Socratic Seminar Preparation 4

Part 1: Summarization:

In Book Three of 1984, Winston is put into prison where he is starved, beaten, and both physically and mentally tortured. He is put through a process of reintegration where he has to reshape his entire processes of thinking to match that of the Party's. Eventually, he betrays everyone he knows and comes to believe, and even love, Big Brother; a feat that he believes has finally ended his suffering.  

Part 2: Question Development:

Level Two:

1)      Why does Winston believe that physical pain is worse than psychological pain?

Winston has lived a life filled with psychological pain; he experienced it from early childhood after being separated from his family and in the emptiness that filled him throughout Party life. However, he able to survive this pain because inside he knew who he was and what he believed and as miserable as he could be made, these couldn't be taken away from him no matter what psychological torture they inflicted on him. However, once the physical torture begins, O'Brien feels in so much pain that he believes they could make him say or do anything so long as it would make the pain go away. At the start of Book Three, Winston believes that he would ask for an increase in pain to save Julia, but by the end he realizes that "Never, for any reason on Earth, could you wish for an increase of pain. Of pain you could wish only one thing: that it should stop." (Page 213). The powerless of his mind to compete with the whims of his body makes Winston believe that the physical torture is worse than the mental one he was forced to endure.

2)      Why does Winston continue to love and trust O'Brien even after O'Brien tortures and torments him?

Winston continues to love and trust O'Brien even after the torture probably for one or both of two reasons. The first of these reasons is that Winston has grown to see O'Brien as a confidant or friend throughout this novel. Whenever he is in trouble, he looks for O'Brien to save him, whenever he is lonely, he searches for O'Brien's voice. This is most likely a psychological contraption that Winston invented to keep himself sane. Winston knew that he would be caught whether he trusted O'Brien or not, so he chose to trust O'Brien simply because he needed to do so to survive. He needed to create a being that understood him and loved him because no real being existed. Another reason could be what we see in modern instances of kidnapping where after awhile the kidnapped persons do not even attempt escape when given the option because they have been psychologically manipulated to believe that their kidnapper is helping them. O'Brien is the only one who can give Winston the things he needs - food, water, shelter, etc. so it is easy for Winston to not see that O'Brien is causing his suffering because he is so dependent on O'Brien to survive.

 

3)      Why is Winston "cured" after he wishes Julia's death over his own?

Before the rats incident, Winston had proven that he was mentally manipulated by the Party; however, it is not until now that he has shown it to take over his emotional side. Winston sees himself as above the Party because although it controls his thoughts, it cannot control his feelings. At one point he even says that he believes death would be a triumph because it would mean that he died with his heart still set against the Party. It's like O'Brien says: it's not enough to believe Big Brother, but Winston must love Big Brother to be set free of his prison. When Winston betrays Julia, betrays the one promise he made to himself and betrays who he thought he was, he loses his emotions and gives way to the Party to save himself. He no longer wishes to be with Julia; he wishes only to be safe and under the Party because it is simpler and less painful at this point, and pain has become a major fear for Winston.

4)      How does the Party view reality? Is this accurate? 

Party members have a warped sense of reality that lies entirely in what they believe. While torturing Winston in the Ministry of Love, O'Brien continually asks him what 2+2 equals and waits for him to say 5 after telling him that's what he wants Winston to say. Winston is driven mad by this exercise; he finally screams that it is 5 just to stop the pain, but O'Brien says it's not enough because Winston has to believe that it's 5 because the Party says it is, and he can tell Winston is lying. On Page 222, it says, "But I tell you Winston that reality is not eternal. Reality exists in the human mind and nowhere else...Whatever the Party holds to be the truth, is truth. It is impossible to see reality except by looking through the eyes of the Party."  This vision of reality is centered around humans rather than natural laws of the world, shown by when O'Brien states that the Party could move the planets if it wanted to. I do not believe this is an accurate view of reality because there are certain scientific truths that are real and just because we bend our minds to think of them differently does not change the ways in which they work. For instance, in the period of the Reformation, many Christians denied that we lived in a heliocentric universe because the Church had always taught that we lived in an Earth-centered universe, and they did not want the Government to gain power by asserting this new truth based on scientific proof versus mere supposition. What people claim as reality is a form of power and being able to control this reality and what is "normal" and "true" is the real goal of the Party in showing their ability to twist the truth. The Party does not care about true reality; in fact, O'Brien has explanations for historical events like archeological discoveries (biologists "made up bones") and The Inquisition ("a failure because it spurred more instead of fewer heretics.) The Party controls not only thought, but also a falsified version of "reality."

5)      Why does Winston continue to dream of his shooting even after he is free?

