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Book 3, Chapter 2
Explanation and Analysis—It Does Not Exist:
In the second chapter of the third book, O'Brien tortures Winston as he asks him about the past and his memories. O'Brien's goal is to make Winston understand that there is no past besides the Party's version of the past, and that it is "impossible to see reality except by looking through the eyes of the Party." Using doublethink (a phrase coined by Orwell in 1984 and that relies on logical fallacy), O'Brien denies the existence of a photograph that he held in his hands mere seconds before.
Earlier in the novel, Winston recalls that very photograph as concrete evidence that the Party falsifies the past for their political aims. The first time he sees the photograph, he realizes that the photograph "was enough to blow the Party to atoms, if in some way it could have been published to the world and its significance made known." Nevertheless, he drops the photograph into the memory hole and lets it be "crumbled into ashes."
When O'Brien has Winston strapped to the bed, he holds the photograph in front of him for five seconds. This gives Winston, whose sanity is beginning to crumble, a sense of hope: "For only an instant it was before his eyes, then it was out of sight again. But he had seen it, unquestionably he had seen it!" In the conversation that follows, O'Brien uses fallacious doublethink to confuse and discourage Winston.
“It exists!” he cried.
“No,” said O’Brien.
Like Winston himself did 10 years ago, O'Brien slips the photograph into a memory hole right after displaying it. He then insists that the very piece of paper he was just holding "never existed":
“Ashes,” he said. “Not even identifiable ashes. Dust. It does not exist. It never existed.”
“But it did exist! It does exist! It exists in memory. I remember it. You remember it.”
“I do not remember it,” said O’Brien.
The fallacy that O'Brien uses is known as an argument from ignorance. This is a kind of fallacy in which someone either asserts that something is true simply because it hasn't been proven false or that something is false simply because it hasn't been proven true. Immobilized on the bed, Winston was physically unable to touch the photograph, much less prevent O'Brien from disposing of it. After O'Brien does so, he immediately begins to claim that it doesn't exist and that he doesn't remember it. Winston is unable to retrieve the photograph and show it to O'Brien, which O'Brien uses as evidence that it never existed in the first place.
O'Brien even goes so far as insisting that Winston himself does not exist. Winston has the power of mind to ask himself whether the statement "You do not exist" contains "a logical absurdity." Nevertheless, he feels helpless against O'Brien's assailing arguments. Towards the end of the novel, he thinks about the photograph again, concluding that it "had never existed." He tells himself that the photograph was an example of his many "false memories" and "products of self-deception." O'Brien has thus instilled the fallacious logic of doublethink in Winston's mind.
Related Themes:
Book 3, Chapter 3
Explanation and Analysis—Solipsism:
In the third chapter of the third book, Winston and O'Brien discuss the extent of the Party's power. Throughout their conversation, O'Brien unflinchingly resorts to fallacies that Winston discerns but nevertheless struggles to unravel.
While O'Brien claims that the Party can control matter because they control the mind—and "reality is inside the skull"—Winston argues for the immutability of the laws of nature. Seeking to show that humanity and its political structures are insignificant in the larger frame of the universe, he insists that the world is "only a speck of dust" and that man is "tiny." O'Brien meets these protestations with fallacious claims:
“Nonsense. The earth is as old as we are, no older. How could it be older? Nothing exists except through human consciousness.”
“But the rocks are full of the bones of extinct animals—mammoths and mastodons and enormous reptiles which lived here long before man was ever heard of.”
“Have you ever seen those bones, Winston? Of course not."
O'Brien's solipsistic views can be broken down into a few different fallacies. He uses one of these—known as an argument from ignorance—at several points in the novel, insisting that if Winston cannot provide evidence of a claim, the claim cannot be true. In this instance, O'Brien asserts that fossils do not prove anything about the age of the Earth because Winston cannot prove that he has ever seen a fossil. This is a fallacy because a lack of evidence for something's existence is not sufficient proof of its nonexistence. Another fallacy in his argument is unfalsifiability: his claim about nothing existing beyond human consciousness cannot be proven false through empirical evidence or logical reasoning.
O'Brien goes on to claim that 19th-century biologists invented fossils and bones: "Before man there was nothing. After man, if he could come to an end, there would be nothing. Outside man there is nothing." Winston feels desperately disillusioned in the face of O'Brien's blatant, solipsistic fallacies. Still, he retains the strength of mind to recognize them as such.
Winston shrank back upon the bed. Whatever he said, the swift answer crushed him like a bludgeon. And yet he knew, he knew, that he was in the right. The belief that nothing exists outside your own mind—surely there must be some way of demonstrating that it was false? Had it not been exposed long ago as a fallacy? There was even a name for it, which he had forgotten.
Even if Winston's mind does not work like it once did due to the physical and psychological torture he has been subjected to, he retains the ability to question O'Brien's fallacious arguments. This gives the reader hope. At the same time, the reader feels discouraged by O'Brien's power over Winston. He may resort to faulty reasoning—and Winston may even be cognizant of this faulty reasoning—but O'Brien nevertheless remains the dominant party in the discussion, thanks to his physical strength and unwavering certainty.
Related Themes:
