Part Two, Chapter 5 — Teaching Companion

What it asks It asks the student to read how Syme leaves the record. On the third day Winston goes to the notice board in the vestibule of the Records Department. The printed list of the Chess Committee “looked almost exactly as it had looked before – nothing had been crossed out – but it was one name shorter.” Then: “It was enough. Syme had ceased to exist: he had never existed.” The student says what a crossing-out would have told people that the reprinted list does not. The card must say nothing about what has happened to Syme; the chapter shows only the shorter list.

One reading

That he was ever there. A crossing-out is still a record: it shows a name, and shows that someone took it away. A reprinted list shows nothing at all. With no mark, there was never anyone to remove, and that is what Winston reads in it: Syme “had never existed.”

• nothing had been crossed out – but it was one name shorter
• Syme had ceased to exist: he had never existed.

Another reading

That someone did it. A line is an act, and an act can be noticed, talked about and feared. The shorter list gives the office nothing to talk about, and the office goes quiet on its own: a few people mention him on the first day, nobody on the next. The silence does the work, and no one has to be ordered to keep it.

• A morning came, and he was missing from work: a few thoughtless people commented on his absence.
• On the next day nobody mentioned him.

Listen for

• Hears “thoughtless”: the people who mention Syme are the thoughtless ones. Is it thoughtless to speak of him, or thoughtless not to know better?
• Notices that Winston goes to look on purpose, on the third day. He is the one who checks the record, and he finds that “It was enough.”
• Sets the list beside Winston’s own trade: he forges records for a living. He knows a record can be changed without showing a mark.
• Keeps to the page: the chapter shows the shorter list and says nothing of where Syme is or what was done to him.

If stuck

• What does Winston find on the notice board?
• What do people at work say about Syme on the first day, and on the second?
• Which would you notice more: a name crossed out, or a name that is simply missing?

A strong answer A strong response says what a crossing-out would have told people, and argues from the paragraph on the list. One reader says it would have shown that Syme was ever there: a struck name is still a record, while the reprinted list makes him someone who “had never existed.” Another says it would have shown that someone did it: a line is an act people might talk about, and the office has already gone quiet by the second day. The best answers hear “thoughtless”, notice that Winston checks on purpose, and say nothing of Syme’s fate.

What it asks It asks the student to read the crowd’s anger in Hate Week. The poster has no caption and shows “the monstrous figure of a Eurasian soldier”, three or four metres high, and “From whatever angle you looked at the poster, the muzzle of the gun, magnified by the foreshortening, seemed to be pointed straight at you.” After rocket bombs fall on a film theatre in Stepney and on a playground, “Goldstein was burned in effigy, hundreds of copies of the poster of the Eurasian soldier were torn down and added to the flames, and a number of shops were looted in the turmoil”. Then a rumour about spies leads to the burning of the house of an old couple “suspected of being of foreign extraction”, who die. The student says who the burning is aimed at. The card must not say who fires the rocket bombs; the chapter does not tell.

One reading

The enemy, just as the poster meant them to. Tearing it down looks like an attack on the Party’s own walls, but it is the poster doing its work. It was put up to raise this anger, the soldier burns beside Goldstein, and the proles, usually indifferent to the war, are now in a frenzy of patriotism.

• The proles, normally apathetic about the war, were being lashed into one of their periodical frenzies of patriotism.
• Goldstein was burned in effigy, hundreds of copies of the poster of the Eurasian soldier were torn down and added to the flames

Another reading

Whatever is in reach. The gun points at everyone who looks, and there is no Eurasian in London to hit back at. So the anger spreads to whatever is near: posters, shops, and at last two old people suspected on a rumour. The posters burn in the same turmoil as the looting.

