1984 Quotes Violence

1984 Quotes Violence

1. "His body was flung across the cell and fetched up against the base of the lavatory seat." (3.1.63)

   • The Party uses brutality against captured rebels in order to control and reform them.

2. "I've got a wife and three children. The biggest of them isn't six years old. 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!" (3.1.71, the old tortured man at the Ministry of Love)

   • The type of torture the Party employs is so intense that the people subjected to it are ready to betray anything and anyone in order to avoid it.

3. "Later he was to realize that all that then happened was merely a preliminary, a routine interrogation to which nearly all prisoners were subjected." (3.2.3)

   • Prolonged torture can influence anyone to do anything. Eventually, just the threat of torture is sufficient to make Winston do anything.

4. "Although the pain had brought the sweat out on his forehead, the worst of all was the fear that his backbone was about to snap."

   • "It was a frightening pain, because he could not see what was happening, and he had the feeling that some mortal injury was being done to him."
     • "You have a vivid mental picture of the vertebrae snapping apart and the spinal fluid dripping out of them. That is what you are thinking, is it not, Winston?" (3.2.12-16)
       • O’Brien directs the torture and interrogation of Winston. Prolonged torture has the ability to influence Winston to do anything. Eventually, the threat of torture is sufficient to make him do anything.

5. "All her rebelliousness, her deceit, her folly, her dirty-mindedness – everything has been burned out of her. It was a perfect conversion, a textbook case." (3.2.32-34)

   • Upon O’Brien’s informing Winston of Julia’s ready betrayal of him, Winston is certain that Julia was subjected to torture, just as he was.