1984 - George Orwell - Part 5

1984 - George Orwell

2017 Reading Challenge - Day 11

 January 11, 2017 

Book 2 - Nineteen Eighty Four (1984)
by George Orwell (1948)

 Part 5 - Pages 297-340

Reading Time - 40 minutes

All is not well for Winston and Julia. Turns out O'Brien was not a member of any conspiracy and that Winston was under surveillance for a long time. He and Julia are separated and tortured independently. It is not a pleasant process. O'Brien is one of the torturers and explains to Winston that they want him to be a true convert before executing him. They don't want any martyrs. Far better to convert the heretic than to have him go to his death unrepentant and defiant, even if only in his mind and heart.

The brain-washing or re-education of Winston is a long and labourious process. It takes a lot for him to agree with heart-felt truthfulness that 2+2=5. O'Brien tries to convince Winston that reality does not exist as an objective fact but is a construct of the mind. Everything is a construct of the mind. It is just too bad that Winston's mind struggles to grasp this. In the eyes of O'Brien, Winston is a lunatic.

It is a sad thing to realize how weak the human psyche is. It also makes one question the use of torture by any so-called democratic society. And yet... can any country claim to be untarnished by the stain of torture? While Orwell has portrayed a totalitarian state even beyond the likes of Nazi Germany or Stalin's Russia... one wonders how much of what he portrays actually takes place in various countries around the world. Dictatorships are not an extinct species by any means. I had rather held out hope that Winston might survive or escape but this section tells me that he is doomed.