The Brotherhood or the Party?

Kyle Petras

8/10/15

Gubanich

The Brotherhood or the Party?

The brotherhood or the party?  Both have similarities, and both share parallels, but which one is better?  The brotherhood, from the perspective of Winston, seems to be a better choice to follow than the party.  The party is what Winston has lived with his whole life.  He wants to obviously change his way of life.  In his view, the brotherhood is better than anything.  He wouldn’t have to be worried about being caught with Julia and be vaporized.  I feel like the party seems like a better choice.  Crazy as it sounds, I think it is.  

A more specific parallel is that of Goldstein and Big Brother.  Goldstein is the leader of the brotherhood. O’brien says to Winston, “Yes, there is such a person, and he is alive.  Where, I do not know”(Orwell 171).  Both “Big Brother and Goldstein are considered as the higher power and nobody knows really where they are, they just know they exist.  The brotherhood itself is a secret, underground organization made to take over the party.  Wiston had hoped it was real when he first visited O’Brien.  He explains to Winston that “You will never learn much more about the brotherhood than that it exists and that you belong to it”(Orwell 171).  Both the Party and the Brotherhood are not well known by the community of their societies.  People know very little of what they are and how they work.  During Winston’s and O'brien’s meeting, O'brien tells Winston the guidelines that are set for the brother that state, “you will be fighting in the dark.  You will always be in the dark. You will receive orders and you will obey them, without knowing why”(Orwell 174).  In the party, the same thing happens.  You have no idea why you do the things you do, only that you need to do them to not get vaporized.  These are three examples of parallels that are shared between the brotherhood and the party.

Not only are there differences to the two groups, but there are similarities that are very prominent in the text.  How O’brien talks about Goldstein and the parallel to Big Brother, how the brotherhood is so secretive as well as the party, and finally how you rarely know what is happening in the brotherhood.  These parallels are visible in the text of 1984 and there is little difference in their similarities.