1984 Loyalty Quotes

How we cite our quotes: (Book.Chapter.Paragraph)

Quote #4

When his father disappeared, his mother did not show any surprise or any violent grief, but a sudden change came over her. She seemed to have become completely spiritless. It was evident even to Winston that she was waiting for something that she knew must happen. (2.7.9)

Winston tells the tale of his mother’s depression over his father’s disappearance – an example of loyalty severed by the Party.

Quote #5

He never saw his mother again…When he came back his mother had disappeared. This was already becoming normal at that time. Nothing was gone from the room except his mother and his sister. They had not taken any clothes, not even his mother's overcoat. To this day he did not know with any certainty that his mother was dead. It was perfectly possible that she had merely been sent to a forced-labor camp. As for his sister, she might have been removed, like Winston himself, to one of the colonies for homeless children […]. (2.7.14)

It is common for the Party to move family members away from each other so that private loyalties may be severed in a timely manner.

Quote #6

[…] yet she had possessed a kind of nobility, a kind of purity, simply because the standards that she obeyed were private ones. Her feelings were her own, and could not be altered from outside. It would not have occurred to her that an action which is ineffectual thereby becomes meaningless. If you loved someone, you loved him, and when you had nothing else to give, you still gave him love. (2.7.19)

Winston describes his mother as loving – an example of true, unadulterated private loyalty.