This portion of the end of the book was awful to endure through and read. I felt the pain as much as Winston, and I was only reading it. I feel the author did a very good job on making this scene awful and gruesome. It was clear to me that O'Brien enjoyed hearing the deafening screams coming from Winston due to how much this "torture machine" really hurt. Whereas now-a-days we'd look at that as something probably impossible to do unless you were a serial killer, O'Brien did it with pleasure and ease, and quite often he did it daily. The fact that Winston saw four fingers constantly, which was in reality the truth, he was continuously struck by this machine. This is clearly an example of symbolism towards how the Party would manipulate every single citizen. If they said five, you had to say five, and if you didn't, you were tortured. Whatever they say, you must go along with and act as if it's the complete truth. Big Brother had quite the handle on these people, making them believe that whatever the Party decided was a moral fact and correct. It truly put the people in a very unfair situation in which they had no freedom or say.
2 comments:
George: Some interesting thoughts on torture. You mentioned how today such abuse may not be possible, well you might be interested to research how the White House has narrowed its definition of torture to allow such things as waterboarding and sleep deprivation as interrogation methods. By not defining it as torture, they can claim that they do not engage in torture. Doublespeak at its best. A quick search of torture definitions. Do a quick search of "torture definition bush" and see what the issue is today.
There is much online about Bush's definition of torture, and then the American Army's uses of torture which all in all contradict each other. Bush states that the Iraqui government was torturing the people of Iraq, prior to the war, by burning them, rape, etc. Yet, there is proof by photographs that the American soldiers have in fact tortured the Iraqui citizens through numerous methods, such as making them pose in horrible positions and naked. Therefore, Bus hhas no say in defining torture, because he himself has imposed it among human beings. A very contradictory man he is.
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