Part One, Chapter 1 — Teaching Companion

What it asks It asks the student to judge the face Winston wears for the telescreen. Before he turns round he has “set his features into the expression of quiet optimism which it was advisable to wear when facing the telescreen.” The narrator says a watched life is lived “from habit that became instinct”, and that “even a back can be revealing”. In the chant at the end of the Hate, “To dissemble your feelings, to control your face, to do what everyone else was doing, was an instinctive reaction.” At the knock, his heart is “thumping like a drum, but his face, from long habit, was probably expressionless.” The student decides whether the face is a mask over a self that is still there, or whether the habit has grown into him. The card must not settle this as the book’s verdict, and must not say who is at the door.

One reading

Still a mask. Winston knows he is wearing it: he “set” his features on purpose, and he keeps his back to the screen because even a back can give him away. Under the face, for years, has run “the interminable restless monologue” he means to pour into the diary. A man who knows his face is a disguise still has a self behind it.

• He had set his features into the expression of quiet optimism which it was advisable to wear when facing the telescreen.
• even a back can be revealing

Another reading

Part of him. The narrator calls controlling the face “an instinctive reaction”, not a choice. At the knock his face goes blank by itself, “from long habit”, while his heart races. And when he sits down at last to say what he thinks, “even the monologue had dried up”. A face worn this long may have shaped what is behind it.

• To dissemble your feelings, to control your face, to do what everyone else was doing, was an instinctive reaction.
• his face, from long habit, was probably expressionless

Listen for

• Notices the verb “set”: the first face is a deliberate act, done as he turns round “abruptly”.
• Sets the opening face beside the last one, where the heart is “thumping like a drum”, and notices “probably”: Winston cannot see his own face at the knock, so he has to trust the habit to do its work.
• Hears “from habit that became instinct” as the narrator’s account of how a watched life trains the body.
• Notices the seconds in the chant when “the expression in his eyes might conceivably have betrayed him”: the mask can slip.

If stuck

• What does Winston do with his face just before he turns towards the telescreen?
• What is his face doing when the knocking comes at the end?
• If you had worn the same calm face every day for years, how would you know what you really felt?

A strong answer A strong response takes a side on the face and grounds it in both ends of the chapter. One reader says it is still a mask: Winston “set his features” on purpose, knows “even a back can be revealing”, and has carried a private monologue under it for years. Another says the mask has grown in: the narrator calls controlling one’s face “an instinctive reaction”, and at the knock his face is blank “from long habit” while his heart races. The best answers notice that the chapter shows both, a face he puts on and a face that puts itself on, and ask which of the two is in charge by the last page.

What it asks It asks what Winston finds he lacks once he has the book, the pen and the hidden corner. “For weeks past he had been making ready for this moment, and it had never crossed his mind that anything would be needed except courage.” He thought “The actual writing would be easy”: he had only to set down “the interminable restless monologue that had been running inside his head, literally for years.” At the page, “even the monologue had dried up”. He “seemed not merely to have lost the power of expressing himself, but even to have forgotten what it was that he had originally intended to say.” Just before, he has found that he cannot be sure of the year, and cannot say whom the diary is for: “Either the future would resemble the present, in which case it would not listen to him: or it would be different from it, and his predicament would be meaningless.” The student names what is missing and sets it against the courage he expected to need. The card must not say what will become of the diary or of Winston.

One reading

Someone to write to. The words ran freely while no one could hear them. Once he asks whom the diary is for, he finds a future that either will not listen or will not understand, and the monologue stops. A voice needs a listener, and his world has left him none.

• For whom, it suddenly occurred to him to wonder, was he writing this diary?
• How could you communicate with the future?

Another reading

His own words. He has not only lost the power to say what he thinks; he has forgotten what he meant to say at all. A thought that lived for years as a murmur in his head may not survive being set down on purpose. When words do come, they come in panic, with no plan behind them.

• It was curious that he seemed not merely to have lost the power of expressing himself, but even to have forgotten what it was that he had originally intended to say.
• Suddenly he began writing in sheer panic, only imperfectly aware of what he was setting down.

Listen for

• Notices that the date comes first, and that he cannot be sure it is 1984: even the first words on the page are a guess.
• Hears “not merely” and “but even”: the loss goes deeper than nerves.
• Notices what crowds in where the words should be: the itching ulcer, the military music, the gin.
• Asks whether a man who has the courage but not the words has rebelled yet.

