Week 7-1984

At the beginning of this reading he didn't know where he was now and the ceilings were high and the walls were glittering white porcelain. His room makes me think of a caged rat being watched on an experiment, which he is. He says "The Party prisoners were always silent and terrified, but the ordinary criminals seemed to care nothing for anybody" this is because the ordinary criminals are just paroles who don't have any idea what the government is doing and how powerful they really are.

What is up with the drunk woman in the prison with him? Why don't the paroles question why a party member would be there? He still believes O'Brien is on his side and he will hopefully get a razor. The prison was the place with no darkness from his dream. He never even could tell the time of day in the prison.

What does he mean when he says there is only one offense? Ampleforth said he was in jail because he used the word God in a poem, why not just throw the poem away, erase what he wrote, and not publish it so he doesn't get in trouble?

This prison Winston is in is making him crazy, we can see this from his mind when he starts to wander from subject to subject. When Parson's was prisoned he said that he was caught in his sleep yelling "Down with Big Brother" and then he said, "Between you and me, old man, I'm glad they got me before it went any further. Do you know what I'm going to say to them when I go up before the tribunal? 'Thank you,' I'm going to say 'thank you for saving me before it was too late.'" That shows how brainwashed they really are. He was even proud of his daughter for turning him in because "it shows I brought her up in the right spirit anyway."

After Parsons went to the bathroom the toilet didn't work which is ironic because they have to sit there smelling it and it shows how miserable everything around him is. The chinless man showed he was kind and humane when he tried giving the skull face man a piece of bread, but the cruel policemen, who were starving them, yelled at the chinless man when he tried. They then beat the chinless man.

What is room 101? The skull face man even said "You can take the whole lot of them and cut their throats in front of my eyes and I'll stand by and watch it. But not room 101!" (talking of his family) When he was hanging onto the iron leg it was like hanging onto his life. No one did anything because they didn't want to lose their lives too.

Why hasn't Winston been taken to room 101 yet? O'Brien came in and Winston found out he was a "bad guy" and a guard shot Winston in the elbow. Then the guard laughed. This is so inhumane and Winston says "Nothing in the world is so bad as physical pain."

When he wakes up it reminds me of a scary movie. During intervals of beatings, how come people came and looked at him and cleaned him up? He confesses to numerous crimes that he didn't do, but he had to confess something or they would keep beating him until they heard what they wanted to hear. He has pretty much lost it. What was up with the being swallowed up into the eyes....what did that symbolize? Is it that he doesn't have a mind of his own, he is just being swallowed up into the Party's way of thinking?

That's weird someone (O'Brien) had been watching him for 7 years! Was that a dream when he saw the men in white coats, O'Brien, Julia, and Mr. Charrington shouting with laughter down the corridor? It is hard to know what's the truth since Winston is so out of it. How can O'Brien get in Winston's head, even his dreams?

O'Brien, now, has the power to pull Winston's ligaments apart with a dial. This part is scary, it reminds me of something the movie Saw would do. O'Brien then says "You are mentally deranged" which is ironic because right now O'Brien is the mentally deranged man. If O'Brien had a copy of that picture, they must keep copies of everything, right?

It is so ironic again when O'Brien says "It's not easy to become sane." Winston is the sane one and O'Brien is not. Why does Winston say O'Brien is his friend, and it's not just because he stopped the pain. Is it because he is now brainwashed and thinks O'Brien is right? O'Brien says they don't care about the crimes they committed, they just want to cure their thoughts.

O'Brien is saying so many crazy, cruel statements about how he will never live and he says "We shall squeeze you empty, and then we shall fill you with ourselves." Simply, the Party can never be beat.

They did some sort of explosion on Winston and he is now even more brainwashed. Winston got to ask questions next and found out that Julia was tortured, and Big Brother exists as the embodiment of the Party but he will never really know if he is a living human being. He then asks if Big Brother exists the same way as he exists and O'Brien says, "You do not exist." which is true, his emotions have been stripped away. The chapter ends with O'Brien telling Winston he knows whats in Room 101, is that because he's in it?