The Curtains Open, Partially

We have finally entered Room 101! It makes sense that they would carry out your most extreme nightmares and make them into reality. For Winston it was rats, which we saw a little bit of his fear beforehand. (For me it would be snakes and my mind kept visualizing the most horrid things.) An understatement would be that releasing hungry rats onto Winston would have been a terrible way to die! To be slowly eaten by several disgusting rodents, killing you slowly with each bite is distressing! Thank God it stopped. All Winton had to say was that he wished this terrible fate onto Julia, and mean it. Which he did and was eventually released.

Winston ran into Julia again and after a few awkward moments, they tell each other that they had betrayed one another. Neither of them seems to show that they have an emotional connection anymore.

I don’t understand that now that Winston is released, he doesn’t fear Big Brother anymore. He suggests, more than once, that he could lay with Julia and they wouldn’t care. Wouldn’t they be skeptical of his first run in with Julia? Especially since he was such a hard egg to crack.

So the question remains, was Winston able to keep his secret? For quite a while I was debating this in my head, hoping for a glimmer of rebellion in his thoughts. But the ending clearly depicts that Winston truly came to love Big Brother. And that’s how the story goes. Or does it?

This ambiguous ending leaves a lot open for interpretation. I find it particularly interesting that while sitting at his usual table in the Chestnut Tree Cafe, his perception shifts and he’s back at the Ministry of Love (torture building) and then gets a bullet to the back of the head. Does this indicate that Winston dies?

First, it’s pretty easy to see that figuratively Winston died. Rejecting thoughts from his childhood memories and claiming them to be false says that he is brainwashed. In the second to last sentence of the book, Winston says, “he had won the victory over himself” (298). Winston officially became just like everybody else, and in this sense, he died.

I am still trying to figure out if Winston physically died. I remember O’Brien telling him that they were going to execute him before it was all done. And that right before their death, everybody succumbs and loves Big Brother. Does this indicate that Winston is shot shortly after? It felt like it was going to happen sooner or later and the daydreaming right before suggests that it is possible.

All in all, I really enjoyed the book and the ending. It’s a reflective story that makes us view the world (especially the government) differently. It makes me want to take a step back and look into my life and my government with scrutiny.

If You Want To Keep a Secret, You Must Hide It From Yourself

This book never ceases to keep me guessing wrongly. As it turns out, Winston has been tortured in the Ministry of Love for seven years. Not months, like I originally thought. The proof was there when Winston finally got a look at himself in the mirror for the first time. The descriptions were great! I felt as though I could see Winston’s body wasting away. I was truly disgusted and saddened by his appearance. This was definitely evidence of something that had taken more than a few months to accomplish.

I found out that O’Brien has three phases of “reintegration:” learning, understanding, and accepting. Right now Winston is at the second phase. He is still being tortured nonetheless but they are lessoning. He has physically been broken down to skin and bones. This is the secret to O’Brien’s conversion. He breaks Winston down to the point where Winston doesn’t even recognize himself. More pain or shame would not do anything more to Winston at this point. Then, he starts to rebuild him. Little by little Winston gets stronger, physically. Mentally, Winston says that, “he seemed to have lost the power of intellectual effort, now that the stimulus of pain had been removed” (275). In other words, without negative reinforcement lingering as a potential threat, Winston’s brain has no more energy to think intelligently.

Earlier on, I was wondering how O’Brien was going to achieve all of this but now it makes perfect sense to me. And I don’t think the ending is going to be a happy one. Even though Winston still has a piece of himself left, I don’t think it will be there for long.

“If you want to keep a secret you must hid it from yourself” (281). And with a sudden outburst for Julia, Winston’s efforts to hide his secrets are exposed. O’Brien walks in through the door and announces that Winston has progressed onto the next phase. Finally, we are now about to enter into Room 101. A little scared. And a little excited. 

Lunacy Is Sanity

Yup, just as I anticipated, Winston is being tortured.

