Orwell, George — Nineteen eighty-four [113]

‘You’re a traitor!’ yelled the boy. ‘You’re a thought-criminal! You’re a Eurasian spy! I’ll shoot you, I’ll vaporise you, I’ll send you to the salt mines!’ … Suddenly they were both leaping round him, shouting ‘Traitor!’ and ‘Thought-criminal!’, the little girl imitating her brother in every movement. It was somehow slightly frightening, like the gambolling of tiger cubs which will soon grow up into man-eaters. There was a sort of calculating ferocity in the boy’s eye, a quite evident desire to hit or kick Winston and a consciousness of being very nearly big enough to do so. — Orwell, George, Nineteen eighty-four, 113

Note

The ‘gambolling of tiger cubs which will soon grow up into man-eaters’ image captures the horror of childhood weaponized as surveillance. Crucially, the boy’s threats contain ‘vaporise’ and ‘thought-criminal’ — the victims’ vocabulary adopted as playground play — showing ideology running all the way down into children’s games.