O'Brien's Intentions

"' Do it to Julia! Do it to Julia! Not me! Julia! I don't care what you do to her. Tear her face off, strip her to the bones. Not me! Julia! Not me!" (300)

Winston promised himself that he was not going to betray Julia, it was the one piece of integrity that he had left. But from reading the quote, it's pretty obvious that he gave up and lost the last promise he made to himself. But what I want to get into is the reasoning of all of this. Why did O'Brien simply stop the torture after Winston gave up his promise? Why did he not just continue with the process. Yes, he doesn't want to "destroy his enemies," but just to merely "change them" but was he simply trying to break up their relationship? We know that two minds are greater than one, despite the intelligence of the individual, if you have two minds working together, they will function better than one mind working alone. So, does any type of connection between, not only Winston and Julia, but any two people have to be broken apart? Is that how the Party controls the people? Because from O'Brien's answer to why, he includes the fact that mother and child will be separated and there will be a significant decrease of human interaction. Is that O'Brien, or the Party's intention? Less individualism = more power to the Party? 

The Chestnut Tree Café

1) At the beginning of the novel, the Chestnut Tree Café was the place were criminals spent their time. Now, after Winston has been released, the all go there. Although the Chestnut Tree Café does not seem like the ‘happiest’ environment to be in, it is in a way ironic that Winston is happy there. He has ended up loving Big Brother, having nothing else to worry about. In a way, we now see the significance and meaning of the slogan “Freedom is Slavery.” 

Winston also meets Julia there, and they find out that they both don’t love each other anymore. At one point, after they are done speaking, Winston hears lyrics from a song coming out of the telescreen stating, 

“Under the spreading chestnut tree

I sold you and you sold me--” (Orwell, 307).

What can you say about this quote and what the Chestnut Café represents and/or symbolizes? 

2) After reading through the end of the novel, I thought that it was really well written, and a good way to end the novel, but the quote below stood out to me:

“Winston, sitting in a blissful dream, paid no attention as his glass filled up. He was not running or cheering any longer. He was back in the Ministry of Love, with everything forgiven, his soul white as snow. He was in the public dock, confessing everything, implicating everybody. He was walking down the white-tiled corridor, with the feeling of walking in sunlight, and an armed guard at his back. The long-hoped-for bulled was entering his brain” (Orwell, 311).

If I can remember correctly, Winston stated previously in the novel that the Chestnut Café was the place of death, which is interesting as to how it is revealed in the end of the novel. The quote uses the simile “his soul white as snow” and the phrase “the white-tiled corridor,” both using the color “white,” which we learned often is used to represent purity. In this case, Winston is purified from his anti-Party thoughts, and is now “reborn” through the effects of physical control (torture), to be the ideal Party member.

My question is, what exactly do you think does the last part of the quote, “The long-hoped-for bulled was entering his brain” (Orwell, 311) represent?

Encounter between Julia and Winston after Room 101

In chapter 5, we are revealed that what is found in room 101, is what we fear the most. For Winston, it was rats. He betrays Julia after being exposed to the rats which convinces O’Brien that Winston “cured,” soon after he claimed his love for her in the previous chapter, which shows the dominance of physical control over physiological control. 

In the last chapter, when Julia and Winston meet, Julia states, “And perhaps you might pretend, afterwards, that it was only a trick and that you just said it to make them stop and didn’t really mean it. But that isn’t true. At the time when it happens you do mean it. You think there’s no other way of saving yourself and you’re quite ready to save yourself that way. You want it to happen to the other person. You don’t give a damn what they suffer. All you care about is yourself” (Orwell, 305). 

The torture of the room 101 has changed both of them. They have both ended up being selfish, to save their own selves from the misery and torture. By this, we conclude that nothing is stronger than the physical torture of room 101. Physical control includes and provides us with the psychological control (these are themes of the novel). Do you agree? Why or why not?

Feel free to add anything else on the encounter between Julia and Winston, Room 101, and/or the themes found in the novel.

Crimestop

"The mind should develop a blind spot whenever a dangerous thought presented itself. ... Crimestop, they called it in Newspeak. ... He presented himself with propositions - 'the Party says the earth is flat', 'the Party says that ice is heavier than water'- and trained himself in not seeing or not understanding the arguments that contradicted them.  It was not easy. It needed great powers of reasoning and improvisation. The arithmetical problems raised, for instance, by such a statement as 'two and two make five' were beyond his intellectual grasp. It needed also a sort of athleticism of mind, an ability at one moment to make the most delicate use of logic and at the next to be unconscious of the crudest logical errors." (292-3)

This is a long quote but I felt that it was necessary. This might lead into a bit of TOK, but I would argue that it has a great relation to the novel.

From the quote, we are able to recognize that there is an inability to go against what the Party has already declared. This is the same with modern day society, we have an inability to go against the information that we see in the most powerful of sources, google, textbooks, encyclopedias etc. How do we know that what we have learnt and absorbed into our minds is the truth? How does Winston know that the Earth is flat? Just because the Party said so, despite their immense amount of power and control, doesn't necessarily classify it as fact.

This is where I propose the question, how important is Winston's ability to think against the Party and how does he use that to his advantage or disadvantage? With the finger test that O'Brien interrogated him with, he argued continuously, making the statement that two and two make four, not five, as to what O'Brien insisted. 

Third and Final Fishbowl

Third and Final Fishbowl is tomorrow, Tuesday, January 15: Think about and be prepared to address the questions below:

• What do you think of O'Brien's assertion that "The Party is not interested in the overt act: the thought is all we care about. We do not merely destroy our enemies, we change them" (265)? And later: "It is intolerable to us that an erroneous thought should exist anywhere in the world, however secret and powerless it may be" (267). Why would the Party care about powerless thoughts?
• What is O'Brien's answer to Winston's question why (re-read pages 276-282), and do you find it convincing? Logical? Compelling? What do you think of O'Brien's statement that slavery is freedom (277)? What is solipsism? Respond to the following quotation: "Progress in our world will be progress towards more pain. The old civilisations claimed that they were founded on love or justice. Ours is founded upon hatred" (279).
• Discuss Room 101.
• Why is Winston finally released? Has he been cured? Is he sane?
• Discuss the end of the novel. Specifically, Winston's meeting with Julia, his days at the Chestnut Tree Cafe, and the final paragraph of the novel.

If you want a picture of the future ...

Terrifying and senseless, this image - more than any other - lingers with me each time I finish Nineteen Eighty-Four. What do you think?

The End.

We have finished the entire novel. And this question is pretty much obvious. What did you think of the ending?

Personally, I have mixed feelings for the ending. I feel that the ability for Winston to accept Big Brother like that, shows the greatness and the immense power that the Party has over the people in their society. They're power is so great, concluding to mind control. Also, it frustrates me how the society possess the inability to think for themselves.

But at the same time, I'm happy. I feel that the imagery on the final pages of the novel were so cleverly written that it dilutes my anger. The novel states, "Two gin-scented tears trickled down the sides of his nose. But it was all right, everything was all right, the struggle was finished. He had won the victory himself. He loved Big Brother"(311) For me, I enjoyed that greatly. I feel so much serenity after reading that. It is as if Winston found his peace, metamorphosed. But again, it was into a true Party member, which was not what I thought the novel was concluding into.

I don't feel fully satisfied because Winston lost all his individual aspects, his individuality. He is now, just another Party member, a slave. And maybe that's what it was all leading to. Slavery is freedom, right? So by being enslaved, he is finally free.