In a novel saturated with ideas and concepts that have become familiar even to those who have never read 1984, Room 101 remains one of George Orwell’s most infamous creations. Home to whatever a person fears most, it is the end point of the thought-criminal’s rehabilitation from rebellion to ultimately loving Big Brother.
But it is in the sessions that precede this piece of cruel theatre that the real torture begins; the psychological and physical breaking of the human spirit. The rats that populate Room 101 for Winston Smith are the end game, but the words of Winston’s interrogator, O’Brien, are perhaps even more chilling. It is here that we learn the Party’s vision for a society based solely on hate: “The old civilisations claimed that they were founded on love or justice. Ours is founded upon hatred.”
