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.