Patriarchy In George Orwell's Big Brother

The paternalistic culture that exists in George Orwell 's novel 1984 is dominated by a ¨fatherly¨ figure, Big Brother. Families, social groups, and governments are often controlled by a paternalistic idol. In fact, paternalistic hierarchies are effective in totalitarian regimes because a family unit is innate to all human culture. Thus, totalitarian governments use this hierarchy to their advantage by mimicking a family parent as a leader, establishing a social order familiar to family structure, and establishing consequences for those who deviate from the family´s ruler. A family-structured totalitarian government works best because the head of a government, like the head of a family, is seen as a dominant figure. The head of the paternalistic …show more content…
Relationships in the workplace and social groups mimic the relationships in a family. All relationships, whether in families or not, have levels: “the model of family relations and practices of patronage (fatherly protection, tutelage, and control) to relationships between classes of people understood as unequal: employers and workers, the privileged and the underprivileged, the state and the masses,” (Thompson). In all relationships there is an order that is followed, and it is never altered. This works well because the subordinates will never challenge the ultimate power. Clearly, social structures that companies, families, groups, or even totalitarian governments follow are designed by those of a …show more content…
Laws are established in a totalitarian regime to ensure full control of the leader. The rules keep the people in order. If one were to go against the leader or government in any way, there would be repercussions resulting in punishment. This tactic detains the person from doing the act again, and other people from doing it as well. These consequences create a fear among the people, a fear not to go against the government. In 1984, the main character, Winston, describes his view of thoughtcrime against the Party and its consequences, “The consequences of every act are included in the act itself. He wrote: Thoughtcrime does not entail death: thoughtcrime IS death,” (Orwell 27). When a child does something that the parent of a family would not approve of, the parent will punish the child. In the same way, Totalitarian governments will punish their people for going against the government. The people who lived in a totalitarian governments feared the power of punishments, and the consequences it would bring. Most people will not go against the leader because of the consequences it withheld. In ¨One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich¨, Shukhov does not even think of disobeying his superior,“The captain went out with a barrow. Anyway, Shukhov wouldn´t have argued with him,” (Solzhenitsyn 274). Children do not go against parents that have