1984

Book 2 Chapter 3 - Extensions of the Thought Police " The sex impulse was dangerous to the Party, and the Party had turned it to account. They had played a similar trick with the instinct of parenthood. The family could not actually be abolished, and, indeed, people were encouraged to be fond of their children, in almost the old-fashioned way. The children, on the other hand, were systematically turned against their parents and taught to spy on them and report their deviations. The family had become in effect an extension of the Thought Police. It was a device by means of which everyone could be surrounded night and day by informers who knew him intimately. "  (page 111)      Julia and Winston have a discussion prior to this passage about the "connection between chastity and political orthodoxy." This leads Winston to think about the ways the Party controlled its citizens through their sexual impulse and their own children. Turning something that is poten...

Book 1 Chapter 7 - Jones, Aaronson, and Rutherford " But today, supposing that it could be somehow resurrected from its ashes, the photograph might not even be evidence. Already, at the time when he made his discovery, Oceania was no longer at war with Eurasia, and it must have been to the agents of Eurasia that three dead men had betrayed their country. Since then there had been other changes-two, three,he could not remember how m any.  V ery l ikely the confessions had been rewritten and rewritten until the original facts and dates no longer had the smallest significance. The past not only changed, but changed continuously. What most afflicted him with the sense of nightmare was that he had never clearly understood why the huge imposture was undertaken. The immediate advantages of falsifying the past were obvious, but the ultimate motive was mysterious. He took up his pen again and wrote: I understand HOW: I do not understand WHY. "   (page 68)   ...