Love and hate are mostly always viewed as opposing forces, but in the novel 1984 written by George Orwell, he brings those forces together to a point where they are almost indistinguishable. Winston and Julia, the protagonist of the novel, represent love and hate. The Party, the totalitarian government in the novel, represents power which transforms love and hate into worship of Big Brother which is the image of the Party. By the command of the Party, love and hate are interchangeable, where there is love the foundation is hate, and where there is hate it is superficially love. The utmost foundation of love is trust, which the Party has utterly destroyed. Love, happiness and friendship is vaporized as fast as it occurs. Julia and Winston begin their affair after Julia’s written note to Winston contains the three word, 8 letter …show more content…
Among the Party members everyone is your “friend” or as they call themselves, comrades. However, the party has extended its power even into the roles of friends in people’s lives. Trust, the foundation of friendship, has been irreparably altered by the Party. Anyone will denounce even the slightest strange behavior to the Party, “He thought with a kind of sadness, although well knowing that Syme despised him and slightly disliked him, and was fully capable of denouncing him as a thought-criminal if he saw any reason for doing so.” (Orwell, 54-55) Winston senses a trace of unorthodoxy in Syme’s fully orthodox exterior; knowing this, Winston is fully aware that if Syme thought this about Winston he would denounce him immediately. Love. Hate. Happiness. Friendship. These words have different interpretations to everyone, but in the society presented in 1984, these words have a set definition to everyone and they are mandated to conform. The Party creates and destroys love, hate, happiness, and friendship however they like. Now that you understand how you must understand why.