Breaking Point

The book 1984 is written by George Orwell. The book is very popular and is seen as Orwell’s prediction of the future. Not only can we see his perspective on that but we can also see how Orwell sees and feels about other forms of government. Some governments are very bizarre and he illustrates how humans react to the bizarre nature. If something is too harsh, it might hit a person’s breaking point. A breaking point is when there’s a situation bad enough to make a person change or surrender their will.

            Part three opens up with Winston, the protagonist, finding himself captured and in a frightening place. Winston has been captured by the party who begins to “cure” him. This cure is a process in which Winston is badly tortured. Actually, tortured is an understatement. O’Brien, the coordinator of his distress, humiliates him. The party forces him to stand on one leg, they make him believe that two and two make five, they beat him, and they poke him. Besides the fact that they are starving him and making him sit in his own filth, the party still feels that they are “curing” him. They feel that the only way to “treat” him is by breaking him so they torture him, trying to find his breaking point.

O’Brien speaks on how people like Winston, who have their own mind, are an error in the pattern in which they call, Oceania. He tries to teach Winston that having the party control the past is what’s safe. After all of the pain, the worst of the torture was when Winston took a look at himself. He saw himself and feared his own image. He was balding, toothless, had a curved spine and his varicose ulcer was throbbing, red, and peeling. Winston was covered in this gray film of dirt. Even the structure of his face had changed along with a broken nose. The sight of seeing himself looking like a diseased 65-year old was still not enough. They have not found his breaking point.

            As I reflect on the reading, I feel that Winston was very strong to be able to be himself after that. My breaking point is very different from what he went through. Small animals are my breaking point. That’s right, small animals. Rodents, cats, squirrels, any small animal other than dogs, I am afraid of. If someone forced me into a room with any of these creatures, I would probably not survive. Receiving an “F” in school will make me change my ways and study more. I hate to see anything below a “B.” Although my breaking point seems silly, it’s true and everyone has a breaking point.

In the book, Orwell shows how unbelievable and inhumane a form of government can be. He also reveals what he feels will occur in the future. Orwell also teaches us that everyone has a breaking point or a point at which their willing to surrender their will. Even after the harsh treatment that the protagonist undergoes, he is still not broken because he has not betrayed his love, Julia. As you can see, finding some people can go through more then others, while finding their breaking point.