If stuck

• What did Winston expect to be the hard part of keeping a diary?
• What happens to the words he has carried in his head for years once he sits down?
• Have you ever known just what you wanted to say, until the moment you had to write it?

A strong answer A strong response names what is missing and shows it on the page. One reader says he lacks someone to write to: the question of whom the diary is for leaves him with a future that will not listen or will not understand, and the monologue stops. Another says he lacks his own words: he has “forgotten what it was that he had originally intended to say”, and what comes next comes “in sheer panic”. The best answers notice that the courage he prepared was not the hard part, and ask what it means that years of private thought vanish the moment he tries to write them down.

What it asks It asks the student to listen to the voice of the first entry. Winston writes it “in sheer panic”, after the monologue has dried up, and it runs on until it sheds its capitals and full stops. It praises “One very good one of a ship full of refugees being bombed”, reports the audience “much amused” and “shouting with laughter”, describes a mother covering her boy “as if she thought her arms could keep the bullets off him”, calls the arm flying up from the lifeboat “a wonderful shot”, and notes “a lot of applause from the party seats”. A prole woman protests and is turned out, and the entry ends “nobody cares what the proles say typical prole reaction they never –”. Afterwards Winston calls it “this stream of rubbish”. The student decides whose judgment words like “very good” and “wonderful” carry. The card must not say Winston approves of the film, or that he is plainly mocking it: the chapter gives the words and his own dismissal of them.

One reading

The Party’s, coming out through his pen. These are the words of the cinema and the “party seats”, the habit of a man who has watched such films with everyone else. Writing in panic, with his own words gone, he falls back on the phrases he is used to, down to the sneer at the proles. The entry shows how much of the official voice is in him before he has found his own.

• there was a lot of applause from the party seats
• nobody cares what the proles say typical prole reaction

Another reading

His own horror, coming through that voice. The entry stays on what no one applauding would stop to look at: the boy trying to burrow into his mother, the woman “blue with fright herself”, her arms held over him. It gives the prole woman’s protest in her own words. A writer who simply shared the audience’s taste would not have kept those details, and “very good” and “wonderful” sit beside them like a flat report of what the crowd felt.

• all the time covering him up as much as possible as if she thought her arms could keep the bullets off him
• they didnt oughter of showed it not in front of kids

Listen for

• Notices that the entry is a “stream” with no capitals and no full stops, written “only imperfectly aware of what he was setting down”.
• Notices the details of the mother and her boy that an audience laughing at the screen would not pause on.
• Hears the line about the proles as a stock phrase, and asks whether Winston believes it.
• Sets this entry beside the later capitals: both come out of him without a plan.

If stuck

• What does the audience do while the fat man sinks?
• What does the prole woman shout, and what happens to her?
• When you write fast without stopping to think, whose words come out?

A strong answer A strong response names a voice and argues for it from the entry’s own words. One reader hears the Party: “very good”, “wonderful” and the sneer at the proles are the cinema’s phrases, the voice of the “party seats”, and they come out first because they are the words he has. Another hears Winston’s horror pushing through that voice: the entry stops on the mother’s arms and the boy’s fear and gives the prole woman’s protest in full. The best answers notice that both voices run through the same unbroken sentence, and that Winston himself calls the whole thing “rubbish”.

What it asks It asks the student to judge what Winston learns about himself in the Hate. Before the Hate, the narrator gives his reason for disliking the girl: “He knew the reason.” It was her “general clean-mindedness”, and the young women who were “the most bigoted adherents of the Party”. In the Hate, where the rage “could be switched from one object to another like the flame of a blowlamp”, he moves it by “a voluntary act” from the screen onto her. “Vivid, beautiful hallucinations” follow: he would flog her to death, shoot her full of arrows, rape her and cut her throat. Then “Better than before, moreover, he realized why it was that he hated her”: “because he wanted to go to bed with her and would never do so”, and because of “the odious scarlet sash, aggressive symbol of chastity”. The student explains why the clearer reason arrives here, inside the rage, and so decides whether the Hate uncovered a truth or made one. The card must not say the girl is a spy or works for the Thought Police (Winston himself calls that “very unlikely”), must not give her a name, and must not soften the fantasy into mere dislike. A teacher may want to read this paragraph with the student.

