Torture Room 101 Analysis

Room 101 is, according to Orwell, “...the worst thing in the world.” (p.233) It is a torture room within the Ministry of Love, in which the Party puts their prisoner into a chair and have them experience his or her own worst fear, nightmare or phobia in order to break down the resistance within them. In 1984’s society, the Party takes prisoners convicted of thoughtcrime or rebellion and use their fears against them. Manipulation through fear has always been a popular use in controlling society and interrogations. By subjecting a person to his or her greatest fears, the torturer can tap into the terror of that person's mind and psychologically break that person. What is symbolically interesting about the Party’s torture room is the number they

chose for it - Room 101. The number 101 has been used since the early 1930s as a way to title college courses that are basically introductory classes that teach basic principles of whatever subject given. In this case, Room 101 is a room where convicts are retaught the basics of Big Brother and learn to become loyal within the society again.
Winston Smith cannot be considered a hero. Many of his characteristics and views make him an anti-hero. A hero is someone who actually makes a positive change in the world, someone who saves lives and stop major crises. Winston fails to be what we consider today a ‘super-human’. Orwell created Winston as an ordinary man with a respectable career within Oceania’s society. Even if Winston was a hero, he would be an extremely flawed hero. Winston shows no qualities of a hero when he is caught and arrested for thoughtcrime. When he is tortured for a long period of time, he succumbs to his great fear of rodents. If Winston were a true hero, he would have been able to overcome is fear and prevent himself from breaking.
The Party controls all aspects of life including thoughts. This is particularly evident in the process of Doublethink. In order to control the minds of the citizens of Oceania, the Party engages in Doublethink, which convinces the mind into holding two contradictory ideas in the mind at once. It occupies the mind so as not to allow independent thought. Through total psychological manipulation, the Party is able to make individuals believe anything that it desires. Therefore, when the Party tells you to believe that ‘two plus two equals five’ they are, in fact, shaping reality and have total control of existence. This phrase symbolizes the concept of the use of psychological manipulation in totalitarianism. Manipulation of the mind is one of the ways that a government can have complete control over their people. In the Party’s prospective, this is a way to keep citizens from having deviating thoughts/ideas as well as keeping them in place under their rule.
Orwell's 1984 uses a society at large with a focus on just a few characters.

This society contains a hierarchy based on power and influence. Those in power pride themselves on the ability to control the entire rest of the society. In Golding's Lord of the Flies, we do not see a society at large, but a microcosm of a society, and of only children at that. His purpose for showing just a piece, and a young piece devoid of adult influence served to demonstrate what would arise from a people removed from the influence of their government. A new "government" would emerge, and it did not look that much different than the old one that he is likely commenting on from his current era. Character development differs significantly. The Winston Smith character of 1984 stands for the everyman. He wants to challenge the government because he is intelligent enough to determine that something is wrong, but he is so entirely average that he really doesn't have the power to do so. The closest we get to an everyman in Lord of the Flies is Ralph, yet he is made leader for a large portion of the book. Both Ralph and Winston go through great tragic mental anguish in order to come to a new and defeated understanding of the new world, thus there is indeed similarity. The group of boys certainly develops a hierarchy as the society in 1984 did, but they do so without realizing it. War and useless killings that go completely ignored happen in both books which demonstrates that both authors had a similar

perspective about the post-WWII environment they wrote their novels in.