Orwell, George — Nineteen eighty-four [636]

At every meal she would beseech him not to be selfish and to remember that his little sister was sick and also needed food, but it was no use. He would cry out with rage when she stopped ladling, he would try to wrench the saucepan and spoon out of her hands, he would grab bits from his sister’s plate. He knew that he was starving the other two, but he could not help it; he even felt that he had a right to do it. The clamorous hunger in his belly seemed to justify him. — Orwell, George, Nineteen eighty-four, 636

Note

The moral claim ‘he even felt that he had a right to do it’ is chilling because it is earned — Orwell makes the child’s selfishness legible as an undeniably biological imperative rather than mere cruelty, which is what lets the later reflection land.