1984 Final

During George Orwell’s dystopian novel 1984, Inner Party leader O’Brien addresses many doctrines into which have numerous meanings behind them. This specific doctrine, that O’Brien speaks to Winston during his torture deals with how Winston is “a flaw in the pattern”(pg210) in the INGSOC society. In this society all knowledge rests in the hands and minds of the Party members and the reality is what the Party says it is. Winston does not believe what the Party presents to him. Because of this Winston is sent to the Ministry of Love where he undergoes his reintegration process in which O’Brien speaks this specific doctrine.
O’Brien claims that Winston is not “sane” meaning that he is someone who has not been manipulated to think what the Party wants them to think. Winston is the type of person to think deeper into things which was not aloud in their society and not capable in Newspeak. In O’Brien’s doctrine he states that “When you delude yourself into thinking that you see something, you assume that everyone else sees the same things as you” which Winston does when he believes that O’Brien is part of the brotherhood and believes O’Brien thinks just as he does. The way Winston thinks goes against the regime of the Party, which leads him into “thoughtcrime” which is the main reason why Winston is in reintegration with O’Brien.
INGSOC has mastered many methods to make people confess imagined crimes; forget thoughts and memories of the past. Ultimately in the end INGSOC goals are to actually make you love INGSOC itself, in which O’Brien does to Winston. One method they use the most is torture. Throughout Winston’s torture sessions, he becomes increasingly eager to believe anything O’Brien tells him. At one point because of all the pain he had endured he saw for a fleeting instant what O’Brien wanted him to see. Pain affects the way we think and act, and it also gives the person who is afflicting the pain power because they know under excruciating pain that person will submit to anything. By torturing Winston O’Brien hopes to cure him of his “insanity”, and his false notion of a reality other then the one the Party presents.
“You must humble yourself before you can become sane” is the last line O’Brien stated in his doctrine. I believe this last line for tells what Wintson will have to endure to reach his “sanity.” He is tells Winston once you have accepted the way of the Party you will then be able to live free about the society. Ultimately at the end this is Winston’s fate, he finally accepts the Party’s depiction of life. For Winston to accept this way of life he had to endure agonizing pain, be humiliated and confess to crimes he never committed which fell under the part where he “must humble” himself first. After enduring these activities he was then able to be free, where he no longer second guessed the Party and finally his inner transformation was complete.

Orwell's 1984

In Orwell’s 1894, a recurring theme that I recognized was control. The Party did not only control every source of information but the bodies and minds of each individual. The Party had the power to rewrite any newspaper, book, speech, poem, and even a historical event. In this book the main character Winston, was one of the people who alter these types of media. The information in each was changed to fit the current standings of Oceania’s economy. Being a citizen of Oceania meant that you were not aloud to keep any documents, records or photos from the past. The Party’s intentions of this were so that each individual would slowly forget their past life and come to terms of the past that the Party presents to them. In the beginning of the book Winston discusses that he was not left any documents or photos from his past, which makes it hard for him to remember how society was before big brother and even the memories of his own mom and dad.
Manipulating the minds of the people of Oceania was also the Party’s forte. No person was aloud to ever think any contradicting thoughts of the Party, which in newspeak terms it was considered doublethink. If doublethink was committed by any person, they were punished and viciously tortured. The torturing was meant so that the individual comes to terms of the reality that the Party enforces upon the whole economy. Along with having your thoughts invaded, you were also subjected to having your body controlled by Big Brother. The party enforces every individual to participate in a rigorous morning work out, no matter the age, sex, or physical condition you are in. Along with these workouts, the mind control and the rearranging of the past, your every move was watched and studied. The party looked at people’s actions to see if they were loyal or not to the party. With any wrong move it could be taken that you were in the brotherhood and quickly lead to an arrest and dim future. The recurring theme of control played major parts in this story and with out this power, the plot, climax and characters would not be what they are.