SECTIONS OF GEORGE ORWELL'S 1984:
The relevance of Orwell's 1984 that pertains to modern day society. Is the fact that technology has change the way by which individuals citizens become collective. They are in a state of fear as technology has made the sovereignty more powerful through telescreen surveillance. Liberty is a thought of the past, by which no one is to remember. Yet Winston can't forget the past. As he determines if he will follow the BROTHERHOOD, or will he be attentive to the Party (sovereignty of OCEANIA). Failure to comply to the Party results in torture and death. O'Brien represent the operative of enforcement who are patriots to the sovereignty and will do anything to capture those who have free thoughts and believe in the past. The past was when INDIVIDUALISM, and LIBERTY lead to FREEDOM. These days are long gone! It is 2018 and yet, our liberties are slowly eroding into comformity.
O’Brien shocks Winston
by turning off the
telescreen. Believing that he is free of the
Party’s observation, Winston boldly declares that he and Julia are
enemies of the Party and wish to join the Brotherhood.
O’Brien tells
them that the Brotherhood is real, that Emmanuel Goldstein exists
and is alive, and leads them through a ritual song to initiate them
into the order of rebellion. O’Brien gives them wine, and
Winston
proposes that they drink to the past... Winston continues to seek
an overall explanation of the Party’s control over the present and
the past... this discourse provides a long lull in the
dramatic tension of the novel, setting up the surprising turn of
events that the arrival of the Thought Police constitutes...
Winston sits in a bright, bare cell in which the lights
are always on—he has at last arrived at the place where there is
no darkness. Four telescreens monitor him. He has been transferred
here from a holding cell...
His dreams of the Brotherhood are wrecked when
O’Brien, his hoped-for link to the rebellion, enters his cell. Winston
cries out, “They’ve got you too!” To which
O’Brien replies, “They
got me long ago,” and
identifies himself as an operative of the Ministry
of Love. O’Brien asserts that Winston has known O’Brien was an operative
all along, and Winston admits that this is true....
O’Brien oversees Winston’s prolonged torture sessions.
O’Brien tells Winston that his crime was refusing to accept the
Party’s control of history and his memory. As O’Brien increases
the pain, Winston agrees to accept that O’Brien is holding up five
fingers, though he knows that O’Brien is actually holding up only
four—he agrees that anything O’Brien wants him to believe is true....
Slowly, Winston begins to accept
O’Brien’s version of events. He begins to understand how to practice
doublethink, refusing to believe memories he knows are real... After some time,
Winston is transferred to a more comfortable room
and the torture eases...He comes to the conclusion that he was
foolish to oppose the Party alone, and tries to make himself believe
in Party slogans. He writes on his slate
“FREEDOM IS SLAVERY,”
“TWO AND TWO MAKE FIVE,” and “GOD IS POWER.”...O’Brien replies that obeying Big Brother is not sufficient—Winston
must learn to love him. O’Brien then instructs the guards to take
Winston to Room 101...In Room 101, O’Brien straps Winston
to a chair, then clamps Winston’s head so that he cannot move. He
tells Winston that Room 101 contains “the
worst thing in the world.” He reminds Winston of his worst nightmare...Though his stay at the Ministry of Love has broken his
mind and will and though his love for Big Brother precludes the
need to think for himself, Winston still envisions the day that
the Party will shoot him...
EXTRA SECTIONS OF GEORGE ORWELL'S : 1984
Winston’s powerful fascination with the enigmatic O’Brien
leads him to trust O’Brien and feel safe in his presence, in much
the same way that he feels safe in the room above Mr. Charrington’s
shop. Winston’s hopeful belief in the Brotherhood, uncharacteristic
for a man as fatalistic as he, actually contributes to his sense
of impending doom...O’Brien seems to represent a powerful figure willing to
undermine the Party. He offers a connection to the Brotherhood,
and has an iron will dedicated to fighting the Party. He knows and
is interested in the past, as can be seen in his knowledge of the
song about St. Clement’s Church. He is the embodiment of everything
Winston hoped he would be. As such, O’Brien fills Winston with a
hope that he has never before experienced.
Unlike Winston, Julia
is not interested in widespread rebellion; she simply likes outwitting
the party and enjoying herself. She explains to Winston that the
Party prohibits sex in order to channel the sexual frustration of
the citizenry into fervent opposition to Party enemies and impassioned
worship of Big Brother.
Like the Two Minutes Hate, the Party’s parading of political
enemies through public squares is a demonstration of psychological manipulation...
the Party’s use of such displays illustrates how war serves to preserve
cultural uniformity. War unites the citizens in opposition against
some shadowy foreign evil while also making it impossible for its
subjects to meet or exchange ideas with citizens from other countries,
since the only foreigners in London are prisoners of war....Her understanding of sexual
repression as a mechanism to incite “war fever” and “leader worship”
renders her sexual activity a political act.
