A Tale of Pronouns, ‘Gay Cakes’ and Conscience: Compelled Speech After Mackereth v DWP

2. In truth, the main horror of Nineteen Eighty-Four – aside from the IngSoc regime’s combination of totalitarian brutality and pettifogging bureaucracy – is The Party’s manipulation of thought and language. Airstrip One’s government spends considerable effort erasing and redefining words, to eliminate ideas unacceptable to the regime, enforcing its will through the brutal Thought Police. Towards the conclusion, the protagonist Winston Smith is interrogated by Thought Police agent O’Brien, who demands that Smith confess that O’Brien is holding up five fingers on his left hand, while in reality he is only holding up four.