outwardly spoke, was going to happen to his mother; yet he persisted in taking what he believed he deserved to satisfy his needs above all else. Winston consciously starved his family, but he could not help the hunger he felt in his belly and the feeling that he had a right to take what he desired for his own personal gain (Orwell 144). Greed is preyed upon by Big Brother, and is clearly indicative of a totalitarian culture, for the maintenance of individualism in society. Humans are selfish in their primal state, it is in their nature to preserve themselves at all costs. Greed and selfishness are the core elements of totalitarian regimes that are nurtured within the young to perpetuate through adulthood and for generations to come.
The chocolate stealing scene became the turning point in Winston’s ability to control his greed or not. His greed got the better of him and forced him to steal it from his own sister’s hands at the price of never seeing his mother and sister again, although he did not recognize that at the time. Orwell writes: “He never saw his mother again. After he had devoured the chocolate he felt somewhat ashamed of himself and hung about in the streets for several hours, until hunger drove him home” (Orwell 145). That small guilt was amplified to such a degree that he would refrain from making any sort of close relations with anyone else for a while, even with Julia. He was extremely hesitant with her and thought it better if they ended their relations to never betray one another at the hands of the Party, but they believed the Party could not get inside them and make them feel a certain way (Orwell 147). Unfortunately, they were severely mistaken.
Hannah Arendt goes further to argue that after certain “unpunishable and unforgiveable” acts are committed there is no way to explain or validate those heinous acts through self-interest, greed, covetousness, lust for power and cowardice to the point that love cannot endure and friendships cannot forgive (Arendt 640). This argument correlates well with Winston’s initial acts of greed against his family that loomed darkly over him for years and in the end held over into his adult life. His subconscious greed and cowardice were the cause of the souring of his and Julia’s relationship.
Winston’s heinous and self-interested plea to turn the rats onto Julia to save himself stemmed from that early greed that he was never taught to control. From that point on, there was no way to return to a normal relationship, their love could not endure that kind of betrayal of one another, the guilt was far too strong. In the end, this was the Party’s main goal in turning people against each other to break their spirits to such an extent that they have no one and nothing else to turn to besides the “security” of the Party.
As he reached out to touch her, she winced and pulled back without moving, eyes closed and muscles rigid, neither resisting nor co-operating; every month it was the same ritual that Winston endured “for the sake of the Party”. Winston’s hatred for his wife, Katharine, ultimately stained his view of women in society as stupid, mindless followers of the Party, therefore, furthering his isolation in society and inability to form romantic relationships. Winston simply did not trust women and their tendencies to tout the Party line without thinking critically about their false narrative. Early on in this section of the novel, Winston tells that women were the most loyal to the Party in their adoption of chastity. It had been ingrained into them from an early age that desire is bad and should never be acted on; the act of sex was simply to perpetuate the Party and to breed more empty-headed followers of Big Brother (Orwell 60). Once the Party claimed the act of sex was a crime and had pushed it onto every member they had complete control over individuals. It was a binding act of love and trust between people that the Party could not withstand the power of, which in turn forced them to forbid it. Criminality associated with sexual conduct killed marital and familial bonds, decreasing reliance on other human beings to encourage full dependence on and loyalty to the Party.
Winston thought Katharine had a “stupid, vulgar, empty mind” filled only with slogans and thoughts allotted for her to think by the Party and nothing else. She “submitted” to the act of sex and had two names for the act: “making a baby” and “our duty to the Party” (Orwell 59). This completely unnerving phrase for the act has such an unpleasant connotation. Normally this would stimulate happy emotions of starting a family, instead it instigated feeling of dread, embarrassment and hatred. Winston deemed individuals that used this terminology and abided by this ideology especially dangerous because of their strict adherence to the Junior Anti-Sex Leagues agenda, which was complete celibacy for both sexes, in turn completely killing any type of relations between the opposite sexes. The Party had infiltrated one of the most essential aspects of human nature: the ability to build close relationships with the opposite sex to encourage marriage and family development.