One reading

Because the rage strips his guard away. Before the Hate he has a tidy reason for disliking her, her clean-mindedness. The rage strips that away and leaves the reason he never said: he wants her, and the Party’s sash stands between them. A mind that stops guarding itself can blurt out the truth, as his pen does later with the capitals.

• general clean-mindedness which she managed to carry about with her
• He hated her because she was young and pretty and sexless, because he wanted to go to bed with her and would never do so

Another reading

Because the Hate makes the reason. The insight arrives inside a ritual built to make hate, and it comes wrapped in the Hate’s own violence. Wanting her turns into a reason to hurt her, which is the Party’s rule about desire working inside him. A truth found in a frenzy that turns one “even against one’s will” into a lunatic may be the frenzy’s, not his.

• Vivid, beautiful hallucinations flashed through his mind.
• there was only the odious scarlet sash, aggressive symbol of chastity

Listen for

• Sets the reason Winston “knew” before the Hate beside the one he finds in it, and asks which is truer.
• Notices that the switch is the one thing in the Hate the chapter calls “a voluntary act”, and that the rage and its violence come with it.
• Notices that the fantasies are called “beautiful”, and does not soften what they are.
• Asks whose rule turns wanting someone into a reason to hate her.

If stuck

• Before the Hate, what reason does Winston give for disliking the girl?
• What reason does he find during the Hate?
• Can a person learn something true about themselves while in a rage?

A strong answer A strong response explains why the reason comes now and faces the fantasy squarely. One reader says the rage burned off the tidy reason, her clean-mindedness, and left the real one, a desire the Party’s sash forbids. Another says the Hate made the reason: the insight comes inside the rage, dressed in its violence, and turns his desire into the Party’s kind of hate. The best answers notice that the move onto the girl is “a voluntary act” that still serves the Hate, and do not treat the fantasy as proof that Winston stands outside the room.

What it asks It asks what the glance does for Winston. He says he began the diary today “because of this other incident”, a morning “if anything so nebulous could be said to happen”. In the chant, O’Brien re-settles his spectacles, their eyes meet, and Winston “knew – yes, he knew !” that O’Brien was thinking as he was; “‘I am with you,’ O’Brien seemed to be saying”. Then “he was already uncertain whether it had happened.” Such incidents “never had any sequel”; all they did was “to keep alive in him the belief, or hope, that others besides himself were the enemies of the Party.” It was “an equivocal glance”, and still “a memorable event in the locked loneliness in which one had to live.” Earlier, at the page, the diary had no one he could imagine reading it. The student decides what the glance gives him. The card must not say that O’Brien shares Winston’s views or belongs to any conspiracy, and must not treat the Brotherhood as real: here it is known “only through vague rumours”.

One reading

Company. Winston lives in “locked loneliness”, and one glance, even a doubtful one, tells him he may not be the only one. A man sure that no one shares his mind keeps it to himself; a man who hopes someone does may dare to write it down.

• keep alive in him the belief, or hope, that others besides himself were the enemies of the Party
• a memorable event in the locked loneliness in which one had to live

Another reading

A reader, or the idea of one. Before he remembers the glance, the diary is addressed to “the future”, which he decides cannot listen to him. The look gives his thoughts somewhere to go: it was as if two minds had opened to each other. It is while he sits remembering it that his hand fills half a page.

• For the future, for the unborn.
• It was as though their two minds had opened and the thoughts were flowing from one into the other through their eyes.

Listen for

• Notices that the certainty, “yes, he knew !”, and the doubt sit a few lines apart, and asks which of them Winston acts on.
• Notices that “seemed to be saying” puts O’Brien’s message in Winston’s mind, not in O’Brien’s mouth.
• Notices that the glance comes in the very seconds when Winston fears his own eyes “might conceivably have betrayed him”.
• Connects the glance to the question Winston could not answer at the page, of whom the diary is for.

If stuck

• What does O’Brien do with his spectacles just before their eyes meet?
• What does Winston think the look is saying?
• When you are alone with a secret, what difference does it make to think one other person might share it?