I learned a lot more about O’Brien. He is extremely passionate about the Party and Big Brother, and that he suffers from a sadistic personality disorder. O’Brien is the interrogator, torturer, teacher, and friend (or “comrade”) to Winston. His main goal is to completely brainwash every “prisoner” in the Ministry of Love by inflicting large amounts of pain and it seems like it will actually work. Winston seems to have a very intelligent and inquisitive mind, so it’s hard to say if it will work on him. Although there was a brief moment that Winston believed that 2 + 2 = 5. It all felt pretty real, but with so much pain being inflicted on Winston’s body, I’m sure it was a hallucination. The real test is to see how O’Brien’s “patient” acts when his answers aren’t based off of a pain meter being hooked up to his body. Perhaps we will get to see what that is like…

Throughout this entire section I thought that we were in Room 101, only to find out near the end that we were not. This was a bit confusing and I think that there could have been a bit more clarification.

However, this scares me because Winston was already being tortured into lunacy (or “sanity” if you are O’Brien). If the Room 101 is a torture room, I cannot imagine what else might possibly be in store for Winston.

On a final note, I’m still not really sure how long Winston has been tortured for. At one point, O’Brien referenced that he had been taking care of Winston for seven years. But later on, when asked how long he thought he’s been there for, Winston guessed months. This is quite a gap for interpretation. Since seven years is a long time to be tortured, I’m going to go with the latter and say Winston has only been in there for several months.

The story continues next week!

Twice the Mice… Or Is It Rats?

Wow! This section was definitely a game changer!

I think it is safe to say that Winston and Julia and no longer an item. They are both now in the custody of the Thought Police. It turns out that their hideaway place was bugged all along (with a telescreen behind a painting) and the owner/prone Mr. Charrington turned out to be an undercover agent. I really didn’t see that coming! When their hiding place was surrounded, I was thinking about Mr. Charrington and hoping that the Though Police didn’t hurt him too badly or kill him. Over all, great job disguising him! I definitely sensed something was wrong when Julia noticed that the stove was out of oil (when she had just filled it), but the telescreen suddenly talking caught me off guard and was super creepy.

Winston and Julia’s affair had been going on for quite some time so I don’t really understand why the Thought Police didn’t take them away sooner. Is there a reason behind all of this?

Winston acknowledges that his jail cell is lighted 24/7 and thinks about O’Brien’s comment that they will meet where there is no darkness. Now, this all makes perfect sense (and yes, my original guess was wrong). Suddenly, O’Brien appears and a bit of hope sparks up in me, but rationally this doesn’t make sense because nobody is ever saved by the Brotherhood. Then, we discover a guard is behind O’Brien with a truncheon in his hand and my feelings about O’Brien change in an instant.

I do remain confused (and excited to read more) about O’Brien and now I am thinking that he was playing Winston all along. Seriously? Two undercover agents were playing Winston? And I was so sure that O’Brien was a good guy! Honestly, I don’t know anymore. What I do know is that Winston is in for beating and a half! Poor guy! Not sure I’m ready to read about what they are going to do to him, especially since the other jail mate was dragged out of the cell saying that he would let them slit his wife and kids’ throats if he did not have to go back into Room 101.

I would have liked to have seen Winston get to do some damage to Big Brother before he was captured. You know, making it feel as if he made a difference? O’Brien said that not until after Winston finished the book would be considered apart of the Brotherhood, but Winston did not get to the end. So, technically he still isn’t a part of it. Not that any of that matters, as I’m sure he will be tortured the same.

Next time, I’m guessing we will enter Room 101…

Sanity is Not Statistical

Well, while this section was very informative it was my least section to read through. I had to take several breaks throughout. I was reading a book within a book. First section that I looked into is called WAR IS PEACE. Next chapter: IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH.

There were so many details about who is at war with each other (Oceania, Eastasia, and Eurasia) and how they got there. While I appreciated some of the clarity, I still found a lot of it dull. The tone for this book within a book was clearly very serious. The purpose was informative. We find out that each country’s (is that what you would call something this large?) goal is to take over the entire world and to abolish thinking. Two very hard things to accomplish, if you asked me.

I am more than a little bit confused when you mention that building consumer goods is necessary for war, but that these goods mustn’t reach the population. Why would you need to build something only to throw it away in the ocean or desert? This doesn’t add up.

However, I did like that you through in Julia’s reaction to the book: completely uninterested. It added to the fact that she probably doesn’t want to be apart of the Brotherhood and is only going along with it for Winston. She needs to read the book before she is considered apart of the Brotherhood and she tells Winston to read it out loud as she doses off to sleep or to summarize it to her later. Sounds very true to her character.

The section left me with an interesting phrase coming from Winston as he dosed off the sleep: Sanity is not statistical. What an interesting observation!

Happy Easter!