Orwell, George — Nineteen eighty-four [846]

His mind sagged round and round on the same track, like a ball falling again and again into the same series of slots. He had only six thoughts. The pain in his belly; a piece of bread; the blood and the screaming; O’Brien; Julia; the razor blade. — Orwell, George, Nineteen eighty-four, 846

Note

The simile of the ball falling into the same slots renders mental degradation through a mechanical image — thought reduced to a worn groove. The list of six thoughts compresses an entire inner life down to bare survival items, showing internalized panoptic control so complete that even love and hope survive only as reflexes kept alive by an exterior artifact (the razor blade).