Winston dreams of being shot because now that he has been brainwashed by the Party, he has no reason to live. After seeing Julia, he realizes that the only things in life that used to give him meaning (fighting against the party, having sex with Julia, the concept of joining O'Brien and the Brotherhood) are all gone and he is left as one of the Party's minions whom he used to feel sorry for. As Winston dreams of being shot, he says, "But it was all right, everything was all right, the struggle was finished. He had won the victory over himself. He loved Big Brother." (Page 266). Before his arrest, Winston feared death because he saw his rebellious life as important and as a force to end the Party's rule. However, now Winston is no longer afraid of death or the Party because he loves Big Brother and knows that whatever happens is for Big Brother. Winston is most likely depressed as well as brainwashed, and lacks even the most basic desire to continue living life the way it now will be.
 

6)      How has Winston's thoughts about sanity changed in these chapters?
 

When Winston was reading the Brotherhood's book that O'Brien gave him, he made a statement that sanity was not statistical and just because most men followed the Party did not mean that it was the sane thing to do. However, after he is arrested, Winston starts to become brainwashed by O'Brien and says, "Sanity was statistical. It was merely a question of learning to think as they thought." (Page 247). Winston is bombarded with punishment every day after his arrest, including beatings, starvation and emotional abuse and because of this, he comes to think that everything he believes must be wrong. He concludes that he must be insane because everyone else is able to believe the Party and able to live peacefully within it. The pain he endures calls him to question his own sanity and whether majority rule was right. One could argue Winston changes his view on sanity because of the torture he endures; we may never really know if he changes to avoid pain or embrace what is easier.

Rhetorical Appeals: In these questions, I used mainly emotional and logical appeals. For emotional appeals, I questioned character's motives and used words like torment, torture, and brainwashing to instill fear in the reader. For logical, I talked about thought processes and why Winston's views on things may have changed due to his changing environment.

Level Three:

1)      Are speed cameras in America a form of totalitarian control?

 

I think that speed cameras can be both positive and negative. While speed cameras have helped to catch speeders who have caused accidents and have encouraged safer driving, they have also been wrong before and have caused accidents as people slow down for the cameras, jamming on their breaks and causing unsafe driving conditions.  Big Brother in the novel watches over people with telescreens in order to catch people committing Thoughtcrime, and thus, keeps Oceania safe. This is the same argument that speed camera supporters use, however in reality this is not always the case.

2)      Is torture an ethical or effective way to get information?

I think that torture is never an ethical or effective way to get information. I cannot believe that there is ever a time where torturing another human being (whether mentally, physically, or emotionally) is appropriate. In some ways, torture is even worse than the death penalty because your life is being sucked away from you while you are being forced to live. However, beyond that, torture is simply an ineffective means to get information anyhow. When one is being tortured, one would say anything to get away from being tortured, including (as Winston did) making things up. This leads to false information, which can be detrimental by wasting time and causing improper actions to be taken to combat whatever the information was supposed to assist in. Torture is a popular means of interrogation today in may countries, including the U.S. (see: waterboarding scandal, Guantanamo Bay issues, etc) but developed countries, as a whole, are moving away from torture for many reasons, including its ineffectiveness and the negative way it makes a country perceived.

3)      Can love overcome betrayal?

I believe that love can overcome betrayal if the love is true. When Winston and Julia betray each other after being tortured, they can not stand to see each other afterward, as demonstrated by their awkward and emotionless meeting in the park. I believe that this is because they never really loved each other and were so consumed by lust and because they so easily betrayed each other, they realize this. However, when couples who really care for each other encounter betrayal, often times they can find it within themselves to forgive the other person because they can't imagine their lives without them. With cheating for example, some couples are unable to move past it while some are. It really all depends on the couple, the strength of their love, and the reason for the betrayal. Love can overcome betrayal when the love is predicated on truth and a desire to be a better person as part of the couple, but it cannot overcome betrayal with a shaky foundation.
 

Rhetorical Appeals: In my first question, I used mainly logical appeals to show that totalitarian control can exist in many different shapes and sizes apart from the novel. In the last two question, I used emotional appeals to make the reader feel fear about torture and betrayal.

 

Part 3: Tracking Evidence:

1)      “'Who denounced you?' said Winston. 'It was my little daughter,' said Parsons...'I don't bear her any grudge for it. In fact I'm proud of her. It shows I brought her up in the right spirit, anyway.'" (Page 208).

2)      "Their real weapon was the merciless questioning that went on and on hour after hour, tripping him up, laying traps for him, twisting everything that he said, convicting him at every step of lies and self-contradiction, until he began weeping as much from shame as from nervous fatigue." (Page 215)

 

3)   "If you are a man, Winston, you are the last man. Your kind is extinct; we are the inheritors." (Page 241).

 

4)   "Don't give up hope. Everything is cured sooner or later. In the end we shall shoot you." (Page 244).

 

5)   "In the eyes of the Party there was no distinction between the thought and the deed." (Page 216).

 

6)   "His mind shriveled as he thought of the unanswerable, mad arguments with which O'Brien would demolish him." (Page 231).