Questions?

[Marduk]

I love this book for its insight and the fluidity of its use of language. I read it once a year just to keep up with current events. <br><br>Yet there remain some rather puzzling questions:<br><br>While incarcerated in MiniPax, there is a scene where a elderly drunken woman is placed in the cells. After a brief conversation, she makes a statement to the effect that she might be Winston's mother. Is she Winston's mother? It would seem to be keeping with the general tone of isolating everyone from the most basic of human feelings, and a measure of success that a man would not recognize his own mother, nor she him.<br><br>At several points there is a hint that somehow, Winston's thoughts are being monitored, when in fact the Thought Police are merely repeating what he has said out loud. During the arrest at the secret love nest, the TeleScreen simply repeats his own words: "You may as well say goodbye!"<br><br>Likewise, during the interrogation by O'Brien, at no point that we are witness to does Winston ask him what is in Room 101, yet O'Brien states that he has asked.<br><br>Minor, perhaps, but does it play into the plotline?