'Winston Smith Needs O'Brien' in the novel 1984 by George Orwell.

Winston, being a concealed outcast, feels lonely. He is longing for a soul mate, a friend, someone who would understand him. Winston wants to meet another concealed outcast that would be against the Party. O’Brien is an Inner Party member. It is not difficult to guess that he is not unorthodox. Paradoxically, Winston decides that exactly O’Brien is the collaborator he needs:

He felt deeply drawn to him (…) because of a

secretly-held belief – or perhaps not even a belief, merely a hope- that O’Brien’s political orthodoxy was not perfect.    

(Orwell p.13)

Smith’s belief is based only on the fact that O’Brien looks intelligent indeed.

Imagination does not need facts –- it can make them up. Smith already has the hypothesis: O’Brien is against the Party. He only needs the proofs. Winston’s desperate need for collaboration stimulates his imagination. Thanks to it, Winston gradually starts finding “proofs” of O’Brien’s unorthodoxy:

But there was a fraction of a second when their eyes met and for as long as it took to happen Winston knew-yes, he knew! – that O’Brien was thinking the same thing as himself.

                                                                 (Orwell p.19)

 To know that he is not alone in his hatred for the Party – even that is an escape from “the locked loneliness in which one had to live” (Orwell p.20). People tend to believe what they want to believe. Thus,(sloji tazi zapetaika☺) in Winston’s mind O’Brien becomes a secret friend who is a political conspirator. Smith is unable to see that O’Brien’s collaboration is simply the necessary illusion.

        Once happened to believe that O’Brien is a member of the Brotherhood, Winston starts interpreting reality in such a way as to keep this impression. In one of his dreams Smith hears somebody saying: “We shall meet in the place where there is no darkness” (Orwell p.27). Winston does not see the face of the man talking, but as a consequence of his interpretation, he identifies “the voice as O’Brien’s” (Orwell p.27).

        When Winston starts keeping a diary, he needs to address the diary to “a particular person” (Orwell p.84). Again he chooses O’Brien:

He knew, with more certainty than before, that O’Brien was on his side. He was writing the diary for O’Brien – to O’Brien

                                                        (Orwell p.84)

Winston is sure that O’Brien is a friend and there are (mislq che evidence se izpolzva samo v edinstv. Chislo, taka che go promeni za vseki sluchai)not any evidences to support his belief:

Nothing but a flash of the eyes and a single equivocal remark: beyond that, only his own secret imaginings, founded on a dream.

(Orwell p.176)

 Smith’s confidence can only be explained by his need and wish to deceive himself.

        Ironically, Winston turns out to be right about two things – O’Brien is a man he can talk to and one who really helps him change his life, but by different means. O’Brien does not become his collaborator in a conspiracy against the unbearable regime, nor does he introduce himself to the Brotherhood, but makes him one of the brainwashed Party members. In this way Winston is saved from the horror of reality and starts liking it.

Smith has always felt attracted to O’Brien because of his appearance of “a person you could talk to, if somehow you could cheat the telescreen and get him alone” (Orwell p.13). That is an appealing appearance, especially for a man who is longing to be heard. Winston wants to have someone with whom to share his thoughts, and it does not matter if this someone is a friend or an enemy, as long as he is able to understand: “Perhaps one did not want to be loved so much as to be understood” (Orwell p.264). And O’Brien is the person to do so: “I enjoy talking to you” (Orwell p.271). Even though Winston does not realize it, O’Brien has a good reason to listen to him: in order to alter somebody’s conception of the world, and even to eliminate it, one must first have a good notion of it.

        O’Brien really succeeds in changing Winston’s mind. Using torture to make Smith relinquish all his beliefs and hopes for a better world, even his love for Julia, O’Brien deprives him of the sense of life. If one has nothing to live for, the tyranny of the Party does not matter anymore,(sloji zapet.) and he is not motivated to rebel against it. O’Brien is the one “to cure” Winston from his disobedience: “He had the air of a doctor, a teacher, even a priest, anxious to explain and persuade rather than to punish” (p.257). Smith really needs O’Brien’s help in order to accept reality.

        Winston’s despair is caused by the fact that he cannot acquiesce with the formidable reality. Loneliness and helplessness to rebel against the regime of the Party make him suffer. In the beginning of the book O’Brien is a needed illusion – an imaginary political enemy of the Party for Winston not be alone in his hatred. At the end,(zap.i tuk) O’Brien saves Smith from his anguish by altering his mind and depriving him of the sense of his life. In both cases Winston needs O’Brien in order to cease suffering and to survive.