1984 Love And Hate Analysis

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In the dystopian society depicted in 1984 by George Orwell where the expression of any emotion is prohibited, Winston’s expression of hate during the Two Minutes Hate serve as a crucial unwinding in a tightly-wound social order. Winston’s feelings, such as love and hate, are interchangeable and have no stable target because the Party controls the exact moments when they are expressed; by torturing Winston and forcing him to leave his emotions vulnerable, the Party is able to fully control the target of Winston’s feelings and make them feel authentic.
Emotions, especially hatred, become chaotic and unclear when the Party members are able to reveal them. During the Two Minutes Hate while Winston is staring at Goldstein’s face on the screen,
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During the Two Minutes Hate, the narrator states, “And yet the rage that one felt was an abstract, undirected emotion which could be switched from one object to another like the flame of a blowlamp...At those moments his secret loathing of Big Brother changed into adoration...” (14-15). Because the rage is “abstract,” it can be passed from “one object to another” with little effort. The rage being “abstract” means that it is intangible, making it harder to keep under control. The rage is “undirected” because in the society, all the emotions are purposefully repressed; therefore in the Two Minutes Hate that the Party members get to express rage toward something concrete, it becomes uncontrollable. The “secret loathing of Big Brother” changes quickly into “adoration,” but love and hate are antonyms and traditionally expressed in opposite ways. During the short two minutes Winston has to express emotions, love and hate are expressed with the same intensity, making them very fluid. The scramble to release emotions make love and hate capable of being expressed toward the same target. The comparison to the “flame of a blowlamp” highlights how simple it is to switch the target of rage. Winston succeeds in having minimal control over the target of his emotions and which ones, love or hate, to express, but the Party succeeds in making the emotions sporadic, therefore undermining their