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Copywork
About This Passage
This sentence sounds calm and tidy, but it describes something shocking. Winston's job is to change old newspapers so that they always match whatever the Party is saying today. The phrase 'brought up to date' makes it sound like a normal, helpful chore, like fixing a small mistake. But what it really means is that the truth about the past is being erased and rewritten over and over, every single day, so that no one can ever check what really happened.
Day by day and almost minute by minute the past was brought up to date.
Full copywork activity with handwriting lines available in the complete study guide.
Discussion Questions
Narration Prompt
Tell what happens in this chapter in order: Winston goes to his job at the Ministry of Truth, where his work is to change old newspapers so they always match what the Party says today; messages slide to him through tubes telling him which stories to fix; when he finishes, he drops the old, true papers into a slot called a memory hole, where they are burned up so no one can ever find them; Winston thinks about how all of history is rewritten this way, and how people who anger the Party are erased from every record as if they never existed; then, for one job, he invents a brave hero named Comrade Ogilvy, a man who never really lived, and writes him into the news so that he becomes part of 'history.' When you reach the part where Winston invents Comrade Ogilvy, slow down and tell why making up a fake person is such a strange and powerful thing for him to do.
Discussion Questions
- Winston's job at the Ministry of Truth is to change old newspapers so they match what the Party says now, day after day. What does it tell you about Winston's world that a person's whole job is to keep changing the past, and why? What part of the chapter helps you decide?
- Winston makes up Comrade Ogilvy, a man who never really lived, and writes him into the record as part of history. Why do you think inventing a fake person matters so much, and what does it show you about Winston's world? What part of the chapter helps you decide?
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Vocabulary
Item 1
To officially 'put right' or correct something; in Winston's world it is the polite word the Party uses for changing true records into the lies it prefers.
Item 2
Unfriendly and angry, as if against you; Tillotson's glasses flash an angry, unfriendly look toward Winston across the room.
Item 3
Long, dull, and tiresomely slow; much of Winston's work at the Ministry is this kind of repetitive routine.
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Critical Thinking
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