Chapter 3

Summary

O’Brien advises Winston that there are 3 stages required for him to be cured – learning, understanding and acceptance.  He believes that Winston has now successfully passed on to the second stage – understanding.  He is still tied to the bench, but the dial is less of a terror because it is used less frequently. 

O’Brien reveals to Winston that the Party’s aim is to acquire power over everybody. They are not interested in the welfare of their citizens they only wish to have power.    The Party will last forever because unlike Nazi Germany and Communist Russia, they are purely concerned with power. 

O’Brien advises Winston that the Party has absolute power, but Winston questions this by saying that they don’t even have power over this planet, because they are at war with Eurasia.  O’Brien responds by saying that if they wished, Eurasia does not exist.  The whole world, in fact the whole universe is Oceania. Nothing existed before the Party.  The bones of dinosaurs are merely fakes produced by 19^th Century archaeologists. However, Winston queries the stars, and O’Brien answers by saying that they have mathematicians who say that the stars are not far away at all.

O’Brien says that there will be no love except the love of Big Brother.

Winston still holds onto the idea that the spirit of man will eventually overthrow the Party. O’Brien tells Winston that he is the last man left - the guardian of the human spirit.  He orders him to take off his clothes and go over to the mirror. Winston is shocked to see himself in the mirror. He has clearly been here a long time. He is emaciated and his knees are bigger than his thighs.  He is crooked and gaunt and O’Brien comes over and removes one of the few teeth he has left. “You are a bag of filth, and are rotting away”, he says.  Winston is reduced to tears and O’Brien comforts him.   Winston says, “I have not betrayed Julia.” 

He is taken back to his cell.

Interpretation

Winston learns that the Party only seeks to hold power, and that power means that men must suffer. 

O’Brien reveals to Winston that truth does not matter.   Truth is only acceptable if it suits the Party.  The purpose of the torture is to coerce Winston to believe anything he is told by the Party. He must not use his intellect to decide whether facts are true or untrue.  The Party as a collective does this.

Therefore, reality is based on the Party’s idea of history, and not that of individuals. That is why the Party controls all historical records.

This is part of the Party’s power.