By: Samuel Trimble
P/4
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Winston Smith- a member of the Outer Party who
used to work in the Ministry of Truth revising
documents for the Party. After being arrested by
the party, Winston is diminished to almost nothing
after being beaten and tortured by the Party and
O’Brien himself to comply. After being diminished
to a gaunt barely human figure from the Party’s
violent interrogation tactics, Winston comes to the
ultimate realization in these chapters that he
cannot defeat the Party and he accepts
everything. We also learn that Winston’s living
conditions in his cell have improved and he has
now grown stronger and fatter again through
direct characterization.
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O’Brien- believed to be part of the
Brotherhood by Winston, but also is the one
who interrogates him in “Room 101”. He
believes Winston has improved by accepting
the Party and Big Brother, but sends him to
“Room 101” after an outburst which revealed
he still loved Julia. For Winston to realize that
he must also love Big Brother and the Party,
not just accept them, O’Brien uses another
scare tactic and method of torture against
Winston in “Room 101” to make him really
accept and love everything about the Party.
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Officer- described as the waxen-faced
officer; primarily is only mentioned in the
background of O’Brien.
Guards- described as the black-uniformed
guards; primarily only involved in escorting
Winston and other prisoners to and from
their cells.
The Rats- the animals used in torture
against Winston to make him finally accept
everything and love everything about the
Party and Big Brother.
torpid- inactive or sluggish
(p.226) –Used in the beginning of the chapter
to describe Winston’s actions in his before
he grows physically well again.
Frivolity- state of a lack of seriousness or sense
(p.228) –Used to describe the state of how
Winston remembers grasping his frivolity
during his arrest by the Though police.
Self-deception- the act of deceiving of fooling
oneself.
(p.228) – Used to describe Winston after he
“accepts” the party and he still remembers
remembering contrary and false thoughts about
the party, they are explained as products of self
deception
Crimestop- newspeak word meaning to instinctively
stopping oneself from the threshold of a
dangerous thought.
(p.229) –Used when Winston is said to have accepted
the Party and Big Brother, he refers to this term that
he should have followed to save himself
beforehand.
heretical- the idea that a professed believer
maintains his belief contrary to those of his
church or government.
(p.231) –Used to describe Winston of having a
hidden heretical belief of the Party
previous to his arrest.
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“He knew now that for seven years the Thought
Police had watched him like a beetle under a
magnifying glass.”
Orwell uses this simile found on page 228 to show a
comparison between how the Thought Police had
watched Winston compared to a beetle under a
magnifying glass. This comparison is significant to the
novel and this chapter because Orwell uses it to show
the extremity of how close the Thought Police had
actually watched Winston and Julia throughout their
daily lives by comparing that action to how close a
beetle would be watched under a magnifying glass
which shows the reader that the Thought Police had
been watching Winston’s actions far longer than
Winston or the reader thought.
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“He was not any longer in the narrow white corridors of the
Ministry of Love; he was in the enormous sunlit passage, a
kilometer wide, down which he had seemed to walk in the
delirium induced by drugs.”
This metaphor appears on page 230 and Orwell uses this metaphor
to compare the narrow passages of the Ministry of Love to a
contradicting place, a wide sunlit passage. This metaphor is quite
significant to the novel because it shows that Winston is so feeble
emotionally from the Ministry’s interrogation tactics and drugs that
he believes that the Party can not bring him anymore pain and
that the narrow passages of the Ministry can become a delirium or
hallucination of a wide sunlit passage to him. This metaphor used
by Orwell also seems to hint at Dramatic Irony where Winston is
emotionally unstable enough to believe that he is in a
contradicting place to the Ministry of Love in his mind, but the
reader knows in reality Winston is still induced by drugs and torture
in the Ministry of Love.
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“It was as though she had got into the texture of
his skin.”
This simile appears on page 230 after Winston is said
to have an outburst thinking about Julia. Orwell uses
this to show that Winston’s feelings for Julia are still
evident inside of him despite the Party’s attempts to
rid him of these thoughts. This simile is quite significant
in this chapter because it shows that the Party’s
scare tactics on Winston have forced him to finally
accept and obey the Party, but he still secretly
hated the Party and had managed to keep his inner
heart inviolate up until this point in the chapter
because Winston realizes he still has feelings inside of
him for Julia.
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“Hatred would fill him like an enormous roaring
flame.”
