The Ministry of Love

    The way the Thought Police convinces stray Party Members to fully submit to Big Brother and the Party is pretty interesting. They started about by beating Winston just to get him to confess to a bunch of crimes, some of which it was pretty clear he didn't do. I did wonder why this was a step in the process. If they're end goal is to make Winston an actual believer in the party, why make him confess to everything and anything when you know he's only doing that to stop the pain. These interrogations could be a way to break him down, physically and mentally, and make him more receptive to future torture, but I'm not sure.

    After that it seems like they get Winston to submit simply by confusing him. O'Brien lays out complicated arguments about why what he sees is not actually reality and reality doesn't really exist, and at some point he's drugged so he's no longer sure about seeing four rings. This was a pretty weird approach, and I wonder how they could possibly get it to stick. Make him actually believe it in the long term. Or even in the short term before he's killed.

    I also think that Winston underestimated what the Thought Police could do when he assured himself that they wouldn't be able to change his thoughts. It seems like they already have, at least in terms of how many fingers O'Brien was holding up, and with more torture I would expect ideas towards the Party and even Julia to completely shift.

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