Part Two, Chapter 5

1984

Mountaineers · 10th–12th

Copywork

There were times when the fact of impending death seemed as palpable as the bed they lay on, and they would cling together with a sort of despairing sensuality, like a damned soul grasping at his last morsel of pleasure when the clock is within five minutes of striking. But there were also times when they had the illusion not only of safety but of permanence.

Every record has been destroyed or falsified, every book has been re-written, every picture has been repainted, every statue and street and building has been re-named, every date has been altered. And that process is continuing day by day and minute by minute. History has stopped. Nothing exists except an endless present in which the Party is always right.

The first passage says the lovers sometimes feel safe in the room, and even feel it will last. The narrator calls that feeling an “illusion”. In the second, Winston says that “Nothing exists except an endless present”. How is the lovers’ feeling that the room will last like the Party’s endless present? How is it different?

For the educator Two passages, six sentences. The first is the lovers in the room over Mr Charrington’s shop, in the month of meetings. Its first sentence makes death something you could touch, “as palpable as the bed they lay on”, then runs on past “and” into a second picture, a damned soul at its last pleasure “when the clock is within five minutes of striking”. The second sentence answers the first with the same opening, “There were times” and then “But there were also times”, and it ends on the pair “not only of safety but of permanence”: safety, and then the larger claim. The narrator names that feeling in the same breath: an “illusion”. The second passage is Winston speaking to Julia. Its first sentence repeats “every” five times, and each clause ends on a verb in the passive (“has been destroyed”, “has been re-written”, “has been altered”), so no one is named as doing any of it, though Winston adds that he has done it himself: “even when I did the falsification myself.” The next sentence narrows the time from “day by day” to “minute by minute”. Then comes a sentence of three words, and a last sentence that shuts everything inside “an endless present”. Students copying them practise a long sentence carried by two comparisons, a pair of sentences built on one opening, a pair joined by not only and but, a five-part list on one repeated word, a short sentence after a long one, and a closing sentence built on “Nothing exists except”. For the talk prompt, listen for more than one reading. One says the two are opposites: the Party’s present wipes out the past, while the lovers’ room is a place where time might be held still with the past inside it, “as when Winston had gazed into the heart of the paperweight”. Another says they are closer than they look: the lovers are “spinning out a present that had no future”, and the Party’s world is “an endless present” too; both stop time, and the narrator calls the lovers’ version an illusion. A strong student may notice that Winston can describe the Party’s trap exactly while living a small copy of it. Keep to the page: the chapter calls the lovers’ sense of safety an illusion, and does not say how it ends.

Discussion

Narration Tell back the chapter, from Syme’s missing name, through Hate Week and the bombs, to the month in the room. Then retell Winston’s talks with Julia, and end on what he comes to think about people like her.

1. Syme’s name is gone from the Chess Committee list. Nothing has been crossed out; the list is just one name shorter. What would a line through his name have said that the shorter list does not?Inference

2. The new poster’s gun seems to point “straight at you” from every angle. After the playground bomb, crowds tear down hundreds of these posters and burn them. Who are they striking at?Inference

3. In June, Winston stops needing gin, his ulcer fades, and his morning cough stops. He also loses the urge to make faces at the telescreen and shout curses. What was that urge doing for him?Character

4. Winston tells Julia that if the past survives anywhere, it is “in a few solid objects with no words attached to them”. Mr Charrington’s old rhymes do have words, but he can only ever recall a few lines of each. Why do scraps like these survive, when the records do not?Inference

5. Julia guesses that the Party fires the rocket bombs itself, “just to keep people frightened”. Winston spends long stretches of every day rewriting old news stories. Yet the idea had never once occurred to him. What kept him from thinking of it?Character

Make a Connection Think of someone, in a story, in history or in your own life, who knew they were being lied to. What did they do with what they knew?

Vocabulary

febrile Late at night, when crowds of rowdy proles roamed the streets, the town had a curiously febrile air.

apathetic The proles, normally apathetic about the war, were being lashed into one of their periodical frenzies of patriotism.

harmonise As though to harmonise with the general mood, the rocket bombs had been killing larger numbers of people than usual.

palpable There were times when the fact of impending death seemed as palpable as the bed they lay on, and they would cling together with a sort of despairing sensuality, like a damned soul grasping at his last morsel of pleasure when the clock is within five minutes of striking.

falsified Every record has been destroyed or falsified, every book has been re-written, every picture has been repainted, every statue and street and building has been re-named, every date has been altered.

impudent Sometimes he talked to her of the Records Department and the impudent forgeries that he committed there.

ramifications In the ramifications of Party doctrine she had not the faintest interest.

orthodoxy Talking to her, he realised how easy it was to present an appearance of orthodoxy while having no grasp whatever of what orthodoxy meant.

Critical thinking

1. Julia asks what Winston could have done with the slip of paper if he had kept it. He says, “Not much, perhaps. But it was evidence.” What is evidence worth if no one ever sees it?

Thesis

Objection

Revision

2. Winston decides that people like Julia stay sane by not understanding what the Party demands. Is not understanding a kind of protection, or a kind of defeat?

Thesis

Objection

Revision