Another simile used by Orwell on page
231compares Winston’s hatred toward the Party to
an enormous roaring flame. Winston’s hatred in
this part of the novel is cajoled by his belief that he
would be shot from behind whenever he least
expected it. If the Party had decided to shoot him
like that, his hatred or any other heretical thought
against the Party would go unpunished and out of
the Party’s reach forever if they indeed shot
Winston from behind like he believed. Winston
viewed that to die hating them, was an un
punishable freedom by the Party.
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“The thing that is in Room 101 is the worst thing
in the world.”
This hyperbole is found on page 233, and is
also a quote of what O’Brien says to Winston
when Winston is called to Room 101 after his
outburst of screaming Julia’s name throughout
the Ministry. Orwell uses this hyperbole to
basically exaggerate the contents of what is
really in Room 101 as a quote from what
O’Brien said, would further intimidate Winston.
Orwell also uses the hyperbole to further
foreshadow to the reader that what is really in
Room 101 must be quite vile and despicable.
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“He was in the middle of a great empty plain,
a flat desert drenched with sunlight, across
which all sound came to him out of immense
distances.”
This example of a metaphor is found on page
234 of the book, and is used by Orwell to
create imagery of the scene where Winston is
in Room 101. Orwell is able to use this
metaphor to create vivid imagery of the
scene by not only his diction, but the
comparison itself. This metaphor is comparing
Winston tied to a chair in the middle of the
large Room 101 to being in the middle of a
great empty plain.
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Irony
There is evidence of Orwell using Irony in these
chapters to contrast to what actually happened
to what was expected to happen. For example in
the novel Winston and Julia believe that there love
is stronger than the party and that even if they are
forced into confessing everything that the party
cannot change their inner hearts and love for
each other. However this is not what actually
happens, both Julia and Winston betray each
other and in the end the Party succeeds in making
them no longer have love for each other. This
ironic situation that Orwell uses in these chapters
and later chapters in the book, is Irony of Situation.
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While in the Ministry of Love, Winston
realizes that stupidity was as necessary as
intelligence, and as difficult to attain. How
is this true, especially in Winston’s case, in
the society in 1984?
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In 1984, Orwell says stupidity was as necessary as
intelligence, and as difficult to attain. In the society of
1984, this is evident because the citizens of Oceania
are expected by the totalitarian government to have
no heretical thoughts or beliefs and to conform to
everything the Party and Big Brother says. For the
citizens to do this with out any question, Orwell means
to say that stupidity would suit the citizens well to
conform to all the Party’s beliefs. In Winston’s case
though, he is more intelligent than the average citizen
of Oceania and it has been harder for him to accept
the Party and all their beliefs since their slogans and
actions contradict themselves. For example this can
be seen in the Party’s slogans: War is Peace, Freedom is
Slavery, and Ignorance is strength, the chocolate
rations, and the changing from being at war with
Eurasia to Eastasia.
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After Winston gives in to the Party and their
beliefs, he still remembers having contrary
thoughts to the Party, how does Winston
explain these memories to himself?
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Winston still remembers that the party had
changed Oceania from being at war with
Eurasia to Eastasia, the altering of the
photograph of Jones, Aaronson, and
Rutherford,qnd altering the past hundreds of
times by the Party, along with many other
contrary memories to the Party’s beliefs.
Winston is able to explain these contrary
memories as products of self-deception, which
meant he fooled his mind into believing that
these events had never occurred and they
were all false memories.
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O’Brien had previously told Winston that he
should already know what was in Room
101, it is the worst thing in the world. Why
might O’Brien had not told Winston right
away what was actually waiting for him in
Room 101?
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Because O’Brien says that Room 101 is the
worst thing in the world and the worst thing
in the world varies from individual to
individual. By not telling Winston what is
actually in Room 101 gives him more fear
of what could be awaiting him. Also by
leaving this question unanswered earlier in
the book, Orwell creates suspense for the
reader.
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After Winston has an emotional breakdown
about Julia, O’Brien tells Winston that the
time for him has come to take the final step
to not only obey Big Brother, but to love
him. Up until this point how has Winston
always acted towards the Party?
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Up until this point, Winston has believed
himself to be a rebel against the Party and
took a kind of pride in it. Orwell says
Winston obeyed the Party, but still hated
the Party. Winston had always been able
to hide this belief and heretical mind of his
beneath his appearance of conformity
under his job as an outer Party member.
