Kirsten Castro English 1948 by George Orwell March 17 2017 Psychological Torture in 1984 George Orwell paints torture as an unavoidable means to an end; complete ideological control of the population a government controls. Any form of torture will subdue anyone into thinking inside of the box, because it works by depersonalizing, dehumanizing, and completely stripping any sense of individuality in order to attain control of anyone. He does so by describing in exhaustive detail the physical and psychological effects of the brainwashing of Winston Smith, rebranded, “becoming sane” by The Party. The majority of the success in the brainwashing lies in Winston’s mental state. . When Winston is first apprehended, he is taken into a cell where his …show more content…
They make Winston look at his own reflection where he sees a broken shadow of his former self, and any remnant of his own sense of self is lost. However, Winston still loves Julia, and O’Brien knows this. When O’Brien tells winston to ask him questions his first question was “what have you done with Julia” and his response was “She betrayed you, Winston. Immediately, unreservedly” (Orwell 259). Winston’s worst fears come true, and he is sent to Room 101, where he faces his worst terror: rats, and renouncing to his heart and spirit. He has now been assimilated, he is now “sane” again. As history has predicted it, torture was efficient into making Winston “one of …show more content…
In fact, especially in the U.S., the society’s dominant culture puts emphasis in freedom of ideology and expression thereof. We live in a time where personal torture is anxiety, at not fitting in, and seemingly being unfit to acquire possessions, or look a certain way, or act in an acceptable manner, because cultural and materialistic cues are used as means of control. For those disgruntled with the current state of affairs, torture is to witness the rest of their compatriots’ disregard towards humanitarian matters; for others, is to watch a corporation purchase the utter intellectual degradation of their
Some believe that even in the most dire of situations, the act of torturing a prisoner to obtain information is not the most effective or efficient way to glean accurate information about a threat or terrorist group; experts have said that it is actually a very inefficient way to go about this and even that it is only on rare occasions that this results in useful, accurate information. However, there are also those who believe the exact opposite; that the only way to get information from a terrorist, or someone believed to be involved in terrorist activity, is to mentally break them down until they have suffered enough to surrender any information they might know or to the point where they just say whatever is necessary for the “interrogation” to stop, as in 1984.
Who wouldn’t have agreed? Yes, torture is cruel but it is less cruel than the substitute in many positions. Killing Hitler wouldn’t have revived his millions of victims nor would it have ended war. But torture in this predicament is planned to bring no one back but to keep faultless people from being sent off. Of course mass murdering is far more barbaric than torture. The most influential argument against using torture as a penalty or to get an acknowledgment is that such practices ignore the rights of the particulars. Michael Levin’s “The Case for Torture” discusses both sides of being with and being against torture. This essay gets readers thinking a lot about the scenarios Levin mentioned that torture is justified. Though using pathos, he doesn’t achieve the argument as well as he should because of the absence of good judgment and reasoning. In addition to emotional appeal, the author tries to make you think twice about your take on
O’Brien tortures Winston due to his acts of thoughtcrime, Winston is told that the Party will be satisfied with nothing less than Winston completely giving in. O’Brien explains, “We are not content with negative obedience, nor even with the most abject submission. When finally you surrender to us, it must be of your own free will. We do not destroy the heretic because he resists us; so long as he resists us we never destroy him” (210). Winston is tortured for the goal of eradicating the cause of Winston’s fight, to consider himself happy and free. O’Brien wants to destroy any possibility of Winston becoming a martyr for his cause. The use of the telescreens, microphones, and all other sources of the government spying on its people ensures a lack of freedom: “Asleep or awake, working or eating, indoors or out of doors, in the bath or in bed- no escape. Nothing was your own except the few cubic centimeters inside your skull” (26). The members of this society are monitored at all times for the sole purpose of government control, with constant monitoring they are able to discover the most they can about individuals and later use it against them to gain an upper hand in controlling any possible uprising. Fear is used as another tactic to gain control. Winston is aware of the fact that “More
His actions prove that despite what he thought before, even in believing that he’d be tortured and almost murdered in the end, he betrayed his own tongue after uttering the quote that was placed above. He, after fighting and fighting, eventually gave into the fact that he was going to die in such a horrendous way. The thought that it’d be from one of his greatest fears made it even worse. After surviving the torture from O’Brien, the rejection from Julia, and the mind battles brought upon himself after all of it, Winston couldn’t take it anymore, despite his past confessions never to give into the wrath of Big Brother. He betrayed Julia, which in turn caused him to betray himself. He performs the greatest betrayal of all, he stops loving her, and in turn, stops loving himself as well (Katherine K). He knows he’s been defeated by the end of the book. That blank face he has, thinking about how great the Party is even though it’s not, just goes on to prove that very point. Winston is defeated, after betrayal had taken over his life and altered his mind.
