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Copywork
About This Passage
Study how Orwell turns a family into an instrument of the state. The first sentence names the woman's whole existence as 'a life of terror,' then the second forecasts it precisely, 'another year, two years,' so the dread feels scheduled and certain. The clinical phrase 'symptoms of unorthodoxy' treats a forbidden thought like a disease the children are trained to detect. The blunt final sentence, 'Nearly all children nowadays were horrible,' lands like a flat verdict, and its plainness makes the horror of a world that weaponizes its own children feel ordinary.
With those children, he thought, that wretched woman must lead a life of terror. Another year, two years, and they would be watching her night and day for symptoms of unorthodoxy. Nearly all children ...
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Discussion Questions
Narration Prompt
Retell this chapter in order: a knock fills Winston with fear, but it is only his worn neighbor Mrs Parsons, who needs help with her blocked sink; Winston goes to the Parsons flat, hung with Spies banners, and clears the pipe; the Parsons children, in their Spies uniforms, point a toy gun at him, brand him a traitor and thought-criminal, and the boy shoots him with a catapult; Winston glimpses a look of helpless fright on Mrs Parsons's face, afraid of her own son; back in his flat he reflects that the Spies systematically turn children into savages who would denounce their own parents, recalls a voice from a dream promising 'the place where there is no darkness,' and writes again in his diary. When you reach the children's attack, slow down and weigh how much real menace lies under the 'game.'
Discussion Questions
- Winston is filled with fear at a knock that turns out to be only Mrs Parsons needing her sink fixed. What does the gap between his fear and the harmless visitor reveal about ordinary life under the Party, and why? Support your reading with the text.
- The Parsons children treat threatening Winston like a thrilling game. Do you read their behavior mainly as children imitating adult slogans without grasping them, or as genuine cruelty the Party has deliberately cultivated in them? Defend one reading with evidence from the chapter, and explain why it fits better than the other.
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Vocabulary
Item 1
A departure from official, approved belief; the children will watch their mother night and day for any symptom of this, ready to report a forbidden thought.
Item 2
Officially discouraged or frowned upon; the ordinary word 'Mrs' has been quietly discountenanced by the Party, which presses everyone to say 'comrade' instead.
Item 3
Cruel and savagely aggressive; the boy's manner as he threatens Winston is so vicious that the attack does not feel altogether like a game.
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Critical Thinking
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