Whats room 101?

[dynoport]

I am not quite sure what room 101 is but I have a feeling its terrible place. One man even said,"he would rather watch his family get their throats slit in front of him than go to room 101. I the book the people show no emotion so its hard for me too understand why he would want this too happen.I wouldnt be able to watch someone slit my families throats.Must be the guy in the book shows no emotion toward his family.

[finalbreath55]

well, room 101 is your worst fear it is the things that makes you crazy and that make you want to litterly want ot die or the shock and the worst of all the book tells of this man who'd rather see his own kids and wife get there throat ripped out right in front of him . when you think about this it is almost like your fear over colmes your haterd for big brother.personaly i think this is a great tacktic to control people but, someday the government could us this agianst us.....trust no one but relize everyone

[Teacher]

Room 101 Is Your Worst Fear That They Can Scare You With So You Will Give In.

[Stanislaw]

Room 101 Is Your Worst Fear That They Can Scare You With So You Will Give In.
Bingo, people would always give in to their worst fear, it is a centuary old torture technique.

[Teacher]

Now come on this is an emotionaly dead society so seeing your family killed in front of you is not that big of a deal Orwell makes it very clear right from the start of the book that the people have NO emotion what so ever Winston even kicks some dead guys blown off arm into a gutter with out even a second thought when your worst fear is coming true people tend to say anything that might help thems selfs AV

[Stanislaw]

Now come on this is an emotionaly dead society so seeing your family killed in front of you is not that big of a deal Orwell makes it very clear right from the start of the book that the people have NO emotion what so ever Winston even kicks some dead guys blown off arm into a gutter with out even a second thought when your worst fear is coming true people tend to say anything that might help thems selfs AV

It is true, that the state was emotionaly dead, but still, humans have interesting group relations, and no matter how dead emotionally, the emptiness would be noticed, and objects around the chaps apartment would remind him of his family...if you could call the 1984 family a family existance.
Your point is quite valid.

[Tyleriskool9]

Room 101 is indeed a room where people are faced with their greatest fears, but as the person who said before me, the society in 1984 is "dead". But why the man says he would rather have the Thought Police slit his family's throats is because his worst fear is graver and larger to him. Example: If your worst fear was having your families throats slit in front of you, thats what would most likely happen. If your worst fear was lets say spiders, you would be more afraid to have giant spiders devour you, then hvae your familly's throats slit. I mean, c'mon, I'm in 7th grade and I get it. :banana:

[clarke_sm]

The explanation of Room 101, is not just "The room where you gravest fears are faced upon you". It is rather more complicated... as I will try and explain.

When O'Brian is interrogating Winston, a defining moment is when O'Brian says to Winston:

O'Brian: "You have whimpered for mercy, you have betrayed everybody and everything. Can you think of a single degradation that has not happened to you?"

Winston: "I have not betrayed Julia"

O'Brian: "No, no; that is perfectly true. You have not betrayed Julia"

What is meant by the word "betrayed" in this instance, is that Winston is saying that he has not given up his love for Julia. (And we can say this, because it states earlier in the book that he has told his torturers every single thing about Julia)

Now, when Winston is in Room 101, and the rats are about to be set upon his face, he screams:
"Do it to Julia! Do it to Julia! Not me! Julia! I don't care what you do to her. Tear her face off, strip her to the bones. Not me! Julia! Not me!"

Now, the reason why Winston was never killed, was because he gave up his love for Julia.
This can be explained by this example. In most cases of society, when a person feels a great love for a partner, family member or child, they often believe that they would give up THIER lives to save the person they love from going through pain.

After Winston is released from the Ministery of Love, and he meets Julia in the park, they relize that they both wished that one another would be tortured INSTEAD of themselves, and at that point they relized that they never really did love each other, it was more, say, lust, then love.

The reason why so many others are killed or "vaporaized" when they are taken by the thought-police, is that they have never exprienced a sense that they were in 'love' thus they had nothing to really sacrifice when faced by there fears, in Room 101.
It states that you can not marry a member of the opposite sex that you feel attraction for, sex was simply to re-produce the human species.
Thus, they feel no love for anyone, and have nothing to ultimately sacrafice.

