Winston is arested in the building of the Ministry of Love and he understands that O'Brien refered to the cell when he told about "the place with no darkness" because the light are always bright in his cell. In the cell he meets Ampleforth who is arrested of thought crime because his young daughter has reported to the Thought Police that Ampleforth has said "Down with Big Brother" while he was sleeping. I think that Amplefort's daughter never heard him saying those words but reported him because she wanted to be a good citizen.
Winston wants to kill himself and he hopes that O'Brien would keep his promise and bring Winston a razor blade, because the Thought Police interrogates him in a brutal and merciless way. The interrogators even make him to confess crimes he has not committed. When O'Brien arrives to Winston's cell Winston hopes that he would get the razor blade but he finds out that O'Brien is one of the Thought Polices.
O'Brien tries to make Winston believe that Winston is insane and all the lies the Party has told are true. Winston refuses to believe O'Brien even though his attetude makes O'Brien to torture Winston more. At the end of the torture O'Brien allows Winston to ask questions and Winston asks: "Does he [Big Brother] exist in the same way as I exist?". O'Brien answers: "You do not exist". I think that O'Brien meant that Big Brother exists only because people believe that he exists. Maybe he is just a fictional character, created by the Inner Party.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
2 comments:
The Inner Party did create Big Brother because O'Brien won't give Winston a straight answer on whether he exists like Winston or not.
The only other thing I'd have to mention is that it wasn't Ampleforth who was turned in by his daughter, it was Parsons (the fat neighbor of Winston). Ampleforth was turned in for writing "God" in a poem he was reproducing for the Party to distribute. The party doesn't want God mentioned anywhere, I believe, because it wants the Party members to depend on Big Brother and put their faith and hope in him.
I agree with both you and Heather that the Party made "Big Brother", but it's is a mere figure of authority that is only "real" if the people believe.
Post a Comment