Monday, October 12, 2015

Explain how the Parson children reflect the brainwashing occurring in the society.

The Parson children are eager to sniff out enemy spies, a civic duty they approach with the same gusto normal kids would put into playing cops and robbers. The children are encouraged by the state to be overcautious. A specific instance of this is described by Parsons himself in Chapter 4: his daughter and her friends stalked a strange man for two hours before having the patrols arrest him. Her evidence that he was a spy was that his shoes were unusual; she deduced that because she had never seen shoes like that before, he must be a foreigner. Parson also relays an incident where his children set a woman's skirt on fire when she wrapped meat with a picture of Big Brother. They felt this disrespect proved she was a spy or at least a dissenter.

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