In Orwell's “1984,” what was the motivation of O'Brien, and other members of the Thought-Police, in spending so much time and effort on Winston?

Question

According to O'Brien, Winston was followed and closely watched for about 7 years, before their meeting took place. In a society like the one depicted in the book, where people from all walks of life are being "evaporated" on a daily basis — in most instances "just-in-case" and not for actual crimes — I can't understand why a man like Winston, who clearly committed severe thought-crimes (his diary, as the most extreme example), shouldn't be just "evaporated"?

What was the point in the secret meeting, the indoctrination, in passing him a copy of "The Book", in giving him time to read it, and only then arresting him? The only thing I can think of is that the Thought-Police wanted to try and take as many people as possible when they arrest Winston, as his "followers" or something of this sort; but after 7 years of close surveillance, they knew he was no leader of some resistance group. It was just himself, and then himself and Julia, and that's it.

Why give him time and risk him telling someone else about O'Brien, and by that potentially "blowing" his cover? (Such an act might cause a "snowball" effect, where some people might spread rumors about O'Brien, while others might actually talk to the Thought-Police.)

Moreover, what was O'Brien's point in writing "The Book", which actually had much truth in it? What was the motivation for doing such extreme amounts of work, which involve enormous "amount" of Double-Think, instead of just arresting and shooting Winston? Nothing would've changed if the book didn't actually exist at all.

And finally, what was the point in holding him for so long in the Ministry Of Love? What was the value in spending so much time and effort in breaking one individual, which has no social footprint whatsoever? He's no leader of an underground resistance group; Winston is actually, as far as the Party's concerned, no one.

The only reasonable option here, is that the Ministry Of Love employees, just like Winston in his new job, need to show for their supervisors that they actually do the job intended by the Ministry of Love, and they're actually successful in that. That Winston, as quite an extreme case, was also finally broken.

Answer 1

There are a lot of sub-questions in this question. I will focus on the title-question, "What was the motivation of O'Brien, and other members of the Thought Police, in spending so much time and effort on Winston?"

This was explained in detail by O'Brien to Winston, during his interrogation. Winston asks what the purpose of the torture was, offering explanations such as to extort confessions or as punishment, which O'Brien contemptuously dismisses, pointing out that Winston could be destroyed utterly, so that no one would ever hear of him again, or even remember that he had ever existed. O'Brien continues:

since we intend to destroy you utterly, so that nothing that you say or do can make the smallest difference — in that case, why do we go to the trouble of interrogating you first?

The reason is:

You are a flaw in the pattern, Winston. You are a stain that must be wiped out... We are not content with negative obedience, nor even with the most abject submission. When finally you surrender to us, it must be of your own free will.

The power of the Party is so complete that "It is intolerable to us that an erroneous thought should exist anywhere in the world, however secret and powerless it may be". As a consequence the Party is prepared to spend any amount of effort in correcting flaws like Winston, even though he himself was completely innocuous.

Answer 2

In addition to Clara Diaz Sanchez's excellent answer, there are several other elements of note:

1. The society the Party strives for has an excess of productive capacity, along with a specific desire to never allow people's standard of living to improve. To this end they can't really waste effort, especially not in pursuit of Party goals. Efficiency is far less of a concern than efficacy, and for most purposes waste is better than efficiency.

2. The idea that Winston could in some way cause trouble for the Party is... optimistic. Considering the intense degree of observation he has long been subjected to (as are all Party members), the idea that he could "blow O'Brien's cover" in some meaningful way significantly underestimates what the Party can know and do. Even if he tried to spread the information, what would he say, and to whom, and how long would he be permitted to do it? What, if anything, could the people he told do with the information?

   One of the major themes of 1984 is that Ingsoc has been successful. Their methods work, and their power is far beyond what individuals can realistically combat.

3. O'Brien's capacity for and practice in doublethink is enormous. Very few people are members of the Inner Party, and they are groomed to be fanatical proponents of Ingsoc. No amount of doublethink is an exertion or in any way troublesome for him. He can turn his viewscreen off because he doesn't need its intervention, after all.

4. Power is its own end to the Party, and the sensation of victory is the only real pleasure its ideology permits. As O'Brien describes:

There will be no curiosity, no enjoyment of the process of life. All competing pleasures will be destroyed. But always—do not forget this, Winston—always there will be the intoxication of power, constantly increasing and constantly growing subtler. Always, at every moment, there will be the thrill of victory, the sensation of trampling on an enemy who is helpless. If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face—forever. (Part III, Chapter III)

The entire charade around Winston's experiences is certainly a subtle expression of power, and Ingsoc's victory over him is complete and always was. Even Winston knowing a lot of true information about the state of the world doesn't help him him in any way, and ultimately serves only to clearly illustrate to him how helpless he has always been, just in time for him to be utterly broken. Even though he physically survives the Ministry of Love, his rebelliousness is completely destroyed.

Answer 3

Rather than based on any thorough analysis of the context, the following is an attempt at extrapolating it towards the most natural conclusion.

It is crucial to ensure that all motivations of every acting member of the society are exclusively those known and approved. While it is very easy to get rid of any given individual, one has to ensure that desires of all those that remain alive are completely known and controllable. Hence each outstandingly difficult case is an excellent material of research to test reliability of existing methods of control. It is very difficult to detect remnants of individual independent will that might still exist buried deep in the soul of such a specimen. Even when any attempts at acting as a separate entity are eradicated, there is no guarantee that, for example, memories from the time when some tiny amount of freedom was still available would remain pleasant or, for another example, feeling of regret for loss of individuality would be still present. To ascertain that all such remnants are totally absent requires much attentive, patient careful work and observation.

Answer 4

One way to try and understand the sociopathic reasoning of the Party is to look at many other areas where people go to great lengths to change something instead of destroy it. (Proselytizing would be an example, but we'll skip it.)

Scientists try to change the DNA or modify a virus or split a particle in an accelerator. In all those cases, the main goal is the process and its outcome. Just destroying something is not [as] satisfying.

The Party wants to have and use absolute power over people. Not use it for some other goal, but just use power for the sake of using power. The harder something is, the more interesting it is for people. In the case of the Party, their area of experimentation is the society.

Instead of working to overcome the gravity to make a human fly, they work to overcome human conscience to make people believe that the Party members can fly. Instead of "amputating" a faulty human, they work hard to experiment with "curing" such people.

And the Party is surely not alone in wanting great power over the society while not caring that much about material resources.

For this very reason, some people perform seemingly irrational actions (that hurt their financial of business success) to make other people suffer. But this becomes easy to understand if we consider that the power to affect other people is their ultimate goal, not financial success that can later be used to buy some power.