A strong answer A strong response names what the glance gives and keeps its doubt in view. One reader says it gives him company: in “locked loneliness” even a doubtful look keeps alive the hope that “others besides himself” are enemies of the Party. Another says it gives him a reader: the diary was written to a future he thought could not listen, and the glance offers a mind his thoughts seemed to flow into. The best answers notice that the message is only what O’Brien “seemed to be saying”, that Winston doubts it almost at once, and that he acts on it anyway.

What it asks It asks the student to read the last entry and the feeling that follows it, and to find whose judgment that feeling answers to. After the capitals, and the thought of arrests that come at night, “For a moment he was seized by a kind of hysteria.” He writes “in a hurried untidy scrawl”: “theyll shoot me i dont care theyll shoot me in the back of the neck i dont care down with big brother they always shoot you in the back of the neck i dont care down with big brother –”. Then “He sat back in his chair, slightly ashamed of himself, and laid down the pen.” He is in the alcove, where “he could not be seen”, and this hand is unlike the “large neat capitals” a few lines before. The student decides before whom, or before what, a man alone feels ashamed. The card must not say that the knock which follows is an arrest; the chapter stops before the door opens.

One reading

Himself. Someone in Winston holds a standard the scrawl fails: the man who hunted down a real nib because the paper “deserved” one, and whose capitals came out large and neat. Shame needs a judge, and here the judge is a Winston of his own. That he can feel it alone, out of sight, shows a self still there.

• He sat back in his chair, slightly ashamed of himself, and laid down the pen.
• the beautiful creamy paper deserved to be written on with a real nib

Another reading

The watcher he carries with him. A man who has lived for years as if every sound were overheard does not stop feeling watched because he steps out of the screen’s sight. The shame follows “a kind of hysteria”, the very loss of control a watched face must never show. He may be ashamed before an eye he has learned to keep inside him.

• You had to live – did live, from habit that became instinct – in the assumption that every sound you made was overheard
• For a moment he was seized by a kind of hysteria.

Listen for

• Sets the chapter’s three hands side by side: the “small clumsy letters” of the date, the “large neat capitals”, and the “hurried untidy scrawl”.
• Notices that “i dont care” comes three times, and asks whether a man who cared nothing could be ashamed.
• Notices that the shame comes before the knock, while he is alone and out of the screen’s sight.
• Asks whether a judge inside a man is his own, or one the telescreen put there.

If stuck

• What does Winston write in the last entry, and how does his handwriting look?
• Can anyone see him while he writes in the alcove?
• When have you felt ashamed of something no one saw you do?

A strong answer A strong response names the judge and ties it to the page. One reader says he is ashamed before himself: the Winston who wanted a real nib for paper that “deserved” one, and whose capitals came out neat, looks at a hysterical scrawl and winces, which shows a self the Party has not reached. Another says he is ashamed before the watcher he carries: a man trained to feel overheard at every sound cannot step out of the screen’s sight, and the “kind of hysteria” he has just shown is exactly what a watched face must hide. The best answers notice that the shame arrives before the knock, while he is alone, and ask whether a judge inside a man can still be someone else’s.

What it asks It sets two of Winston’s judgments against each other. Before the first stroke, “A tremor had gone through his bowels. To mark the paper was the decisive act.” At the end, tempted to tear out the pages, he decides it is “useless”: whether he wrote the words or not, whether he kept the diary or not, “made no difference”, because he “had committed – would still have committed, even if he had never set pen to paper – the essential crime that contained all others in itself.” Yet the diary, if found, would be “reasonably certain” to bring death or twenty-five years in a camp, and he took care over it: the alcove, a real nib for paper that “deserved” one, the date. The student builds a thesis on how much the deed changed, meets the strongest objection, and revises. The card must not say what becomes of the diary or of Winston, or that the knock is an arrest.

One reading

A great deal. Before the mark there was only a thought; after it there is a thing, which can be found, and which he could tear out and does not. The chapter makes the first stroke an ordeal in his body, a “tremor”, and the punishment it names is for a diary “if detected”. A man with a crime in his head and a man with it on paper are not in the same place.

• To mark the paper was the decisive act.
• for a moment he was tempted to tear out the spoiled pages and abandon the enterprise altogether

Another reading

Little in the world, though perhaps much in him. Winston’s own reasoning holds: the crime of thought was complete before any ink, and it “was not a thing that could be concealed for ever”. What the mark changes is Winston’s knowledge of where he stands, not where he stands.

