jaylar
What is so remarkable about Nineteen Eighty Four is the raw truth, the complete understanding of society without the wrappings and attempts to mitigate.
George Orwell’s comprehension of the purpose of power is uttered by O’Brien, the representative of the Party who tortures Winston.
“The German Nazis and the Russian Communists came …close to us in their methods, but they never had the courage to recognize their own motives.”
” They pretended, perhaps they even believed, that they had seized power unwillingly and for a limited time, and that just round the corner there lay a paradise where human beings would be free and equal. “
“We are not like that. We know that no one ever seizes power with the intention of relinquishing it. Power is not a means, it is an end. One does not establish a dictatorship in order to safeguard a revolution; one makes the revolution in order to establish the dictatorship.”
” The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object of power is power. Now do you begin to understand me?’
—
This passage is incredibly powerful because it is so honest. It is a truth never admitted.
