Chapter 7-8

1984 Chapter 7-8

"It was as though some huge force were pressing down upon you – something that penetrated inside your skull, battering against your brain, frightening you out of your beliefs, persuading you, almost, to deny the evidence of your senses. In the end the Party would announce that two and two made five, and you would have to believe it. It was inevitable that they should make that claim sooner or later: the logic of their position demanded it. Not merely the validity of experience, but the very existence of external reality, was tacitly denied by their philosophy. The heresy of heresies was common sense. And what was terrifying was not that they would kill you for thinking otherwise, but that they might be right. For, after all, how do we know that two and two make four? Or that the force of gravity works? Or that the past is unchangeable? If both the past and the external world exist only in the mind, and if the mind itself is controllable…what then?"

Since everyone felt watched they were all made to act a certain way which was obeying the government at all times. They stopped believing in things and started "persuading you" to be more of the same person as everyone else. Basically all of the people that acted suspiciously. Pretend someone was happy Big Brother looked at that as a disgrace because it isn't proper. Winston is basically complaining telling all and everything about how it feels to live in Oceania. I think Winston wanted to make the people understand that you cannot be yourself because the only person you are they throw away and make you the same as everyone else.