Summary and Analysis of 1984

It was once believed that the Party couldn’t get inside a person’s mind, but what happens inside the Ministry of Love lasts forever. There are some things from which a person can never recover.

They both admitted that they’d betrayed one another, and that all they cared about had been saving themselves.

Every human being has a breaking point, but it doesn’t always involve physical pain. Some things are unendurable and cannot be withstood. In the face of those things, a person will do almost anything required to achieve relief.

His worst nightmare has come true, and his only hope is to place another body between himself and the rats.

Winston is practicing Crimestop, which is an automatic, instinctive retreat into a mental blind spot to hide from dangerous thoughts, and he trains himself not to contradict the principles of the Party. However, when he cries out Julia’s name, the men in boots punish his outburst. Winston has surrendered his mind, but he still hasn’t given up his heart.

Winston has reached the point where he believes his contrary memories are false memories, yet he finds stupidity difficult to obtain. If he’s to succeed, he must keep his hatred for Big Brother locked up deep inside, unconnected from the rest of himself. To die hating Big Brother is freedom.

which he finds relatively easy now that he stopped swimming against the current.

The masses are made up of frail creatures who can’t handle liberty or truth, so they must be ruled by those stronger than they are. Until a conversion is successful, one will endure torturous treatment for an interminable amount of time.

Winston refuses to agree that any organization can control climate, gravity, disease, pain, and death. O’Brien insists that the Party controls the laws of nature, and he dismisses the existence of the universe and all of science. There’s nothing that exists outside of man’s consciousness, for it’s not power over things the Party wields but power over men. Soon family relationships and sexual pleasure will be eradicated. There will be no laughter, art, literature, or science. Goldstein will exist forever, only so that he can be repeatedly defeated. Even under threat of severe pain, Winston won’t believe O’Brien’s assertions.

the Party doesn’t seek power for the good of majority, but for its own sake. If people can escape their identities and merge with the Party, then they are the Party, powerful and immortal. Only individuals can be defeated.