101

[storcaccekr13]

How do people know what room 101 is? I thought that no one came out alive and that if they did they were a completely different person. Every prisoner begged not to go but how did they know about it in the first place?

[The Atheist]

Word gets around. What secret ever stays secret?

[kitty13]

Okay...room 101 is your worst fear...So just imagine walking in and seeing caterpillars crawling everywhere (my worst fear).

People do come out alive. (winston for example)

They knew about it because the people do get out.

:eek:

[Gladys]

They knew about it because the people do get out.

The Outer Party had little or no knowledge of Room 101, whereas the those incarcerated in the Ministry of Love knew too much.


People do come out alive. (Winston for example)

Winston and Julia did come out, but one could scarcely call them 'people' any more - 'only the shells of men'. Them talking to others about Room 101 seems improbable.

[mollie]

Winston doesn't know what it is when he hears it mentioned first, and Ampleforth is "uncomprehending". I think the prisoners who are afraid of it have been there before and re-arrested. I don't think they would talk about it, I think they just know themselves what will happen from previous experience.

[Gladys]

I think the prisoners who are afraid of it have been there before and re-arrested.

Whereas I think these prisoners have never left the Ministry of Love, but been placed in the cell with newly-arrested Winston as part of the brainwashing routine.

[mollie]

Of course, that is more probable. The mention of the man in the cell who is starving to death does seem to suggest, as you say, that he has never left.

At any rate, I think that Room 101 is not a matter of public knowledge, in the same way that, say, the Party turning a blind eye to dealing on the black market for razor blades is public knowledge.