1984 Post 1

This post is intended as an outlet for everything I found interesting in 1984 rather than use for my big question, but I'm sure it will help anyway.

On page 65 the book talks about how the party encourages prostitution as an outlet for sexual desires. This is completely contradictory to what the party believes as a whole. They promote permanent abstinence but then encourage sex as a chore but then they go and say prostitution is O.K. It is just illogical. Their goal is to eradicate love but they encourage some form of it. Then the book says, "Not love so much as eroticism was the enemy." Didn't they just say that they encourage prostitution for that very same reason. It is this kind of circular reasoning (see I knew this would help with my paper) that allows a government like this to function.

Another way a government like this can function is a boring monotonous routine. This is present in both 1984 and in Animal Farm. Winston has been worked so hard that he can't even remember the year his wife left him (pg 75). This is a scary concept to imagine. Not only is the physical history changed by the Ministry of Truth, but the memories of individuals are changed as well (spoiler alert).