Family The Institutions of the Totalitarian State in which the Structural
55 In order to keep their power, the government purposefully breaks up
families in Oceania. The pieces of these hollow and artificial families are the building blocks of the vast and manipulative Party. Families need to be non-
existent so that the people cannot unite or feel loved. However, the Party also needs to have total control over the children. In Oceania, it is normal to turn other
people in when you have any suspicions that the person does not have genuine love for the Party. Even family members would give each other up.
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 p. 149.
The government’s control over families creates a stronger Party. With more children taught to continue the legacy of the Party, there is increased
authority of the government. As government gains more power, the people lose will over their own lives. However, the greater masses of the people do not
believe in a strict society of absolute control. Ultimately, families which is completely controlled by state create a
selfish and unsuspecting society that is ruled by a government of great dominance over the people. Children are taught by the government to be a lookout for the
people who against the Party. Family members should not be so out of touch with each other. The quotation below describes how the children in Nineteen Eighty-
four become frightening.
56 Nearly all children nowadays were horrible. What was worst of all was
that by means of such organizations as the Spies they were systematically turned into ungovernable little savages, and yet this produced in them no
tendency whatever to rebel against the discipline of the Party. On the contrary, they adored the Party and everything connected with it. The
songs, the processions, the banners, the hiking, the drilling with dummy rifles, the yelling of slogans, the worship of Big Brother—it was all a sort
of glorious game to them. All their ferocity was turned outwards, against the enemies of the State, against foreigners, traitors, saboteurs, thought-
criminals. It was almost normal for people over thirty to be frightened of their own children. p. 23
Even children are trained to monitor the movements of their parents and neighbours. Clubs such as Spies and Youth Leagues are meant for children and
young people who are “systematically turned into ungovernable savages”. Yet this type of training did not produce in them any tendency to rebel against the
discipline of the party. The Party undermines family structure by inducting children into an organization called the Junior Spies, which brainwashes and
encourages them to spy on their parents and report any instance of disloyalty to the Party. In this novel family becomes institution in which structural violence is
established. Family is government’s right hand in spreading the terror and surveillance to the citizen.