Winston is surprised how terrible the Ministry of Love actually is. The first person Winston is surprised by is Ampleforth. Ampleforth is merely a poet who "allowed the word 'God' to remain at the end of a line." (pg 230 Orwell). The crime had to be committed because there are only twelve words left in newspeak that could rhyme with 'rod'. The Ministry is surprised by this because it is treated as badly as treason. The second part is when the starving man frantically tries to avoid being sent to room 101. The man was willing to have his family killed by stating,"You can take the whole lot of them and cut their throats in front of my eyes," (pg 237). The man's desperation was reaching a point where he was willing to do anything. Winston saw, first hand, how the Ministry of Love broke people down to a point beyond repairable.
I think that Winston knew in his mind that the ministry of love would be terrible. He might not have known what that meant, but he did seem to know the extremes of horror that went on in this place. I don't believe it came as a surprise to him that it was such a vile place.
ReplyDeleteI don't believe Winston is shocked by how "terrible it is" it seems he is more shocked for the reasons people are sentenced to the cells. I dont think Winston can grasp the concepts of the inner party entirely, thus his understandings for mistakes like placing the word "god" in a poem can be considered such a terrible crime.
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