Ultimately, the man who yelled:
"...I've got a wife and three children. The biggest of them isn't sex years old. You can take the whole lot of them and cut their throats in front of my eyes, and I'll stand by and watch it. But not Room 101!"

Was killed, because he does not really love his wife or children, and gives them up to momentarily.

So, in conclusion, Room 101 is where you are faced with the acceptance, that you do not love and you do not feel any love for anyone else, except Big Brother.
That when you start to feel love for another person, you lose faith in Big Brother.
And this is an age old technique, used in the Churches of the middle ages, where they did not allow clerics to marry, because it reduced there faith, and love for God.

[tfwelch]

Room 101 is named because any basic lesson, like beginning English, is called "English 101". Room 101 is the place of your basic fear, your first lesson in "loving B.B.". For Winston, rats were his most basic fear.

[Tiwoodford]

Room 101 is fear itself. It is a way to cleanse people of power as martyrs, when someone "betrays" someone else they are giving up hope, life and their own beliefs. Room 101, in short, is somewere that the Party can make you less then ; the lowliest human, which inlies the true vaporisation; robbing people of themselves.

[weightgirl]

Room 101 is a very bad place and everyone is terrified of what will happen. They can not show any emotion for anyone.

[Jbell152]

Room 101 is the ultimate torture room, it pretty much shows no matter who it is, when you do certian things, and push certain buttons they will break and that is why the society in 1984 is so controlled

[SteveH]

Now come on this is an emotionaly dead society so seeing your family killed in front of you is not that big of a deal Orwell makes it very clear right from the start of the book that the people have NO emotion what so ever Winston even kicks some dead guys blown off arm into a gutter with out even a second thought when your worst fear is coming true people tend to say anything that might help thems selfs AV

Well, not exactly no emotion; only the negative ones, such as hatred (the two minute hate), and joy in triumphing over the enemy. "If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face - for ever", as O'Brien says to Winston. The party discourages emotions such as love and affection, because they are essentially private and outside the party's control, hence the anti-sex league, and the fact that people have to get official permission to marry, and if the authorities think that there is any affection or love between the couple, permission is refused.

[GrayFoxDown]

Indeed, Fear is truly the driving force that emerges within Room 101. Institutions of all kinds are empowered by the presence of fear: governments by external and internal threats to its security; the medical industry by diseases; police departments by crime; the computer security industry by viruses and spyware; etc., etc.. The list is endless because humanity's fears are endless and we constantly seek protection from our fears.

However, fears that go above and beyond almost any danger to our physical existence are rooted in the darkness of the irrational. In a society that had lost nearly every vestige of its logical (even instintive) function of thought and reason, the citizens of Oceania had retained something that isn't as easily killed: their human emotion (albeit a simplified form of emotion) where the irrational has its basis.

Room 101 is where these emotions are extracted, are manipulated, and are designed to self-destruct in a final cataclysm of terror...rendering the individual not only a non-thinking, but also an emotionless, member of Oceania's conformity. Big Brother :flare: finally saves the individual from his own fears (those that lurk within his own mind) and enslaves and consumes him completely...once and for all.:(
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(By the way: Some great letters on this thread)

[TomGr]

Just a note on this: Orwell's "Room 101" was apparently named after a conference room in the BBC headquarters, where Orwell worked for a time during the war. The wartime BBC environment probably served as the model for Winston Smith's place of work, the Ministry of Truth, in Nineteen Eighty-four.

[missfife]

I can't imagine that seeing your children being killed would have no effect on you. I think the statement is impactual whether it's society emotionless or not. Further more Smith learned to "love" in the story and still would've given her up in the end. That's the point he's trying to make. Every person has a breaking point. That's room 101.

[missfife]

I can't imagine that seeing your children being killed would have no effect on you. I think the statement is impactual whether it's society emotionless or not. Further more Smith learned to "love" in the story and still would've given her up in the end. That's the point he's trying to make. Every person has a breaking point. That's room 101.[/QUOTE]

[Thinkerr]

I agree. Orwell didn't really like working for the BBC during wartime, because he believed all they did was produce propaganda. It is definently his inspiration for the ministry of Truth.