Room 101 - Winston's trial

[Big Dante]

Winston enters room 101 at the climax of 1984 with the intent of outlast Big Brothers brainwashing which he had so far being successful at. After hints of the tortures of room 101 he knows that it won't be the greatest experience of his life but apart from this he does not know what the room has in stall for him.

So his trial ends up being rats, his greatest fear which was briefly touched upon earlier in the novel but were rats the right way to go? I understand that everyone has their own unique (and often strange) phobias, I know I certainly do but I was just thinking what if Julia was used directly? When reading it I was expecting it to lead in this direction and while the rat torture method was terrible I thought using Julia, the one thing still dear to him could break his resistance. There are problems with this such as Winston only being the main character to the reader but to Big Brother he has no more importance than Julia herself or any other character. Also Julia would have to endure he own form of torture so I can understand Orwell's idea of avoiding this but I do think there would be some way that in room 101 they came face to face and betrayed each other directly.

Any thoughts? Just say if you disagree, I want to hear your points.

[02334200]

The thing they're aming for is to let him forget everything what's worth living for.
So if they torture Julia in front of his eyes, he'll only be remembered how much he loves her. And such an intense emotion makes you human.
If they torture him with his biggest fear and he forgets and even betrayes everything he loves for this fear, then fear gets more important than love.
If there is only one moment of complete doubt in his best argument (love) then this argument will fall and his defense is gone, and everything he believed was true they showed him that truth can be proven not true under the right circumstances.

The best argument is, i think, an argument he allready thought of earlier in the book: Stones are hard, water is wet, and without support things will fall to the middle of the earth.

[The Atheist]

The thing they're aming for is to let him forget everything what's worth living for.
So if they torture Julia in front of his eyes, he'll only be remembered how much he loves her. And such an intense emotion makes you human.
If they torture him with his biggest fear and he forgets and even betrayes everything he loves for this fear, then fear gets more important than love.
If there is only one moment of complete doubt in his best argument (love) then this argument will fall and his defense is gone, and everything he believed was true they showed him that truth can be proven not true under the right circumstances.

Spot on!