There are no
laws in Oceania. Asunderstands, as the novel opens, "nothing was illegal, since there were
no longer any laws."
Nevertheless, Winston Smith commits crimes. He
knows from the moment he opens his journal that even thinking of keeping a private diary is a
thought crime. It is a crime because it never should occur to him, as an orthodox Party member,
to act in such a way. A thought crime, he knows, is punishable by deathor, at the very least,
twenty-five years in a forced labor camp.
Winston, however, goes past mere
thought crimes, actually conspiring against the state. He andare lured byinto what they think is
a group of conspirators who are plotting rebellion. They are caught on tape saying they would
like to overthrow the government and telling O'Brien that they are willing to commit the
following crimes to do so:
"You are prepared to
cheat, to forge, to blackmail, to corrupt the minds of children, to distribute habit-forming
drugs, to encourage prostitution, to disseminate venereal diseasesto do anything which is likely
to cause demoralization and weaken the power of the Party?"
"Yes."
"If, for example, it would somehow serve our
interests to throw sulphuric acid in a childs faceare you prepared to do that?"
"Yes."
Winston, of course, is not
charged with anything specific when he is arrested and brought to the Ministry of Love, but he
has obviously stepped over many lines in his desire to rebel against the Party and its
totalitarian worldview.
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