• the essential crime that contained all others in itself
• Thoughtcrime was not a thing that could be concealed for ever.

Listen for

• Notices that “made no difference” is the reason Winston gives for not tearing out the pages: the thought that the diary changes nothing is what keeps it.
• Weighs the care he took over nib, paper and hiding place against his claim that none of it matters.
• Notices the aside that the diary is “not illegal (nothing was illegal, since there were no longer any laws)”, and asks what makes a deed a crime here.
• Revises a first answer by separating what the mark changes for the Party from what it changes for Winston.

If stuck

• What happens in Winston’s body just before he writes the date?
• Why does he decide not to tear out the pages?
• What is the difference between thinking something and writing it where it could be found?

A strong answer A strong response states a thesis on what the first mark changed, answers the best objection, and revises. One thesis says the mark changed everything: a thought became a thing that could be found, the first stroke cost him a “tremor”, and he kept the pages when he could have torn them out. The strongest objection is Winston’s own: the crime “contained all others in itself” before any ink, and the Thought Police would get him either way. A good revision might hold that the mark changed little in the Party’s eyes and a great deal in Winston’s, since a man who has written the words can no longer tell himself he only thought them. Another might revise towards Winston’s view, and argue that the care over nib and paper was for himself rather than for any outcome.

What it asks It asks the chapter’s whole question. In the Hate, “it was impossible to avoid joining in”: “In a lucid moment Winston found that he was shouting with the others and kicking his heel violently against the rung of his chair.” The rage could be switched “like the flame of a blowlamp”, at one moment against Big Brother, so that “his heart went out to the lonely, derided heretic on the screen”, the next “at one with the people about him”, his “secret loathing of Big Brother changed into adoration”. At the diary, trying on purpose, he finds “even the monologue had dried up”. Then, “while he sat helplessly musing he had also been writing, as though by automatic action”, no longer in the “cramped awkward handwriting” of before but “in large neat capitals”, half a page of DOWN WITH BIG BROTHER. The student builds a thesis on which moment shows the real Winston, meets the strongest objection, and revises. The card must not treat the capitals as a hero’s brave stand, must not treat Winston as standing outside the Hate, and must not say who knocks or what becomes of him.

One reading

The diary. When nothing is steering him, his hand writes what has run in him for years. The capitals arrive without a decision, but so does the truth when a mind stops guarding itself, and the neat hand is calm where every chosen entry was panic. In the Hate, by contrast, the narrator says the feeling turns one “even against one’s will” into a lunatic: that is the crowd’s feeling in his body, not his own.

• printing in large neat capitals
• turning one even against one’s will into a grimacing, screaming lunatic

Another reading

The Hate, or neither one alone. In the Hate he joins in, and for moments “all that was said of Goldstein seemed to him to be true”. The capitals are no more chosen than the shouting: both arrive before he decides anything. If the real Winston is whatever comes out when he is not choosing, the Winston in the crowd has as good a claim. Some readers will say the real Winston is the one who notices both, in “a lucid moment” and at the shock of the page.

• At those moments his secret loathing of Big Brother changed into adoration
• he had also been writing, as though by automatic action

Listen for

• Notices that both moments happen to Winston rather than being chosen by him, and asks whether that settles anything.
• Notices “In a lucid moment Winston found that he was shouting”: the noticing is his even when the shouting is not.
• Sets the “large neat capitals” against the “cramped awkward handwriting” of the entry he wrote on purpose.
• Revises by asking whether a self is what a person does, what they feel, or what they would choose if no one were watching.

If stuck

• What does Winston’s body do during the Hate, and when does he notice it?
• How does the writing of the capitals differ from the writing of the first entry?
• If both of these moments just happen to him, how would you decide which one is more truly his?

A strong answer A strong response states a thesis on which moment shows the real Winston, answers the strongest objection, and revises. One thesis chooses the diary: the capitals are what his hand writes when no screen is steering him, in a calm hand his panic could not manage, while the Hate turns him “even against one’s will” into someone else. The strongest objection is that the capitals come “as though by automatic action”, no more chosen than the shouting, and that in the Hate his loathing really did turn “into adoration” for a while. A good revision might place the real Winston in neither act but in the noticing, the “lucid moment” in the Hate and the shock at the page. Another might hold that a self the Party can switch like a blowlamp is still a self, and that both moments are his.