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George Orwell's Room 101 In Nineteen Eighty-Four

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More than a century ago, the horror fiction writer H.P. Lovecraft uttered: “The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear, and the oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown” (BrainyQuote). One can infer that the late writer was portraying the idea that individuals, are pushed to find knowledge in order to conquer their fears however, the true terror that dwells within everyone is the outcome when no knowledge has been acquired. The idea of Room 101 in Nineteen Eighty-Four represents a concept of a dystopian existence where an individual’s subconscious meets the physical reality of suppression and horror.

Throughout history, dating back to the 1300’s, rats have been looked down upon as they were the main carriers of the …show more content…

However, to Winston, mystery surrounds the room as the uncertainty and the fear of the unknown causes him to question the contents within. The idea of Winston not having any awareness of what lies within Room 101 has a strong correlation with the philosophical field of epistemology. Since epistemology is the study of knowledge and what it means “to know”, the lack of knowledge Winston has while locked up in the “place where there is no darkness” causes his mind to wander and think about the endless possibilities that may exist within that space. With no tangible information to grasp, Winston resorts to using him subconscious which causes him to imagine a world different from reality and question the outcomes of events as suggest by O’Brien. “You know what is in Room 101, Winston. Everyone knows what is in Room 101” (Orwell 273). This evidence suggests Winston deep in his mind already understand what awaits him within the torture chamber and by O’Brien expressing this to Winston, it causes Winston to continue seeking for answers. When seeking for answers, individuals stray from what they fear the most naturally, without thinking about it because the human subconscious attempts to keep peace and comfort within the mind. However, when Winston finally gains the crucial information of what lies in Room 101 when

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In between each narrative chapter of The Grapes of Wrath, John Steinbeck wrote intercalary chapters to add to the narrative. These sixteen chapters were a very effective way for Steinbeck to make his points, and progress the theme of the novel. The intercalary chapters were a wise way to summarize the entire struggle of the suffering people during the dust bowl. They showed how Joad family was one example of the millions of families who migrated to California during the dust bowl, and the general rage and resistance felt in the innocent farmers, brought on by rich privileged men who gain their power from the unstoppable big banks. These chapters strengthen my knowledge of the struggles of the time, and give me more information of what is not seen from the Joad’s struggles alone.

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The irony in Room 101 lies in the fact that the Party wants everyone to conform to society. They want everyone to worship Big Brother, hate Emmanuel Goldstein, believe in doublethink, and eventually they want everyone to only speak in Newspeak. Newspeak limits the ideas you can express and therefore limits the thoughts you can have. This essentially gives the Party mind control and perfect submissive citizens with no individuality. But, in Room 101 it uses your own individual fears against you.

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After being tortured and facing his fear in Room 101, Winston was finally broken and now loves the party’s beliefs and Big Brother. Now we do not see the Winston who was against the party, we see him supporting the party because of manipulation through torture. A stylistic device that is used is pathos. Pathos is shown when Winston expresses his happiness that he was finally broken and free to love Big Brother but the reader feels sorry for Winston for getting extremely tortured and manipulated to support the oppressive party and dictator. This relates back to the thesis as George Orwell is predicting how people will get arrested and be manipulated and tortured to make society follow the government’s beliefs.

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"'The thing that is in Room 101 is the worst thing in the world,'" (407). Intimidation was used here to scare Winston into complying to the Party. This technique is used on almost anyone who fights against the Party in any way, shape, or form. Practically everyone knows what Room 101 is, and because of that, people were willing to do anything to avoid that room, even

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Winston was never a devoted follower, constantly questioning the world around him. Even when in custody, Winston continued questioning motives and denouncing the Party and Big Brother, despite the futility. He knew no societal changes would result from his actions, but desperately wanted to share his ideas with someone, and since he was already being tortured, he was capable of speaking freely in the jail area. The purpose was to rid him of his rebellious mindset, and to do so, O’Brien needed to know everything Winston honestly thought in order to ‘correct’ it fully. For example, O’Brien forced Winston to recognize that whatever the Party said was true by holding up four fingers and saying there were five, “But there had been a moment- of luminous certainty, where each new suggestion of O’Brien’s had filled up a patch of emptiness and had become absolute truth, and when two and two could have been three as easily five, if that were what was needed (Orwell 258).

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The lack of response from Winston conveys that he is not confident and is fearful of the government, which in turn leads to the oppression of his own thoughts about the country’s history. This concept is similar to American society in 2016 since the U.S. government frequently requests from Google to take down certain searches from the search engine. Google has been requested to take down 6,321 different things by the U.S. government, which shows how these requests can be considered a memory hole in real life (Sutter). Taking down information from Google results

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Furthermore, in 1984, Winston Smith entrapped in the dystopian society Oceania with the ideas of totalitarianism, confinement, and control. capable of ordinary human feeling. The people of Oceania, "[Are not] capable of ordinary feeling [and] everything will be dead inside [them]" (Orwell 323). In response, Winston is trying to escape and fight the system. He is aware of the oppression of Big Brother and understand the dictatorship the community faces.

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This moment of weakness for Winston demonstrates his ego because he is satisfying his urge to rebel against the government in an efficient and appropriate way, as described by Marie Doorey in a reference about psychoanalysis (Doorey). Winston waited until he had acquired the diary to begin conspiring his thoughts against Big Brother. Winston mistakenly thought he was writing in secret, when in fact he was not. He was always being watched by Big Brother. Moreover, Winston attempts expressing his individuality by writing his thoughts and feelings in the diary.

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In the 1984 novel , Winston Smith is not like the rest of the people in his society. He hates Big brother . In book 3 of the novel Winston is put into the Ministry of love, Where there are four big telescreens monitoring his every move. Winston shares a cell with a few people including his neighbor Mr. Parson who was turned in for a thought crime. While winston shares a cell with a few people some of them get dragged to a horrifying room, room 101.

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