sex, love and loyalty theme

Question 1

sexual frustration

Answer 1

can be harnessed into war fever and leader-worship

Julia and Winston believe that their love is a political act, “a blow struck against the Party”

Question 2

winston’s fantasy

Answer 2

Winston’s sadistic fantasies indicates the link between sexual repression and violence

Question 3

Anti-Sex league

Answer 3

the red sash she wears and her voluptuous appearance arouses feelings of hatred and resentment that only dissipate when he learns that he can possess her physically

Question 4

loyalty to the state

Answer 4

sexual desire competes with loyalty to the state: Winston realises that love is “the force that would tear the party to pieces”

Question 5

heterosexual love replaced

Answer 5

by leader-worship and patriotic feeling, seen when Winston betrays Julia under torture, he learns to revere O’Brien and worship BB

Question 6

pure love

Answer 6

“you could not have pure love or pure lust nowadays”

Question 7

political act of love

Answer 7

“their embrace had been a battle, the climax a victory. It was a blow struck against the Party. It was a political act”

Question 8

sex impulse

Answer 8

“the sex impulse was dangerous to the Party”

“feelings, were of no account”

Question 9

their relationship

Answer 9

readers often want to believe that he loves Julia, however, his apparent lack of interest for her personal thoughts makes us question this

Question 10

julia

Answer 10

at first seems a strong-willed and independent rebel, but slowly morphs into a thoughtless, sex-object

Orwell shows little interest in her inner life

Question 11

Winston rejoices in her moral corruption

Answer 11

individual as corrupted as the state, but through no involvement of the state

“his heart leapt” when she told him she had slept with “hundreds” of Party members

Question 12

pure emotions

Answer 12

“no emotion was pure, because everything was mixed up with fear and hatred”

Question 13

family

Answer 13

oceania destroys familial bonds and encourages children to spy on their parents

Question 14

Oceania

Answer 14

destroys natural love and by the end of the novel Winston “loved Big Brother”

Question 15

Winston and Julia’s love

Answer 15

said they wouldn’t separate, even for the Brotherhood, but would throw “acid in a child’s face”

Question 16

defeats love

Answer 16

Oceania eventually defeats their love, shown by Winston saying “do it to Julia” during torture

Atwood - after he says this he turns into a handful of “malleable goo”

Question 17

love for O’Brien

Answer 17

shown through his “peculiar reverence” towards his, despite being tortured near to death by him

Question 18

at the end of the novel

Answer 18

nothing is left within Winston except his love for BB

Question 19

discrepancies between

Answer 19

theory and practise - Inner party members have secret sexual affairs and proles are provided with cheap pornography

The Commanders visit Jezebel’s - sexual hypocrisy

Question 20

his original impulse to Julia

Answer 20

was to “smash her skull”, which shows his corruption and shows how he values self-preservation more than the boundaries of morality

Question 21

message of the road and 1984

Answer 21

love and hope defines the lives we choose to lead

Question 22

link to BNW

Answer 22

both novels abolished family life as we know it - BNW childbearing has become grotesque and the concept of motherhood is obscene.

In Orwell’s novel family life has become subverted, as children are expected to spy on their parents, with loyalty first and foremost to the party. Thus, the family ahs become another means of surveillance

Question 23

the horrible behaviour of children in 1984

Answer 23

has a counterpart in BNW, where children are expected to indulge in ‘erotic play’

Question 24

Sigmund Freud’s impact on the world

Answer 24

is shown, as both BNW and 1984 put considerable emphasis on the importance of sexual behaviour to human beings

Question 25

comparison to BNW

Answer 25

sexual intercourse completely separate from reproduction - exclusive partnerships have been demolished “everybody belongs to everybody”

in Oceania, sexual activity is only for the purpose of reproduction - creates feelings the party can’t control

Question 26

Grossman

Answer 26

asserts that obsession with the present is a trait associated with much utopian satire - that’s why romantic love is dangerous because it makes people look towards a future