Blogging 1984: X (Part 3, Chapters 1 & 2)

Previously in Blogging 1984, Julia and Winston were busted by the Thought Police and a Very Important Motif met its demise on the floor of Mr. Charrington’s shop.

1

Winston is in a holding cell at the Ministry of Love. Ordinary prisoners—your Proles—are as rambunctious as ever, quarreling, throwing up, pulling hidden morsels of food out of their clothing, and being all “help me, I’m poor,” while the political prisoners, or “polits,” are given a little less leeway by the guards.

In amongst hankering for a crumpet, Winston learns about labor camps and the ominous-sounding “room one-oh-one” from Prole chatter. (*makes note*) He spends more time thinking about O’Brien than Julia (“He felt no love for her”), and boy is Orwell making it hard for me to ship this couple. Winston can’t be sure of what time or day it is, for there are no windows and the lights are always on (*ding ding* “The place where there is no darkness”). He wonders if O’Brien will find a way to slip him a razor blade—or if he could even summon the confetti to use a Mach 3 if he got one (verdict: probably not).

Soon enough, who should join Winston in the cell but Ampleforth! Oceania’s poet laureate is in the slammer for failing to remove a reference to God from a Kipling poem (reason: nothing else rhymed with “rod”; I’ve been there). In short order, Ampleforth is marched off to Room 101.

Next up is Parsons, of the jockstrap and terrible children, who was tipped off to the patrols for Thought Crime by his daughter for yelling out in his sleep, “Down with Big Brother!” Like Ampleforth, Parsons concedes he is guilty, guilty!

After a pre-emptive apology and some stomach gurgles, Parsons “plumped his large posteriors onto the lavatory pan. Winston covered his face with his hands.”

This is so far the worst thing to happen in the Ministry of Love.

Parsons is removed and we get a skeletal man who looks more human than a broom, but less human than C-3PO. He has been reduced to a grisly grey frame, and after a prisoner offers him a nibble of bread, the guards beat him further, then hoist him off to Room 101. “Not room 101!” He cries. [Exeunt Ghost of Room 101s Future]

[Diversion to talk for a minute about the cosmic importance of latrines]

Not to overthink the woman who almost barfs on Winston, or Parsons and his regrettable donation to the latrine, but the Proles—untouched as they are by philosophical quandaries and undue knowledge—are walking vats of filth; untidy bodies that disgust and repel, literally overflowing with the accoutrements of humanity (lipids, bile, blood). In contrast, the Party prisoners like Skeletor (above), Inner Party members, and Party members who have managed to subdue their animal impulses are sexless, wraithlike, transcendent in their mastery of Doublethink. Somewhere in between these two visions of humanity is the [regrettable] koan from Ernest Brecker that “we are gods with anuses.” (Sorry.) The point is that humans are nasty, rotting mortals, but our consciousness drives us to seek immortality. In O’Brien’s case, this is achieved by subverting the individual against the Party. The Party, he assures us, will live forever.

[End latrine diversion]

Finally (I mean after several more pages of time ticking by and Winston ruminating on how hungry he is), O’Brien enters.

Winston, not quite getting it, exclaims, “They’ve got you too!”

“They got me a long time ago,” O’Brien says like a sad, cartoon villain who is dolefully winding dynamite sticks around a rock and then reeling out the fuse. Then he tells Winston that, c’monnnn, he knew all along that this was coming.

Come to think of it, there *were* several red flags around O’Brien, the most notable of which was:

• he spoke inside Winston’s head like a ghost.

If someone appears to you in a dream and says something vague and ominous, never ever take them up on an offer to have you over for supper.

A guard with a truncheon commences the beating.

II

Winston’s interrogations/dates with the billy club continue and, under threat of pain, he confesses to all manner of absurd crimes, inclusive of “he was a religious believer, an admirer of capitalism and a sexual pervert.” (Which is the worse crime?) He even confesses to murdering his wife, Katherine, even though we all know he didn’t (but should have). It doesn’t matter that it’s all baloney, because “in the eyes of the Party, there was no distinction between the thought and the deed.”

At some point, an officer threatens Winston with a trip down the hall to Room 101, which prompts a flood of further confessions; Winston has “confessed” so much that by now he is just reciting “the entire history of his life.” (/important) Throughout the interrogation, Winston has had the sense that O’Brien is watching over him, and in fact remembers O’Brien speaking to him:

“For seven years I have watched over you. Now the turning-point has come. I shall save you, I shall make you perfect.”

Now he really is here with O’Brien, living out his fantasy to re-enact “A Whole New World” in the place where there is no darkness, strapped to a Reiki table. O’Brien turns a dial, which sends a jolt of pain through his body so decimating that Winston thinks his backbone might snap. “That was a 40,” O’Brien tells him of the torture machine that goes from 0 (“regular Monday”) to 40 (“seatbelt sign switched on for two hours on bumpy flight while you need to pee”) to 100 (Mariah Carey hitting the G7 in “Emotions”).

O’Brien here has “the air of a teacher taking pains with a wayward student.” It’s Good Will Hunting with less crying and more worrying your backbone will snap. He explains to Winston that he is diseased, mentally deranged, infested with false memories, and needs to be healed. The two have a tête-à-tête about the past, agreeing that it exists only in human memory, or in records, and that if the Party controls those modes, then it controls reality itself. Winston points out that he is capable of having unauthorized memories, and O’Brien counters that he is a lone mind and therefore fallible, while the mind of the Party is collective and therefore immortal. If you have ever had multiple friends misattribute a funny thing you once said to someone else, you will know how true and annoying this is.

“Whatever the Party holds to be truth, is truth.”

^This is what I underlined in an attempt to get the hell out of minitrue as fast as possible. And so begins the great O’Brien-Winston duel over whether 2+2=5. O’Brien holds up four fingers and says “I’m holding up five fingers, how many fingers am I holding up?” Every time Winston says “four,” O’Brien dials up the torture-meter and says, “Why are you hitting yourself, hey? Why are you hitting yourself?” Eventually, Winston’s ass has been whupped so badly by the zap-machine that he sees five fingers, and O’Brien rewards him with some sweet, sweet healing serum, which makes him love O’Brien even more.

Protector/torturer O’Brien explains that killing a heretic only has the effect of martyring them; instead, the Party won’t stop until they have converted them. Of successfully breaking down Jones, Aaronson, and Rutherford, he recalls:

“They begged to be shot quickly, so that they could die while their minds were still clean.”

This is the second-most creepy line to come out of minitrue.

With the help of some pads affixed to Winston’s forehead, O’Brien now blows chunks of his consciousness away, then moves up to Level 2 indoctrination, telling him “You do not exist.”

Winston: Dude, I’m right here.

O’Brien: Ssshhhh, I’m fixing you.

O’Brien tells Winston he can ask any question he likes right now. We learn that Julia cracked without drama, that Big Brother can never die (because he isn’t reallll!), and that Winston shall never know if the Brotherhood exists. But Winston’s final question is the question that also happens to be on your mid-term: What is in Room 101?

A: “You know what is in Room 101, Winston. Everyone knows what is in Room 101.”

If you, like me, have no clue, let’s agree that Room 101 is probably full of Pilates equipment.

Notes:

1. Next time, we find out what is in Room 101. I hope it’s squirrels!
2. What is your take on the cosmic significance of the Proles?
3. Did you know David Bowie started work on a 1984 musical in the 1980s? It was… not good.

Find all of Janet’s 1984 blog here, and find our Blogging the Classics index page here.