1984 Victory Gin

[jbor]

The Great Quail <quail at libyrinth.com>
>> 
>> I agree. In fact, you can buy Victory Gin at the Ministry cafeteria, and
> it
>> seems to be the one commodity the state is never without. Even though it
>> helps Winston deaden the pain, alcohol is still a depressant. It's just
>> another method of control for Party bureaucrats.

on 14/5/03 4:10 AM, davemarc wrote:

> Yeah, and there's something funny about that Victory Gin, too.  It might
> just be that it's awful, but you never know--there might be other stuff in
> it, too.

I got that impression as well.

> On the subject of drugs, I also note that drug injections are part of the
> brainwashing routine.  Orwell wrote a particularly moving passage that
> suggests that drugs make Winston's mind much more "open" to O'Brien's
> influence.

In the interrogation suite when Winston gives an untruthful or uninsightful
answer O'Brien boosts the levels on the pain machine (a sort of
electrotherapy). When he gives a "correct" answer he is injected with a
morphine-like drug which takes away the pain, and he gets a large shot of
this after the "successful" conclusion of each session with O'Brien. It
relates back to the paragraph in the Foreword beginning: "The Korean
Conflict would also soon highlight the alleged Communist practice of
ideological enforcement through 'brainwashing', a set of techniques said to
be based on the work of I.P. Pavlov, who had once trained dogs to salivate
on cue, as the Soviet counterparts after him were conditioning their human
subjects into political reflexes that were useful to the state." (viii)
(Note the "alleged" and "said to" in this sentence. More mealy-mouthing.)

I don't see that the Tube in _Vineland_ comes into play in this particular
connection, however. It's a bit more complex than that, even in respect to
Frenesi's fetish or the Thanatoids, let alone Zoyd's manipulation of the
medium or the opportunities for human bonding (Zoyd & Prairie, Prairie &
Justin) which it does afford and enhance.

best
 
> Certainly there's a connection between this and the Tube in Vineland and the
> 1984 Foreword.