• and a number of shops were looted in the turmoil
• an old couple who were suspected of being of foreign extraction had their house set on fire and perished of suffocation

Listen for

• Hears “lashed”: the proles are driven like animals. The narrator does not say whose hand holds the whip.
• Weighs “As though to harmonise with the general mood, the rocket bombs had been killing larger numbers of people than usual.” The words “As though” hint and stop short. Keep to the page: the chapter does not say who fires the bombs.
• Notices the funeral for Stepney, “in effect an indignation meeting”. Indignation at whom is left open.
• Remembers the Ministries’ list of jobs for Hate Week: “effigies built”, “rumours circulated”. The crowd burns an effigy and then acts on a rumour. Keep to the page: the chapter does not say who started the rumour about spies.

If stuck

• What is on the new poster, and how does it seem to look at you?
• What do the crowds do after the bombs fall?
• When people are frightened and angry, do they always strike at what frightened them?

A strong answer A strong response says who the burning is aimed at, and argues from the paragraph on the poster and the bombs. One reader says the enemy, just as the poster meant: the soldier burns beside Goldstein, and tearing down the Party’s poster is the poster doing its work on proles “lashed into” patriotism. Another says whatever is in reach: the posters burn in the turmoil with the looted shops, and the anger ends on an old couple only “suspected” on a rumour. The best answers weigh “As though to harmonise”, set the Ministries’ “effigies built” and “rumours circulated” beside the streets, and never say who fires the bombs.

What it asks It asks the student to weigh one item in the list of Winston’s recoveries. In the month of meetings “Winston had dropped his habit of drinking gin at all hours”, “He had grown fatter, his varicose ulcer had subsided”, and “his fits of coughing in the early morning had stopped.” Then: “The process of life had ceased to be intolerable, he had no longer any impulse to make faces at the telescreen or shout curses at the top of his voice.” The student says what the urge had been doing for him before it went. The card must not call the room truly safe; the chapter calls their sense of safety an “illusion”.

One reading

Nothing good. It was a symptom, like the cough and the gin: the sign of a life that was “intolerable”. A man who cursed at a telescreen would be caught, and the urge was his misery leaking out. It goes when the misery goes, and what takes its place is a reason to go on living.

• The process of life had ceased to be intolerable, he had no longer any impulse to make faces at the telescreen or shout curses at the top of his voice.
• He seemed to have lost the need for it.

Another reading

It kept his anger awake. The urge was the part of him that still refused the Party out loud, if only in wishes. Now he is calm enough that meeting for two hours now and then does not even seem a hardship, and the lovers live by “spinning out a present that had no future”. A man whose life has become bearable has less reason to fight it.

• Now that they had a secure hiding-place, almost a home, it did not even seem a hardship that they could only meet infrequently and for a couple of hours at a time.
• To hang on from day to day and from week to week, spinning out a present that had no future, seemed an unconquerable instinct, just as one’s lungs will always draw the next breath so long as there is air available.

Listen for

• Hears where the urge sits: in one sentence with “intolerable”, right after the gin, the ulcer and the cough. The page lists it among the things that stop.
• Weighs “To know that it was there, inviolate, was almost the same as being in it.” Is a calm that rests on one room a strength or a dependence?
• Sets the calm beside what the lovers talk about in the room: “engaging in active rebellion against the Party”, and Winston’s impulse to walk into O’Brien’s presence. Has the anger gone, or moved? Keep to the page: the chapter does not say he will act on it.
• Keeps to the page: the lovers feel safe in the room, but the chapter calls that feeling an “illusion”, and both know it “could not last long.”

If stuck

• What changes in Winston’s body during the month of meetings?
• What did he used to want to do at the telescreen?
• Can anger be a sign of health as well as a sign of strain?

A strong answer A strong response says what the urge to curse was doing for Winston, and argues from the paragraph on his recovery. One reader calls it a symptom like the cough: the sign of an “intolerable” life, dangerous to act on, which goes when the misery goes. Another says it kept his anger awake, and that the calm which replaces it settles for a few hours a month and a present “that had no future”. The best answers notice that the page lists the urge among the things that stop, and keep the room’s safety an illusion.

