Zachary Utopia&Dystopia Blog

 To me, the ending of 1984 is actually a reasonable hopeful one, and the novel is someone about the shortcomings and difficulties of running an authoritarian regime. Especially as we progress into the social media era, it becomes extremely difficult to hide information from people, especially information about the quality of life that other people around the world have. Also, the reader gets to see firsthand the ridiculous amount of manpower and work it takes for the inner party to track and take down Winston. Authoritarian regimes are only successful if a vast majority of the population is complicit in the rule, such as Nazi Germany, and if most of the population isn't complicit, they need to be completely controlled. 8.6.1

 To me, one of the more major overarching points of Book 3, and Winston's general time in captivity, is the hold that physical pain and the ability to live in general has on humans. Winston is able to withstand so much psychological torture and brainwashing as a member of the outer party but is completely broken by torture. Specifically, when O'Brien forces Winston to tell him that 5 is 4 despite the fact that Winston knows it isn't. Everyone needs to live, and no one has superhuman pain tolerance. Even with extreme mental toughness, there are some things that keep every human grounded that can easily break us. 8.6.1

      Through Book 1 of 1984, Winston is convinced that Syme is too intelligent for the party to have stick around, so he believes he will be removed by the party. Given his conversations with him, Winston decides he is an intelligent man, even though he is completely brainwashed by the party and 100% buys into everything they tell him. By Book 2, Winston's prophecy ends up being true as Syme does disappear, ostensibly whisked away by the inner-party because they see him as a threat. I wonder, however, why Syme is a top target of the inner-party, but Winston is not. Is Winston able to hide his free-thinking abilities and intelligence better? 8.6.1