”The easiest way to control a human mind is through fear and pain”

Winston and Julia are being arrested for their sexual activities, thinking they had excess to a room without a telescreen. They are finding out the opposite in the very moment of the arrestment, and are both being brought away for torture. As a long painful torture on the rack possesses, O´Brien is trying to “re-build” Winston’s mind and forces him to forget the past and his own believes. He tries to make Winston believe that his mind is playing tricks with him and that he is only going to make it right again.

Having read the book “Shutter Island,” one realizes how easy it can be to be fooled into madness. If someone tells you that everyone around you is perfectly normal, while you are the one who is strange, you will eventually fail to resist the “facts” yourself. The same strategy is being used by O´Brien as well, and in the end of the book Winston seems to be brainwashed to a great extent, due to the fact that he truly seems to love Big Brother. It may be, that he had become happier living in a lie, eluding the doubt and the “doublethink.” Maybe, in the society in 1984, it is easier and more harmless just to follow the stream and not your own mind. It is indeed a nightmare-society, where people no longer own their souls, or their minds. In a society where your own mind and intellect will become your biggest enemy, would you choose the easy way and close your eyes for the obvious?      

It is frightening to read about how Winston disappears more and more, and is eventually turned into some sort of “mind-robot.” As for example, O´Brian convinces him that if the government tells him that 2+2 equals five, then that is the right answer. After repeated torture procedures, Winston seems to accept the fact that the answer must be five. I share Winston’s feeling of despair throughout the entire process, and keep wonder why Orwell did not write a happy conclusion. It may be that he simply did not see a happy future, or perhaps, he just wanted to enlighten the brutality in the world, which he predicted. He possibly also wanted the reader to leave the book with a feeling of despair and sorrow, as well as filled with thoughts concerning freedom of the press and speech, supervision and authority. Maybe Orwell was hoping that his readers would never become those who just stand aside, watching the world move in the wrong direction.

Sanna

 

Anders

1 juni 2010 21:42

I must confess that I find your headline rather interesting. Because who can tell what’s right and what’s wrong. Apparently in the novel it’s “The Party” who are omnipotent. However, the issue whether reality is a creation of man or otherwise has been frequently discussed by philosophers through the existence of mankind. It is interesting that Orwell includes this controversial issue in the novel, and thereby joins the party of great philosophers who has discussed this question. I would like to quote Orwell to elucidate what I mean, “You believe that reality is something objective, external, existing in its own right. You also believe that the nature of reality is self-evident. When you delude yourself into thinking that you see something, you assume that everyone else sees the same thing as you.”(p.249) this is what O’Brien tells Winston.

Although this might sound preposterous, no one can ever prove the opposite. Never can anyone certainly know how I perceive my entourage. Neither can anyone prove to me that they actually exist and not just belong to my imagination. Besides, mathematic is a created model by humankind to describe reality. However, if reality is created by man then 2+2 might as well equal 4.

 

Martin

2 juni 2010 15:15

I would like to follow up Anders' final paragraph. When Winston is being brainwashed, how can he know what is right or wrong? If you were forced to amnesia, how can you know if something has been re-written by the government, stating anything but the truth? You have no memory or evidence to prove them lying.

If The Party were to change basic principles of mathematics (which a few invented a long time ago) two plus two could even equal five. Besides, who has the right to say in which order the numbers need to come? Children are taught that one is one, two is two and so on. Naturally anyone could teach them that one means two and two means one. But what happens later? we can only speculate...

The freedom of critisizing, for instance, political figures without being arrested and/or tortured is a privilege few countries offer their citizens.

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