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Copywork
About This Passage
At lunch Syme, a Newspeak specialist, explains his work to Winston. Watch the word Orwell gives him: not building but the destruction of words, called 'a beautiful thing.' Syme speaks like a craftsman admiring his trade, listing verbs, adjectives, nouns, synonyms, and antonyms as so much 'wastage' to be cut away. The horror is buried in the calm, technical pleasure of the sentences: a man lovingly describing how to shrink the language people think in, as though pruning a hedge. As you copy, notice how the orderly, reasonable tone makes a monstrous project sound tidy and even admirable.
It’s a beautiful thing, the destruction of words. Of course the great wastage is in the verbs and adjectives, but there are hundreds of nouns that can be got rid of as well. It isn’t only the synonyms...
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Discussion Questions
Narration Prompt
Retell this chapter in order: Winston eats lunch in the grimy, deafening canteen, where his fellow worker Syme, a Newspeak specialist, gloats over a recent hanging and then explains with a craftsman's delight that his real job is to destroy words, narrowing the language until thoughtcrime becomes literally impossible; Winston privately concludes that Syme is too clever and will one day be vaporized; their neighbor Parsons arrives, a sweaty, boyish fool proud of his spy-children, boasting that his seven-year-old daughter trailed a stranger and turned him over to the patrols; nearby a man pours out a quacking stream of pure orthodoxy, words without thought; the telescreen announces the chocolate ration has been raised to twenty grammes, though Winston alone remembers it was cut to that figure only yesterday, and everyone believes the good news; Winston broods on the grim texture of life and a buried sense that things were once better; and the dark-haired girl watches him, filling him with the terror of facecrime. When you reach Syme's delight in destroying words, slow down and weigh whether shrinking a language could shrink what a mind is able to think.
Discussion Questions
- Syme insists that the aim of Newspeak is to narrow the range of thought until thoughtcrime becomes 'literally impossible.' What does that claim suggest about how the Party means to keep power? Is controlling language more powerful than punishing dissent, or does the chapter suggest they work together? Support your reading with the text.
- Winston is certain that Syme will be vaporized because he 'sees too clearly and speaks too plainly,' even though Syme is fiercely loyal to the Party. Is Winston right that clear sight dooms Syme, or should such loyalty make him safe? Weigh the strongest case on both sides, then defend your reading with evidence from the chapter.
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Vocabulary
Item 1
Bulging or sticking out; Syme's large, protuberant eyes seem to push forward and search Winston's face while he talks.
Item 2
Full of spiteful, poisonous ill will; Syme is venomously orthodox, gloating with pleasure over hangings and the confessions of thought-criminals.
Item 3
Fondly recalling or dwelling on the past; Syme speaks reminiscently of the hanging he watched, savoring the memory of the prisoners' kicking feet.
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Critical Thinking
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