Week 7!

It would not matter if it killed you at once. To be killed was what you expected. But before death (nobody spoke of such things, yet everyone knew of them) there was the routine of confession that had to be gone through: the groveling on the floor, and screaming for mercy, the crack of broken bones, the smashed teeth and bloody clots of hair. Why did you have to endure it, since the end was always the same? Why was it not possible to cut a few days or weeks out of your life? Nobody ever escaped detection, and nobody ever failed to confess. (pg 103)

This passage is filled with rhetorical devices. To start, the imagery that Orwell creates is so intense it makes the reader cringe. "The crack of broken bones," and "bloody clots of hair," are sounds and images that no one wants to experience. It also proves that the government during this time was allowed to torture innocent people. Next, the rhetorical questions leave the reader hanging. They are deep questions, with really no response, and they make the reader reminisce on their past, and wonder why they can't live it over again. Finally the overall dark tone of the passage conveys the meaning of the novel, that life in the future will not behold great things. That every person ever found completing a task that was not approved by the government, would not escape, and would have to confess, whether innocent or guilty. 

Week 6!

"In the end the Party would announce that two and two made five, and you would have to believe it. It was inevitable that they should make that claim sooner or later: the logic of their position demanded it. Not merely the validity of experience, but the very existence o external reality was tacitly denied by their philosophy. The heresy of heresies was common sense And what was terrifying was not that they would kill you for thinking otherwise, but that they might be right. For, after all, how do we know that two and two make four? Ot that the force of gravity works? Or that the past is unchangeable? If both past and the external world exist only in the mind, and if the mind itself is controllable -- what then?" (pg 80)

This passage is at the end of chapter seven, and Winston is writing in his diary. He is thinking over his past, and the Party, and is pondering over his life in general. This passage shows the psychological manipulation of the people in the party by Big Brother. Winston can't even be sure if two plus two is four, because if the Party decides to change that, he has to listen. He is controlled by the external world and not by his internal thoughts. This argument within his head represents man vs. society, as well and man vs self. Winston clearly does not agree with the way that society is being run around him. However, he is conflicting inside himself and debating whether or not he should speak out against this society. He is not afraid of death, but afraid of what the future holds, and how much more his past can be manipulated.