Book 2 Chapters 7-10 "Emotions"

"What mattered were individual relationships, and a completely helpless gesture, an embrace, a tear, a word spoken to a dying man, could have value in itself. The proles, it suddenly occurred to him, had remained in this condition. They were not loyal to a party or a country or an idea, they were loyal to one another. For the first time in his life, he did not despise the proles or think of them as merely as an inert force which would one day spring to life and regenerate the world. The proles had stayed human. They had not hardened inside." (Chapter 7, page 136)

In the beginning of Chapter 7, Winston is recalling his actions from when he was a child. Throughout, he mentions that he had believed for very long that he had killed his mother because of his selfish actions as a child. Winston recalls how he always demanded the most food and constantly took from the rations of his mother and sister. The moment he recalls is when he would purposely fight his Mother for the ladle so that he could get more food, and the moment he regrets the most- when he stole the small ration of food from his younger sister due to his greed. It is in that same instant when he mentions how he regretted stealing from his sister so much that he decided to walk out for a bit. In that same day when he returned home that his mother and sister were just gone, they took nothing with them- so he assumed they had died. From this, he moves onto the topic of how his mother was like, how his mother's feelings "were her own, and could not be altered from the outside" and this leads to a very important issue- how people of the Party have been so manipulated that they had been taught the opposite of what Winston's mother was like.

On this same page, it is noted how the Party makes it known that if people were to show their feelings or impulses known it would not matter. The context in which it is mentioned is that in terms of what will be recorded and shown in history, their personal things would not matter because it will be erased the Party. Thus, it allows the Party to gain more control because the people have willingly stopped feeling emotions so, their judgment is impaired and carries no feelings so they are more willing to do things that maybe are considered heartless. But that is not the only reason why this issue is important, the other reason that makes this important is the fact that by no longer listening to these impulses they are no longer "human."

Winston mentions how when that thought occurred to him he had realized that the proles were "still human" because they showed their love and loyalty to one another. I think this is extremely important due to the fact that because of who they show their loyalty they are more at peace with one another and it is also what makes them that much more powerful. The proles love one another and express that because unlike the people of the Party they were not taught to forget those emotions and just blindly follow the Party's order, therefore this adds to their power. They can still express their emotions- this means that it is their discontent that will lead to the downfall of the Party if they ever choose to do so, that is why they are not as looked over because the Party allows them to just do as they please since they know the power they hold. But when looked at that specific phrase as well we see that the word Winston decided to use was human, which raises our awareness of the fact that people in the Party are not human.

We can see through Winston that he is having to relearn human emotions and how by doing so it is causing him to have a lot of inner turmoil and that is because they are not even human anymore. They have become so desensitized by the Party that they are more just objects- a mere shadow of what they used to be. They have no feelings whatsoever like the proles, instead of being disgusted and sad that he had seen a person severed hand he had just pushed it away and continued with his way- the children also show no feelings towards their parents and instead just aim to follow orders. This allows us to see just a huge difference between them and the proles. They are extremely desensitized which I think is a great concern- but it is something we see nowadays.

In our society nowadays, children are becoming more and more desensitized due to just the extreme conditions of our world. For instance, now mass shootings have become something that yes we are still trying to keep from happening, however, it has happened so often the news does not carry the same weight as it used to. Violence in our society is either becoming commonplace (more and more hate groups are making themselves known or coming out of hiding) that people are simply becoming desensitized to the news now. These things which should not be common are, which is unwillingly desensitizing us to a lot of things that should be shocking- which you can tell happened to the people of Party. They had just become accustomed to how things were that it became normal to them, which I think is a significant thing to note.

After reading chapters 7-10 this was the quote that really stood out to me. This is bringing up another relevant topic to our society now. You can pull out very clear ideas that Orwell is trying to portray and see how it is tying into our society- which is very startling especially when dealing with this issue.