1984 Journal #3

"O'Brien held up his left hand, its back toward Winston, with the thumb hidden and the four fingers extended.
"How many fingers am I holding up, Winston?"
"Four."
"And if the Party says that it is not four but five - then how many?"
"Four."
The word ended in a gasp of pain. ... O'Brien held up the fingers of his left hand, with the thumb concealed.
"There are five fingers here. Do you see five fingers?"
"Yes."
And he did see them, for a fleeting instant, before the scenery of his mind changed. He saw five fingers, and there was no deformity" (Orwell, 249; 258).
In this scene, we see Winston trying to retain control of his own mind. However, the Party wants to control that too. Eventually the Party does end up controlling people's minds. This is a reference to Communism and Totalitarianism as a system of government. For example, as many of us saw in North Korea only a little while ago, their leader died, but unlike the rest of the world that celebrated the death of this horrible man, they grieved. People were genuinely sad. This is a form of mind control. Through isolationism, control, and propaganda, the people's minds were controlled to think that their leader was a great man and a hero. However, what the rest of the world saw was just the opposite. Orwell is showing that lots of people are easily accepting and open to believing in something because it is easier to deny something else. He also shows us that these types of governments prey on these kinds of people.
The setting of this part of the book takes place mostly in the Ministry of Love. The Ministry of Love is a prison, with no windows, where people are sent to be tortured and eventually executed. The setting is ironic, considering the name. Torture = Love... not really. This is the point the author is trying to make: Society, in general has contradictions. Especially if you take into account men and women. There is almost always a double standard. Let me use the example I saw last night on ABC's What Would You Do?. They took a man and gave his car a flat tire. The man didn't know how to change a flat tire. Approximately 1 in every 3 people stopped to help the man because most of the people thought that he was a young man, he should know how to change a tire. However, when they gave a young woman a flat tire, and she didn't know how to change it, every single person stopped to help her. Some people even came from the other side of the street just to offer her help. Why is it okay for a young woman to not know how to change a tire, but it is unacceptable that a young man doesn't know how? Orwell is saying through the irony of the setting that society is full of contradictions and double standards, and that is not fair.
In this part of the book, the language toward Big Brother is much more positive. At the end, it says, "He had won the victory over himself. He loved Big Brother" (Orwell, 298). The positive attitude shows Winston's change in his views. The Party has finally controlled him. He is no longer an outcast or individual. Now he is a mindless cog in the machine, one with society. Orwell is warning people that if you become a part of society, you are susceptible to every one of society's standards and ways of living, bad or good, because you won't know any different. He is warning us that we must retain free thought and individuality inorder to know the difference between right and wrong, good and bad, and to be able to make the world better.