Summary and Analysis of 1984 by Worth Books

Author:Worth Books
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Worth Books
Published: 2017-02-27T17:53:48+00:00

THREE

I

Winston assumes he’s in a windowless cell at the Ministry of Love. The cell has a shelf, a lavatory pan, and four telescreens—one on each wall. He hasn’t been fed since his arrest.

Earlier he’d been in a filthy holding facility shared by political prisoners and common criminals. Two women Party members whispered worriedly to one other about something called “Room 101.”

The men in boots bring his colleague, the poet Ampleforth, into the cell. The man is in shambles and doesn’t recognize Winston at first. Ampleforth isn’t sure why he was arrested, but he believes it was because he left the word “God” in a Rudyard Kipling poem.

An officer waves to Ampleforth and says, “Room 101,” and the guards escort him out. Later the cell opens again and Parsons is ushered inside. He’s been detained for committing a thoughtcrime. In his sleep he uttered the words, “Down with Big Brother,” so his daughter reported him. Parsons is taken away, too.

A steady stream of prisoners flows in and out. One woman turns completely white when she’s assigned to Room 101, then another man, apparently starving to death, turns a sickly green when Room 101 is mentioned. Begging not to be taken back there, he offers his wife and children up for slaughter, but the guards drag him out of the cell anyway.

Finally, O’Brien enters and Winston gasps, “They’ve got you too!” But O’Brien replies that they got him a long time ago, and Winston realizes that he’s always known that to be true. A blow to Winston’s elbow knocks him to his knees, and he thinks there’s nothing worse in the world than physical pain.

Need to Know: Winston dimly thinks of Julia, wondering what sort of treatment she’s enduring. He asks himself if he could save Julia by doubling his pain, would he? Intellectually he answers, “Yes,” but in the face of real pain, he decides there are no heroes.

II

Winston is strapped to a cot, while O’Brien and a man with a white lab coat and a hypodermic syringe stand over him. Winston remembers regular interrogation and torture that became less frequent and was replaced by threats of violence and merciless questioning by bespectacled Party intellectuals in twelve-hour stretches. Winston’s sole goal is to find out what they want to know and confess to it. Whether it’s murder, embezzlement, or sexual perversion, it doesn’t matter. He’ll admit to anything.

O’Brien, in control of the pain levers, applies a frightening agony that shoots through Winston’s body. He’s told that the jolt was at 40%, and the levers go all the way up to 100%. Winston knows he’s being reprogrammed to doublethink, but he’s overwhelmed by the pain.

As a test, O’Brien holds up four fingers and asks Winston to agree that there are five. He turns up the pain meter until Winston admits to seeing five fingers. Winston is rewarded with an injection that soothes the pain until it’s almost forgotten. He feels love and gratitude for O’Brien.

O’Brien says that Winston isn’t there merely for confessions or punishment.

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