Bernard Crick states in his portion of the Cambridge Companion of George Orwell, Nineteen Eighty-Four: context and controversy, that mutual trust is of the utmost importance when defining a society and one’s individuality. He equates mutual trust with decency in that if two mutually trust one another toleration, respect and empathy will follow. He states that Orwell’s point is if humans have someone they trust their individuality will not be destroyed, it is when one is alone that individuality is completely destroyed (Crick 149). In essence, humans are social creatures they crave that person-to-person interaction, if that is broken down or stripped from them there are devastating consequences.
Incorporating Crick’s argument into 1984, the Party stripped members of their trust of one another leading to further atomization in society. This isolation lead to decreased individuality which in turn forced the discontinuation of one’s unique perspective and free thought altogether, breeding loyal Party members that do as their told and never stray from the ideals and knowledge taught to them by Big Brother. This is exactly the progression of things in Winston’s view. His wife had lost all sense of herself that she could no longer think like herself, she had become consumed by the Party in all aspects; she was a robot manufactured by the isolation and mistrust instilled in her by the Party. Similarly, Winston’s constant reminder that he was simply a means to an end in her eyes with no real, shared, emotional connection, he began to doubt himself and in turn lost his sense of self-respect and sanity.
As a result of declining individuality from lack of trust, fear ensues. Later on, in the novel after Winston’s explanation of his wife and his view of women, Winston contemplated murdering Julia if she really was spying on him after he bought the diary (Orwell 90). This lack of trust and fear, combined, had caused Winston to become so paranoid and hateful that he would go to such depraved lengths to kill another human being for the secrets they may have known, in essence completely stripping him of his personal identity.
“After murder of the moral person and annihilation of the juridical person, the destruction of the individuality is almost always successful” (Arendt 633). Hannah Arendt argues that the degradation of individuality and nationality is what causes that claim to power. Totalitarian regimes envelope their members through their false teachings to encroach on one’s psyche and character to essentially disintegrate every aspect of their human nature and free will (Arendt 614). Their ultimate goal is to kill all moral judgment and strip the enjoyment from every aspect of humanity to make it entirely impossible to live a life worth living for yourself; one’s life is spared and utilized to continue the goals of the Party and the regime. One could interpret Solzhenitsyn’s claim “survive at any price” not in the perspective of the people but of the regime (Solzhenitsyn 300-302). The regime was looking to sacrifice the people’s morals and ethics for the sake of the Party’s survival because people with no morals will go to any lengths to preserve their own interests, no matter the consequences of those lengths on society. This in itself is a major theme in totalitarian governments.
Winston’s hateful feelings towards women stems from the lack of trust, fear and loss of individuality instilled in him by the Party rhetoric he had been exposed to his whole life. All of these aspects together, including his guilt regarding his mother and sister’s disappearance that shaped his view of relationships with other women and his view of love, forced him to lose himself and his sense of morality, further atomizing him from women in the process.
In all, Winston’s guilt surrounding his mother and sister’s disappearance and his hate towards women and his wife lead to such severe atomization that he turned to the Party for security and comfort. Greed, selfishness, fear, lack of trust, and individuality were all preyed upon by Big Brother to break down the spirits of its members to such a degree that they became so disillusioned with the aspect of real relationships that it was easier to simply break off from society and depend solely on themselves and the Party for their survival needs. This is exactly the point Hannah Arendt makes in the idea of atomization: a society consumed by loneliness completely severs all human connection and replaces it with an all-encompassing ideology, in this case Big Brother. In the end, this all-consuming ideology overcomes Winston and he dies with the utmost respect and love for Big Brother as a result of his deprivation from forming true meaningful relationships with others.
Works Cited
- Agathocleous, Tanya. George Orwell : Battling Big Brother, Oxford University Press, Incorporated, 2000. ProQuest Ebook Central, https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/bucknell/detail.action?docID=5763586.
- Arendt, Hannah. The Origins of Totalitarianism. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2011. Apple Books.
- Crick, Bernard. “Nineteen Eighty-Four: Context and Controversy.” The Cambridge Companion to George Orwell, Cambridge. Edited by John Rodden. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2007. ProQuest, https://www.proquest.com/books/nineteen-eighty-four-context-controversy/docview/2138007723/se-2?accountid=9784.
- Orwell, George. 1984: A Novel. Berkley, 2017.
- Solzhenitsyn, Aleksandr I. The Gulag Archipelago: 1918-1956: An Experiment in Literary Investigation. Harper Perinnial, 2007.