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Winston’s breaking point where he
ultimately betrays Julia in the novel is when
O’Brien presents him to the rats in the cage
mask in Room101, explain how Orwell uses
foreshadowing in previous chapters to hint
at Winston’s fear of the rats of London and
his ultimate fate in Room 101?
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Orwell uses foreshadowing in the previous chapter
four of book two where Winston and Julia are lying
on the bed together in Mr. Charrington’s room
when a rat appears in the corner of the room.
Winston is terrified by the sight of the rat, and
describes the rats of London to be huge brown
ones swarming the streets and are even known to
attack children and babies. With with this
knowledge here, the reader becomes aware of
Winston’s fear of the rats and their viciousness
which foreshadows his fate in Room 101 with what
is said by O’Brien to be the worst thing in the world,
which in Winston’s case would be the rats.
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In the previous chapter, Winston is tortured and interrogated into a gaunt barely living
figure by the Ministry of Love where O’Brien shows Winston his reflection for the first time in
months which demoralized Winston further at the sight of his decomposing body. Now
though in the beginning of chapter IV, Winston’s living conditions in his cell are said to
have improved and he is able to wash up and is given more food. We are told that
Winston has also grown fatter and stronger again since these improvements and no
longer feels on the hearth of death. At first Winston is inactive but his mind begins to
wander allowing him to think and dream a lot more about happy places. Winston is also
given a slate to write on, which he intends to use to reeducate himself and after all of the
interrogation tactics, torture, and drugs used on him during his previous time in the Ministry
of Love since his arrest, Winston has accepted everything. By everything Orwell means
that Winston has ultimately accepted the Party and Big Brother and their beliefs and the
fact that any of his previous heretical thoughts were false, just products of self-deception
that Winston fooled himself into believing. Winston now obeyed the Party, but he still
hated the Party. However Winston is said to finally just accept the Party and that they
would always just be right, but he still has non-evident internal feelings about him and
Julia locked up inside of him. These non-evident feelings of Winston’s however become
evident to the Ministry's guards and O’Brien when Winston has the realization and belief
that the Party will just shoot him at any given moment in his back which fills him with rage
and with the realization that he still has inner hidden feelings, he has an sudden outburst
which causes him to break down and start crying for Julia. Winston had hoped that he
may have been able to keep his inner heart inviolate from the Party, but the Party now
becomes aware that Winston has still not been “cured” yet and O’Brien calls Winston to
the dreaded Room 101 to finally rid his mind of any heretical thought to the Party.
The end of chapter VI leads into the beginning of chapter V, where
Winston awakes restrained to a chair in the middle of a large
empty cell known as Room 101. At first Winston is alone until O’Brien
enters and presents to Winston a cage of vicious, carnivorous rats
which Winston is entirely afraid of. O’Brien believes Winston must be
cured of any heretical thought to the Party including his love for
Julia (Thoughtcrime) and intends to do so with more tactics of fear
and torture to force Winston into conformity. Winston is quite
intimidated by the cage of rats until O’Brien straps the cage to
Winston’s face when Winston finally breaks and cries out to do it all
to Julia and not him. At this point O’Brien knows as well as Winston
knows that he has betrayed Julia and no longer can love anymore
like he had used to . Winston is now believed to be entirely “cured”
by the Party but is really just crushed by them in the end.
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The overall theme of these chapters deals with the destruction of Winston’s human
values by the Party. Their torture and fear they use on him, forces him to obey and
love the Party and Big Brother no matter what. This obedience forced upon Winston
by the Party can effect all his human emotions and values and not allow him to
think any heretical thought against the Party. This ultimately crushes Winston in the
end because the Party has succeeded in depriving Winston and Julia from any
longer loving each other which is what they believed kept them really human.
Orwell’s tone of these chapters is darkness and fear, which is evident through his
diction and use of literary elements. The Party uses fear in these chapters to
ultimately crush Winston into accepting and loving the Party which Winston
eventually grasps these beliefs because he is in fact afraid of what the Party can
and will do to him. Orwell uses an important simile to describe how Winton finally
accepts the Party: “It was like swimming against a current that swept you
backwards however hard you struggled, and then suddenly deciding to turn round
and go with the current instead of opposing it.” This simile is used by Orwell to
ultimately show the tone and the mood of how these chapters describe the events
of the chapters.
The use of Orwell’s diction also includes many comparisons to show to what extent
Winston’s living condition’s were while in prison and torture in the Ministry of Love
and his use of syntax includes many transitional sentences and phrases and the past
tense to show the passing of time while he was and during his time in Ministry of
Love.