1984 Reading Blog #3

1. Has Big Brother won? Why/Why not? 
2. Propose a way that the One State can be brought down. 
3. What do you think happens to Winston Smith at the end of the novel? 
Support your answer with analysis of specific quotes from the text.

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1. Yes,  in the end,  the Party has managed to successfully "convert" Winston to their ideals through careful psychological manipulation. This is most obviously seen in the concluding sentences of the novel: "...the struggle was finished. He had won the victory over himself. He loved Big Brother" (pg. 297). Winston had three primary barriers the Party had to tear down before they could finally get him to submit: 1) his tenacious belief in the existence of objective reality and universal truths, 2) his love for Julia, and 3) his willful refusal to "love" Big Brother. O'Brien manages to destroy the first obstacle during torture sessions in the Ministry of Love, where he utilizes both pain-inducing physical methods (electric shock, beatings, starvation) and psychological manipulation (having Winston view his own dilapidated body in the mirror, solitary confinement, fostering a bond of trust between Winston and himself) to tear down Winston's clinging belief in objective reality. He manages to convince Winston that 2+2 can equal 5 (or even 3, if the circumstances call for it), freedom can be slavery, and that "nothing exists except through human consciousness" (pg. 265). Therefore, if the Party did declare that the sky was green or 2+2=5 or whatever other ludicrous assertion they needed to be true at that moment, and Winston could manage to see the green sky or perceive that 2+2 did indeed equal 5 within his mind, then in reality, it could be true. Having broken down this intellectual barrier within Winston, O'Brien still recognized that he had some emotional ties keeping him from truly committing to the Party with not just his mind, but also his heart. Winston's outburst ("he had heard himself cry aloud, "Julia! Julia! Julia, my love! Julia!" pg. 280) demonstrated that his feelings for Julia still took precedence over his loyalty to the Party. Therefore, it served as another obstacle for O'Brien to get rid of before Winston's conversion could ever be complete. His feelings are destroyed during an encounter in Room 101, a room found in the lowest quarters of the Ministry of Love that's rumored to house 'the worst thing in the world'. In Winston's case, the worst thing in the world happens to be rats. O'Brien, therefore, prepares a cage full of hungry rats that he prepares to let loose on Winston's face. Just before the cage door slides open, Winston, driven insane by panic, shouts: "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!" (pg. 286). This signified that Winston had finally relinquished his feelings for Julia in place of the fear instilled by the Party. Later, Winston and Julia discuss what happened to both of them in Room 101, and how the event managed to put a nail in the coffin of their feelings for each other:


"Sometimes, [Julia] said, they threaten you with something you can't stand up to, something you can't even think about. And then you say, 'Don't do it to me, do it to somebody else, do it to so-and-so.' 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."
"All you care about is yourself," he echoed.
"And after that, you don't feel the same toward the other person any longer."
"No," he said, "you don't feel the same." (pg. 292)



The final barrier to Winston's conversion is finally struck down while he sits in the Chestnut Tree, alone, much like the political convicts Jones, Aaronson, and Rutherford had done long before him. Looking up at a poster of Big Brother, he realizes he truly does "love" him, thus completing his conversion and making him completely subject to the Party. It is through this three-step process that Winston is broken down and Big Brother becomes the victor.


2. Using the physical and psychological methods mentioned above that were used on Winston, it seems impossible that the One State could ever be combated long enough to be brought down. The system is designed to ensure that no unorthodox thoughts exist anywhere, even in the minds of prisoners about to be put to death by the State. Even the proles, who might have a chance at breaking loose, are kept in a permanent state of poverty and lack of education so that they will never have the means to actually do so. Rebellion, therefore, is literally made impossible by the structure of the system.


3. We can guess at Winston's fate by noticing that Orwell seems to put him in the same position of Jones, Rutherford, and Aaronson at the conclusion of the novel. Much like the three rebels before him, Winston will likely live what remains of his life in complete and utter helplessness before the State. They might ask him to come forth and confess his crimes openly, they might decide to finally end his life, or they might allow him to carry out the rest of his existence freely, as he no longer poses any sort of threat to the Party. Whatever they decide, the Party has ensured that Winston will never be able to rebel against it, whether through action or simply through thought. After all, the capacity for rebellion has been "cauterized" out of him, and therefore his future actions became a subject of little importance to the Party.