What it asks It asks the student to set two things side by side. In the month of meetings Winston stops to talk with Mr Charrington on his way upstairs. The old man fingers “this scrap of rubbish or that”, “never asking that Winston should buy it, merely that he should admire it”, and brings out “fragments of forgotten rhymes”: four-and-twenty blackbirds, a cow with a crumpled horn, the death of poor Cock Robin. “But he could never recall more than a few lines of any one rhyme.” Later Winston tells Julia that “Every record has been destroyed or falsified”, and that if the past survives anywhere, “it’s in a few solid objects with no words attached to them, like that lump of glass there.” The student says why scraps like these survive when the records do not. The card must claim nothing about Mr Charrington beyond what Winston sees of him: an old man who seems glad to talk.

One reading

They mean nothing to the Party. A lump of glass names no enemy and no leader, and a rhyme about blackbirds says nothing about who was right. There is nothing in them to rewrite, so no one bothers to destroy them. The shop that keeps them is full of “worthless stock”, and that is what saves it.

• If it survives anywhere, it’s in a few solid objects with no words attached to them, like that lump of glass there.
• Wandering about among his worthless stock

Another reading

A person carries them. The records are on paper the Party controls. A rhyme lives in a head, and Mr Charrington drags it out “from the corners of his memory”. But a memory with no record holds only scraps, and it dies with its keeper. Winston calls him “another extinct animal”: the past survives, but barely, and not for long.

• He had dragged out from the corners of his memory some more fragments of forgotten rhymes.
• Mr Charrington, thought Winston, was another extinct animal.

Listen for

• Hears what Winston calls the room: “a pocket of the past where extinct animals could walk.” In this chapter the past lives on like a rare animal, kept in one small place.
• Notices what Mr Charrington asks for. He never asks Winston to buy, only to “admire”. Does a scrap of the past last only while someone cares to look at it?
• Sets the half-rhymes beside Julia’s memory of the war. After a quarter of an hour of argument she can “dimly recall” that Eastasia was the enemy. A memory with no record comes back in pieces.
• Hears “seemed” and “vaguely the air of”: all we learn of Mr Charrington is how he seems to Winston. Keep to the page: the chapter says nothing more about him.

If stuck

• What does Mr Charrington show Winston, and what does he ask in return?
• What does Winston tell Julia has happened to the records of the past?
• Which is easier to change: a newspaper, or a song an old man half remembers?

A strong answer A strong response says why scraps like the glass and the rhymes survive when the records do not, and argues from the paragraph on Mr Charrington and Winston’s speech to Julia. One reader says they mean nothing to the Party: a lump of glass and a rhyme about blackbirds name no enemy, so there is nothing in them to rewrite, and the shop’s stock is “worthless”. Another says a person carries them, dragged out “from the corners of his memory”, and that memory holds only scraps and dies with its keeper, “another extinct animal”. The best answers hear “seemed”, set the half-rhymes beside Julia’s dim memory of Eastasia, and claim nothing about Mr Charrington beyond what Winston sees.

What it asks It asks the student to explain a blind spot in Winston. When he mentions the war against Eurasia, Julia says “casually” that in her opinion the war is not happening, and that the rocket bombs are probably fired by the Government of Oceania itself, “just to keep people frightened”. “This was an idea that had literally never occurred to him.” Yet Winston’s work is forgery: in these weeks he spends long periods every day “altering and embellishing news items”. The page says Julia is “far more acute”; it does not say why the idea never came to him. The student explains that. The card must not say that Julia is right about the war or the bombs; she gives an opinion, and the chapter does not confirm it.

One reading

His doubt looks backward. Winston fights the Party over the past: the records, the dates, the paper he once held. He remembers which enemy it was four years ago, but he has not questioned the bombs that fall on London now. Julia cares little for the past and looks at the present, and there her doubt goes further than his.

• Do you realise that the past, starting from yesterday, has been actually abolished?
• In some ways she was far more acute than Winston, and far less susceptible to Party propaganda.

