Chap­ter 2 begins with Win­ston regain­ing aware­ness, real­iz­ing he is trapped in a dark, win­dow­less room, restrained and help­less. His dis­ori­en­ta­tion quick­ly gives way to clar­i­ty as he notices O’Brien and a man in a white coat, hold­ing a hypo­der­mic syringe. Win­ston pieces togeth­er the sit­u­a­tion, rec­og­niz­ing that he has been removed from a dis­ori­ent­ing, tor­tur­ous envi­ron­ment since his arrest, now con­fined in a room meant to break him fur­ther. The nar­ra­tive delves into Winston’s mem­o­ries of the phys­i­cal and psy­cho­log­i­cal abuse he has suf­fered, deliv­ered by both black-clad guards and intel­lec­tu­al Par­ty mem­bers. As each wave of tor­ment crash­es over him, Win­ston feels his abil­i­ty to resist dete­ri­o­rate. Under con­stant duress, the Par­ty has begun to break down his sense of self, forc­ing him to con­fess things he nev­er thought pos­si­ble, each admis­sion com­pound­ing his emo­tion­al and phys­i­cal col­lapse.

The inter­ro­ga­tion tac­tics shift from phys­i­cal vio­lence to relent­less psy­cho­log­i­cal manip­u­la­tion. Win­ston recalls his bleak cell, stripped of human­i­ty, designed to dehu­man­ize him and elim­i­nate any sense of indi­vid­u­al­ism. This stark envi­ron­ment serves as a back­drop for O’Brien’s psy­cho­log­i­cal manip­u­la­tion, where he plays the role of both tor­men­tor and a false, pater­nal fig­ure. The goal is to com­plete­ly dis­man­tle Winston’s iden­ti­ty and sense of auton­o­my, forc­ing him into a state of com­plete sub­mis­sion to the Party’s ide­ol­o­gy. Through clever manip­u­la­tion, O’Brien twists Winston’s thoughts, break­ing him fur­ther as he con­fess­es to things that blur the line between what’s real and imag­ined. The dev­as­tat­ing real­iza­tion sets in—Winston is no longer in con­trol of his mind or body, and every part of his iden­ti­ty is being rewrit­ten by the Party’s will. The psy­cho­log­i­cal manip­u­la­tion grows stronger, and Win­ston starts to lose any hope of escap­ing the Par­ty’s grip, feel­ing utter­ly pow­er­less in the face of this unre­lent­ing assault.

O’Brien esca­lates his manip­u­la­tion, con­tin­u­ing to assert that the Par­ty con­trols real­i­ty itself, and Winston’s grasp on truth begins to waver. O’Brien insists that what the Par­ty dic­tates is the only truth, no mat­ter what Winston’s mem­o­ries or per­son­al expe­ri­ences may sug­gest. This fun­da­men­tal­ly shakes Winston’s under­stand­ing of the world, lead­ing him to con­front the ter­ri­fy­ing pos­si­bil­i­ty that his mem­o­ries might be false, fab­ri­cat­ed by the Par­ty to main­tain con­trol. Win­ston starts to see how his per­cep­tion of real­i­ty has been altered, with the Party’s influ­ence shap­ing his thoughts and actions. The more O’Brien speaks, the more Win­ston is forced to accept that the Par­ty has the pow­er not only to con­trol facts but to define truth itself. Win­ston strug­gles with this real­iza­tion, but O’Brien’s relent­less log­ic and pow­er over his mind make it hard­er for him to retain his own sense of self. The process of men­tal manip­u­la­tion inten­si­fies as O’Brien con­tin­ues to reshape Winston’s real­i­ty, and Win­ston becomes less cer­tain of his own mem­o­ries and beliefs. The fear that Win­ston will lose his sense of indi­vid­u­al­i­ty com­plete­ly begins to set in, and the men­tal break­down that fol­lows accel­er­ates, leav­ing him at the mer­cy of O’Brien’s con­trol.

The chap­ter builds to a chill­ing cli­max as O’Brien reveals the final aspect of the Party’s total­i­tar­i­an power—the abil­i­ty to not just con­trol actions but to dic­tate beliefs and per­cep­tions, includ­ing the con­cept of truth itself. O’Brien’s asser­tion that sub­mis­sion to the Par­ty is both a require­ment for sur­vival and a per­verse form of sal­va­tion rings out as a ter­ri­fy­ing truth. The idea that reject­ing the Par­ty is tan­ta­mount to eras­ing one’s exis­tence is some­thing Win­ston can bare­ly com­pre­hend but knows deep down is an inevitable real­i­ty. With this over­whelm­ing pres­sure, Win­ston is forced to face the hor­ror that his very iden­ti­ty and free­dom are illu­sions. The notion that sur­ren­der­ing to the Par­ty is not just sur­vival but sal­va­tion takes root in Winston’s mind as his resis­tance breaks down. He real­izes that to remain non­con­formist in any way would mean the com­plete oblit­er­a­tion of his iden­ti­ty. As the chap­ter con­cludes, Winston’s final strug­gle for self-iden­ti­ty fades away, his men­tal and emo­tion­al col­lapse com­plete. This moment marks the begin­ning of Winston’s final sub­mis­sion to the Party’s pow­er, as he is slow­ly but sure­ly trans­formed into anoth­er will­ing sub­ject, ready to accept the Par­ty’s def­i­n­i­tion of real­i­ty and truth.