2007, Form B

"'Sometimes,' she said, 'they threaten you with something- something you can't stand up to, can't even think about. And then you say, "Don't do it to me, do it to somebody else, do it to so-and-so." And perhaps you might pretend, afterwards, that it was only a trick and that you just said it to make them stop and didn't really mean it. But that isn't true. At the time when it happens you do mean it. You think there's no other way of saving yourself, and you're quite ready to save yourself that way. You want it to happen to the other person. You don't give a damn what they suffer. All you care about is yourself.'" -- Page 261

During the flashback Winston experiences in Book Three, Chapter VI, he sees Julia in a park and talks to her for a brief time about what happened to them in the Miniluv.  I think the quote above really sums up their whole conversation.  By betraying one another in Room 101, they will never think about each other in the same way, because they both truly wanted the other to take their place and experience the fear and pain they were about to face.  Winston reflects on this brief meeting while in the Chestnut Tree Café, where he is now a regular at his corner table, "with the newspaper and the chessboard and the ever-flowing gin."  The Party's complete lack of follow-up surveillance on Winston and his ability to drink bottomless gin and be undercharged shows just how successful O'Brien and the Miniluv were at 'curing' him.  The interrogation and torture that took place while Winston was in the Miniluv comprises most of Book Three, and was in itself captivating.  A large part of the dialogue that takes place during O'Brien and Winston's 'sessions' consists of philosophical and political banter between the two, mostly dominated by O'Brien.  It is through these playful repartees that the values of the Party are fully vocalized, and the extent of the lunacy of O'Brien (or is Winston insane?) is fully realized.  The larger goal was for Winston to a) accept and practice doublethink and crimestop, and b) deny the notion that objective reality exists, that if the Party says 2 + 2 = 5, then it is so.  I think these 'sessions' were meant by Orwell to be the most frightening part of the book, and they certaintly make the reader want to prevent authoritarian governments (and for that matter, given the historical context of world politics during the '40s, i.e. Red Scare, any form of communism).  In other words, George Orwell was pretty cool.