Another reading

His forgeries change words, not events. Winston alters what the papers say about things that happened. A Party that makes the events themselves is a bigger step to imagine. Julia works in the Fiction Department, where her unit has been taken off novels to rush out atrocity pamphlets. Making things up from nothing is closer to her daily work.

• altering and embellishing news items which were to be quoted in speeches
• Julia’s unit in the Fiction Department had been taken off the production of novels and was rushing out a series of atrocity pamphlets.

Listen for

• Hears the hedges: “in her opinion”, “probably”, “casually”. The narrator reports her guess and does not back it. Keep to the page: the chapter never says who fires the bombs or whether the war is real.
• Weighs “But she only questioned the teachings of the Party when they in some way touched upon her own life.” The bombs fall on her city; who invented aeroplanes does not touch her at all.
• Notices what the guess costs each of them. Julia doubts all the news alike (“one knows the news is all lies anyway”), so it costs her nothing. Winston wants proof, the kind he once held between his fingers.
• Notices the envy. Julia says that in the Two Minutes Hate her great difficulty was “to avoid bursting out laughing”, and it stirs “a sort of envy” in Winston. What does she have that he wants?

If stuck

• What does Julia say about the war and the rocket bombs?
• What does Winston do at work in these weeks?
• Is it easier to doubt a story about the past, or one about what is happening now?

A strong answer A strong response explains why the idea never came to Winston, and argues from his work in these weeks and from what he says about the past. One reader says his doubt looks backward: he fights over records and a past “actually abolished”, and takes the war going on now as given. Another says his forgeries change words, not events, while Julia’s unit makes things up outright. The best answers hear the hedges in her guess, notice that it costs her nothing and that he envies her laughter, and never say she is right.

What it asks It asks the student to judge what Winston’s slip of paper was worth. He tells Julia the story of Jones, Aaronson and Rutherford and “the momentous slip of paper which he had once held between his fingers.” Her first question is “Were they friends of yours?” He tells her the past has been “actually abolished”, that “After the thing is done, no evidence ever remains”, and that once in his life he held “actual concrete evidence”. “And what good was that?” she asks. He threw it away within minutes, he says, but would keep it today. She would not: “I’m quite ready to take risks, but only for something worth while, not for bits of old newspaper.” He answers that it might have planted doubts, and that records might let “the next generation” carry on. She replies that she is not interested in the next generation, only in “us”. The student builds a thesis on what evidence is worth if no one sees it, meets the strongest objection, and revises. The card must not say that Goldstein or the Brotherhood exists.

One reading

A great deal. Evidence matters before anyone sees it, because it shows the past was real and not only in Winston’s head. Without it he has only memory, and he cannot be sure anyone shares it. With it there is something solid for doubt to grow from, and something to leave behind.

• After the thing is done, no evidence ever remains.
• It might have planted a few doubts here and there, supposing that I’d dared to show it to anybody.

Another reading

Very little, and it costs a great deal. A paper no one sees changes nothing, and Winston himself says he could have done “Not much” with it. Keeping it is a risk taken for a thing, not a person. Julia’s test is what a risk is for: she will take risks for the two of them, here and now, not for “bits of old newspaper”.

• I’m quite ready to take risks, but only for something worth while, not for bits of old newspaper.
• I don’t imagine that we can alter anything in our own lifetime.

Listen for

• Hears Julia’s first question, “Were they friends of yours?”, and her next: “People are being killed off all the time, aren’t they?” She weighs a loss by whom it touches.
• Notices “supposing that I’d dared to show it to anybody”. Winston’s own case rests on someone seeing it, and he only imagines “little knots of resistance”; the chapter does not say that any exist.
• Sets the slip beside the memory Winston forces back in Julia about Eastasia. After a quarter of an hour it returns, but only “dimly”. What can a piece of paper hold that a memory cannot?
• Hears “You’re only a rebel from the waist downwards” as Julia does: she thinks it “brilliantly witty” and flings her arms round him. A thesis that sides with her has to say what she hears in it.

