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Copywork
About This Passage
Study how Orwell builds dread out of uncertainty rather than force. The first sentence catalogues the telescreen's reach in cool, technical language, sound and field of vision, as if describing equipment. The real menace arrives in the second sentence's quiet pivot, 'no way of knowing whether you were being watched': the device need not actually watch you, because the mere possibility does the work. The third sentence reduces the whole apparatus of the Thought Police to 'guesswork,' and that guesswork, Orwell implies, is exactly what keeps every citizen policing themselves.
Any sound that Winston made, above the level of a very low whisper, would be picked up by it; moreover, so long as he remained within the field of vision which the metal plaque commanded, he could be ...
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Discussion Questions
Narration Prompt
Retell this chapter in order: on a bright cold day in April, when the clocks strike thirteen, a frail man named Winston Smith climbs to his flat in Victory Mansions past contrived posters of Big Brother whose eyes seem to follow him; a telescreen watches and talks and can never be shut off; at the daily Two Minutes Hate the crowd shouts and grimaces with abstract, switchable rage, and Winston is swept up against his will; later, in a corner the telescreen cannot see, he furtively opens a diary that could mean death and writes DOWN WITH BIG BROTHER over and over; then a knock at the door fills him with terror. When you reach the diary, slow down and weigh the risk Winston is taking.
Discussion Questions
- Orwell opens not with action but with an unsettling image, the clocks striking thirteen, and a frail man fighting a vile wind. Why might Orwell introduce the world and Winston in this way, and what feeling does it create before any events unfold? Support your reading with the text.
- The Big Brother posters are plainly made images, yet their eyes seem to follow people everywhere. What kind of power does that image exert in this chapter, and why does it still affect people even when its artificiality is obvious? Support your reading with the text.
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Vocabulary
Item 1
Reasoning based on guessing rather than certain knowledge; because the Thought Police could tap any screen unseen, knowing whether one was actually being watched was pure this.
Item 2
Possible to imagine as true; that the authorities watched everyone all the time is merely this, yet the bare possibility is enough to make people behave as if it were certain.
Item 3
Strict conformity to officially approved belief; in this society survival depends on showing it, never letting a forbidden thought reach one's face.
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Critical Thinking
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