* No More Martyrs

----O'Brien makes it clear that the Party doesn't want martyrs. Martyrs further their cause because they die heroes, still believing in their cause. The Party's theory is that you should only kill the people after they come to your side- no more martyrs who give publicity. And the scariest thing is that everything O'Brien says, every sentence that goes against a universal truth is completely supported. He argues his point so well I can't help but agree. Like Winston, my arguments are reduced to stammering quivering childish pride.
----O'Brien seems to read Winston's mind and combats every defense he has. Winston has been there so long, he's fallen apart. He's hideous, he can circle his thigh between thumb and forefinger, his teeth can be instantly ripped out by O'Brien. He's desperate, losing his grip. And he believes O'Brien in everything!
----For example, Winston once wrote in his forbidden diary that "Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four." The Party found his diary and now O'Brien is holding up four fingers, asking how many there are and zapping Winston with pain every time he says four. Winston wants to see five. He knows his tormentor will see right through any lie he attempts to tell. But just as he's giving up, he does see five. Even later, when he only sees four fingers, he knows that he once saw five, and that's enough for him and O'Brien.
----Then, once Winston is totally at ease with the Doublethink and believes O'Brien's blatant lies(although they are immaculately, irrefutably explained) he is told that the final obstacle is loving Big Brother, who, as near as I can figure out, isn't a tangible person but an embodiment of the Party. He is sent to Room 101, the place the other prisoners were so terrified of.
----O'Brien says everyone has their worst fear, which sometimes isn't something fatal. But Winston's is- rats. Somehow the Party has found this out, and they bring in a cage, and a mask, and two gigantic grey rats. Use your imagination and think of ancient China.
----But just as saying "something's gotta give or I'm putting down this book, I can't stand it," Winston realizes the only way out of his worst fear is by giving up the only thing he hasn't betrayed this whole time-
----"Do it to Julia! Do it to Julia! Not me! Julia! I don't care what you do to her. Tear her face off, strip her to the bones. Not me! Julia! Not me!"

----Alone in my room, tied to his plight, I cry "NO!"
----But this is one fiction piece without a happy ending. Winston is released, allowed to live, and given a useless job. He wastes his time drinking and shutting out the old memories that apparently never happened. His Doublethink is successful.
----Later he runs into Julia at a park. There's a stiffness, a coldness between them now. They sit in silence on a bench in the frigid winter wind, not knowing what to say. It is implied that during her own Room 101 experience, Julia betrayed him.
----In the last scene, Winston is sitting alone in a cafe, staring at his never-ending glass of gin. He's just blocked out a particularly painful memory of his childhood when from the telescreen comes a trumpet fanfare, announcing good news. Oceania, his country, has conquered Africa. Winston is overjoyed by this and by the mere fact that he is overjoyed, because it means that he loves the Party and Big Brother- the only reason he was allowed to go free in the first place. But he wasn't sure he wasn't pretending until now.
----My heart breaks, reading that. Wasn't this the determined rebel who realized that freedom was dying hating the Party? It was victory because it meant you had fooled them; they wouldn't kill you otherwise. But he didn't die, and he doesn't hate the party, and he lost his grip on everything he once knew was true. He lost his love, his job, his life.
----There are some books written so skillfully that you can feel your life force tied to the main character. You feel the hatred and confusion and evil they feel, and inexplicably mourn them when they lose their fight. Except you're part of them, so you're mourning yourself and all of mankind. This is one of those books.