If stuck

• Whose story does the slip of paper belong to, and what did Winston do with it?
• What does Julia say she would take risks for?
• Does a truth matter if no one else will ever know it?

A strong answer A strong response states what evidence no one sees is worth, meets the strongest objection, and revises. One thesis says a great deal: the slip was “actual concrete evidence” of a past the Party has rewritten, and with it there is something solid for doubt to grow from. The strongest objection is Winston’s own “Not much, perhaps”, and the fact that his case rests on “supposing that I’d dared to show it to anybody”. Another thesis takes Julia’s side: a risk is worth taking for the two of them, not for “bits of old newspaper”. A good revision asks whether evidence can be worth keeping for readers who do not yet exist.

What it asks It asks the student to judge Winston’s last thought in the chapter. When he talks of Ingsoc, doublethink and “the mutability of the past”, Julia becomes bored and confused, and if he goes on she falls asleep. “One knew that it was all rubbish, so why let oneself be worried by it? She knew when to cheer and when to boo, and that was all one needed.” Talking to her, Winston sees “how easy it was to present an appearance of orthodoxy while having no grasp whatever of what orthodoxy meant.” He decides that the Party’s world-view “imposed itself most successfully on people incapable of understanding it”, and that “By lack of understanding they remained sane.” The student builds a thesis on whether not understanding protects or defeats, meets the strongest objection, and revises. The card must not take the last paragraph as the book’s settled verdict: it begins “Talking to her, he realised”, and the thought is his. Nor may it say that Julia is right about the war or the bombs.

One reading

Protection. What Julia never takes in cannot hurt her. She does not feel the abyss Winston feels, and she is sharp wherever the Party touches her own life: she guesses about the bombs and struggles not to laugh during the Hate. The lies pass through her like grain through a bird and leave “no residue behind”. Winston, who understands, is the one who is frightened.

• She did not feel the abyss opening beneath her feet at the thought of lies becoming truths.
• They simply swallowed everything, and what they swallowed did them no harm, because it left no residue behind, just as a grain of corn will pass undigested through the body of a bird.

Another reading

Defeat. Not understanding is exactly how the Party wins: its world-view takes hold “most successfully” on such people. Julia cheers and boos on cue, has let the enemy change without noticing, and believes the Party invented aeroplanes. The grain passes through the bird, but the bird goes on eating what it is given. Her sanity is the Party’s success.

• In a way, the world-view of the Party imposed itself most successfully on people incapable of understanding it.
• Often she was ready to accept the official mythology, simply because the difference between truth and falsehood did not seem important to her.

Listen for

• Hears “In a way” and “he realised”. The last paragraph is Winston’s judgment, reached while talking to her, not the narrator’s verdict.
• Tests “did them no harm” against the streets. The crowds also swallow what they are told, and on a rumour about spies an old couple die. The harm may fall on someone else.
• Weighs “far more acute than Winston”. A thesis of defeat has to answer that line, and a thesis of protection has to answer “Who cares?”
• Revises by asking what understanding does for Winston. He understands, and he has the abyss, a paper he threw away, and no proof. Keep to the page: the chapter does not say that Julia is right about the war or the bombs.

If stuck

• What does Julia do when Winston talks about Party doctrine?
• What does Winston decide about people who do not understand what the Party asks of them?
• Can not knowing something keep you safe and still cost you something?

A strong answer A strong response states whether not understanding is protection or defeat, meets the strongest objection, and revises. One thesis says protection: the lies leave “no residue behind”, Julia never feels the abyss, and she is sharper than Winston wherever her own life is touched. The strongest objection is Winston’s own first claim, that the Party’s world-view takes hold “most successfully” on such people, and Julia’s forgotten enemy. A thesis of defeat must meet her guess about the bombs and her urge to laugh at the Hate. A good revision may hold that it protects the person while the truth is lost, and remembers that the verdict is Winston’s, reached “Talking to her”.