Winston is arrested for thought crime when he is taken back to the Ministry of Truth to be tortured. For instance, "We have beaten you, Winston. We have broken you up. You have seen what your body is like. Your mind is in the same state. I do not think there can be much pride left in you."(Orwell 193). O'Brien one of the inner party members, is aware of the fact that he is hurting Winston both physically and mentally from the cruel actions taken towards. Such as: kicking, hitting, shock treatment, hair torn out of Winston's head etc. However, O'Brien decides to be ignorant and continue breaking Winston so that he would end up loving Big Brother. At the end of the day the love for Big Brother is all that matters in Obrien's perspective. It is not about the way the citizens feel when tortured, it is about thinking and believing as per the governments liking. This goes hand in hand with Brazil, when citizens are brought to Information Retrieval to be wilfully tortured. In fact, at the end of the movie Sam is shown insane and not snapping into reality, just dreaming of his utopian world. Jack, who works at Information Retrieval has given him the shock treatment as a form of torture (Gilliam 2:19:02). Jack used to be one of Sam's close friends; however, since he works for the government he does not care for his friend. All that matters is his duty, he is willing to
Winston 's greatest fear is rats,O 'Brien places a mask made of wire mesh over Winston’s head and then threatens to open the door to release rats onto his face. Winston screams and says, "Do it to Julia!", with that statement he relinquishes his last vestige of humanity.
Both are taken into custody and tortured and beaten so that they can be rebuilt to obey the Party and to sell out each other. Winston takes many days of torture and pain before he is put into room 101 where he is encountered with his worst fear,which is rats. Winston the breaks down and yells, “Do it to Julia! Do it to Julia! Not me! I don’t care what you do to her. Tear her face off, strip her to the bones. Not me! Julia! Not me” (Orwell 286). The only thing that kept Winston going was the fact that he hadn’t yet betrayed Julia, and he felt determined to never betray her. With Julia, O’Brien told Winston that she gave him away almost instantly. She was all about saving herself,and did not care about what could happen to Winston now that they were caught and their relationship would not continue.
Torture: the action or practice of inflicting severe pain for punishment or to force them to say or do something (Oxford Dictionary). Torture can be mental or physical , but is it alright to use torture at all or is it inhumane? If a terrorist knew where the bombs placed throughout America were located. This man is refusing to give any information to any of the interrogation techniques. Just hours away there will be an explosion killing millions of people throughout America alone. Every detective working (secretly) on this case has tried every interrogation technique they were ever taught, even some they made up their self. Although there is one that they have not done. Would torture save the lives of millions of innocent men, women and children? This essay is going to state the reasons why torture should be acceptable in certain situations.
Torture, the most extreme form of human violence, resulting in both physical and psychological consequences. A technique of interrogation that has been proven time and time again to not only be ineffective but also a waste of time. Studies have shown that not only does torture psychologically damage the mind of the victim, but also can hurt the inflictor. If there is proof that torture is useless, why do we still use it? Torture should not be used to get information out of prisoners because of the risk of false information, enemy resistance and utter uselessness.
Until there is a credible way to determine whether or not torture is in fact effective, I pass judgment that the practice should be discontinued. The question as to if the torture policy is a human rights violation or if it holds crucial necessity, is not answered in the essay. Applebaum explores the reality that torture possesses negative implications on the inflictor. After presented with the compelling stance and evidence, Applebaum raises the interesting question as to why so much of society believes that torture is successful. I agree that the torture policy is wrong, a point emphasized by Applebaum, contrary to the popular attitude surrounding the topic.
Winston is arrested and taken to The Ministry of Love, another of the main government agencies. Here he is tortured physically by starvation and electrocution under the watch of The Party. He is manipulated physiologically by being conditioned to avoid torture by answering questions about his loyalty to The Party.
Winston continues to not cooperate, to go through all this excruciating pain; all for the Julia, who he will never be able to love again. Fear strikes Winston in Room 101 though. Room 101 knows the biggest fears of the whole population and is not the place anyone wants to go. Winston is sent here and has no idea what to expect, but he does know this is the last place he wants to go in this moment. The worst thing in the world to Winston are rats.
Through months of torture and debilitating pressure, he was stripped of his individualism and was taught to love big brother (McLaughlin). The pressures of society mixed with the strenuous hours of daily torture took a toll on his weakened brain. This was most evident when O’Brien asked him one last time if he loved Big Brother, and he answered yes. He did not say yes in order to end the torture, rather he said yes because his brain was rendered incapable of independent thought. Orwell does this to show his readers that self expression and independent thought are what ultimately make us human. Without those two things, we are left to live in an impressionistic society, one that urges us to like and believe in certain things- similar to that of Oceania. O’Brien torturing Winston was more than just the climax of the book; it was the solution to Orwell’s underlying question: Can the traits that make us human prevail in the face of turmoil and despair? "You had to live—did live, from habit that became instinct—in the assumption that every sound you made was overheard, and, except in darkness, every moment scrutinized” (Orwell 3).The fact that this statement made in the beginning holds true by the end of the novel answers the question that no; humanity would not
...he views of the Party. "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!" (Part 3, Chapter 5). Winston’s mind is considered cured the moment that he turns on the one person her truly loves.
In 1984, Winston’s torture had a purpose of brainwashing, where the themes of control is explored and alienation is hinted and introduced in his interrogations with O’Brien and his time in room one-oh-one. Firstly, Winston is imprisoned in Miniluv (Ministry of Love) for his rebellious sexual activity with Julia, and the reader will assume that this is repression of opposition by the government. But once O’Brien is revealed to be Winston’s interrogator, it is clearly established that the purpose of this torture has never been repression, but rather controlling the thoughts of the few individuals that were “insane”(253) enough to rebel against government. O’Brien described this procedure as curing, as he also describes Winston as insane, and made it distinctively clear to Winston that his goal was not to punish or indulge “in the overact”(253) but rather the thought. While the goal is instead of destroying our enemies, “we change them.”(253) In this stern explanation from O’Brien, the...