jaylar
When one rereads Part III Chapter 1 it seems obvious Winston has been set up by O’Brien. Everything that Winston was warned about, is happening. Winston, it seems clear, did not take what O’Brien told him about joining the Brotherhood as a warning but as recruitment.
Viewing life in jail in 1984 the differences in ‘classes’ is exposed.
The proles who were at the bottom of society, were not afraid of the telescreen, didn’t care how they appeared, were not terrified of the guards they behaved . Party members were. This self made mind control only existed in the upper levels of society.
It should have been striking to those Party members who sat like zombies in the cells. But one assumes they thought, if they could think, that ‘Only the Proles are Free’.
As time passed, prisoners came and went.
One of the most poignant moments is when a starving man is offered a piece of bread. The starving man instantly rejects the bread and the kind man is punished.
The starving man tries to betray the kind man, who he doesn’t even know, to protect himself.
The revelation is when O’Brien enters the cell, Winston still does not get the fact this was his betrayer.
Although much of what is happening and will happen to Winston seems to have been somehow inserted into his memory, he has no ability to stop and consider these things.
Nothing that happens to him is a surprise, it is as if he knew this was the culmination, yet proceeded towards it.
