1984 Part 3 Chapter 3

3/11/09

"If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face -- for ever"(267)

This quote is significant because it resembles the parties ultimate power and goal. This relates back to how fear and physical pain are sort of seen as the people's weakness. Fear and physical pain (war, vaporizing) are the two things that keep society in order, under the Parties rule. I think a boot stamping on a human face resembles the Parties power because it induces fear and physical pain into the minds of the people of Oceania. This quote also explains how the party does not care for human life. In order to keep Oceania living in fear they must cause physical pain, which they do to people like Winston, and because there are and as long as there are people like Winston to be "stamped on" the Party will always be seen as all-powerful and the people will always remain afraid.

Solipsism: the theory that the self is all you know to exist.

Abasement: humiliate, to cause to feel shame.