In the diary he writes something that I found interesting, “Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else follows.” (81) Winston recognizes that he is not free, he has to work, he has to salute Big Brother, he has to smile and laugh when the time is right, if for any reason he seems to be a little off he will be taken by the thought police, but they can never reach what is in your head. As long as the world spins two plus two equals four, it’s a fact, a law like gravity and it is this ability to think for oneself that makes Winston free. By the end of the book Orwell tells us how the party reprograms Winston through beatings, electro shock therapy, starvation, and many other forms of torture. His torturer, a man by the name of O’Brien, sets about the task of making believe what the Party says. First he breaks his mind by holding up four fingers and asking Winston how many fingers he’s holding. Winston replies four and O’Brien sends electricity through him. This is repeated over and over again until Winston cries out from the pain that O’Brien is holding up five fingers, Obrien replies, “No, Winston, that is no use. You are lying. You still think there are four.” Eventually Winston is in so much pain and shock that he honestly cannot tell how many fingers he is seeing.

I think that it is at this point that the subject of reality enters into the story. You see O’Brien knows that two and two make four and that the only way to gain Winston’s loyalty is make it so that his mind accepts the reality that is presented to him by the party, and in that reality two and two are five because the party says so.