EROS AND THANATOS IN A TOTALITARIAN SOCIETY: A FREUDIAN STUDY OF DESIRE, REPRESSION, AND THE DEATH DRIVE IN GEORGE ORWELL’S 1984

Abstract

This paper will consider the Eros (life drive) versus Thanatos (death drive) in the 1984 by George Orwell through a Freudian psychoanalytical perspective about how desire, repression, and the death instinct work together in the environment of a totalitarian rule. The study focuses on the psychological and sociopolitical aspects of the life of Winston Smith, which focuses on the dominance of the Party over human instincts, sexuality, language, and relationship relationships. Through the examination of several critical moments such as the affair between Winston and Julia, the tools of control, and the sadistic purpose of Room 101, this paper will prove that the totalitarian regime is making life instincts turn destructive desires into, making love into submission and desire into obedience. The paper also addresses the Lacanian views of language and desire and how Newspeak and ideological formations suppress the psychic freedom and withhold the expression. Results show that, although Thanatos rules the common and personal psyche by repressing the systems, Eros maintains its temporary acts of intimacy, creativity, and desire, which, nevertheless, is the underlining of human desire in the extreme control of politics. This study fits the interdisciplinary domain, blending psychoanalysis, literary analysis and political theory, providing knowledge on the psychological processes underlying oppression and the irreconcilable conflict between the tensions of life and death in dystopian settings.