1984

Part Two, Chapter 10

George Orwell · Mountaineers 10th–12th

Teaching Companion Print Adapt for your student

Copywork

It had never before occurred to him that the body of a woman of fifty, blown up to monstrous dimensions by childbearing, then hardened, roughened by work till it was coarse in the grain like an over-ripe turnip, could be beautiful. But it was so, and after all, he thought, why not? The solid, contourless body, like a block of granite, and the rasping red skin, bore the same relation to the body of a girl as the rose-hip to the rose. Why should the fruit be held inferior to the flower?

The mystical reverence that he felt for her was somehow mixed up with the aspect of the pale, cloudless sky, stretching away behind the chimney pots into interminable distances. It was curious to think that the sky was the same for everybody, in Eurasia or Eastasia as well as here.

The first passage ends on a question: “Why should the fruit be held inferior to the flower?” Who is Winston arguing with?

For the educator Two passages, six sentences, both from the hour at the window before the arrest. The first opens on a long periodic sentence: the subject, “the body of a woman of fifty”, is buried under hard participles (“blown up”, “hardened, roughened”) and a homely simile, “like an over-ripe turnip”, and the verdict, “could be beautiful”, waits until the very end. The second sentence turns in a few words, with “he thought” dropped into the middle. The third sets out an analogy in the form A is to B as C is to D: the woman’s body is to a girl’s “as the rose-hip to the rose”. The fourth is a rhetorical question. The second passage is built the other way. Its first sentence states its subject at once, “The mystical reverence”, admits with “somehow mixed up with” that the feeling has no clear cause, and then drifts outward on a trailing phrase, “stretching away behind the chimney pots into interminable distances”, as the sky does. The second opens on “It was curious to think that”, and ends on a widening list, “in Eurasia or Eastasia as well as here”. Students copying them practise a periodic sentence that holds its verdict back, a parenthetical “he thought”, a four-part analogy, a rhetorical question, and a loose sentence that trails outward. For the talk prompt, listen for more than one opponent. One student hears Winston arguing with himself, with the man who never before thought such a body “could be beautiful” and who still reaches for “monstrous” and “turnip”. Another hears him arguing with Julia, the girl beside him, whose answer, “She’s a metre across the hips, easily”, comes straight after. A third hears him arguing with the reader, who has just been handed those same harsh words. Each serves the last written question, since the faith Winston is about to place in the proles starts here, in a judgment he talks himself into and a feeling “somehow mixed up with” the sky. Keep to the page: do not say what happens to the woman once the men reach the yard.

Discussion

Narration Tell back the chapter from the song in the yard to Mr Charrington’s new face. Give the hour at the window as much care as the arrest.

Winston decides the woman in the yard “had no mind,” only a strong body, and that the mind is his and Julia’s to keep alive. How fair is that split to the woman? Moral reasoning
Julia says the thrush “was just singing”, and Winston’s next thought is “The birds sang, the proles sang, the Party did not sing.” What does he do with her answer? Inference
Winston says, “We are the dead,” Julia echoes him, and a voice behind them answers, “You are the dead,” twice. Whose sentence is it now? Theme
When the paperweight smashes and the coral rolls across the mat, Winston thinks, “how small it always was!” What was the glass doing for the coral, all that time? Author's choice
After Julia is carried out, Winston sees that the clock and the light do not agree, and he lets the thought go: “It was not interesting.” What is left of the mind he meant to keep alive? Character

Make a Connection Think of a silly song that everyone seems to know, though no one would call it good. Why might a song like that last so long?

Vocabulary

indefatigable: The indefatigable voice sang on: Never tiring; able to keep going however long the work lasts (Latin in-, not, and defatigare, to tire out; fatigue shares the root). Orwell gives the word to the woman’s voice, and the chapter keeps coming back to the idea: she marches “Tirelessly”, and her washing runs “over thirty unbroken years”. Winston turns that tirelessness into his proof that the proles “were immortal”.
drivelling: The drivelling song seemed to have kept its popularity. Silly and empty, like talk that runs on without sense (from drivel, first to dribble, then to talk nonsense; American spelling driveling). The narrator dismisses the song in one word, then admits in the next sentences that you hear it everywhere and that it “had outlived the Hate Song”. Contempt and staying power sit side by side.
contourless: The solid, contourless body, like a block of granite, and the rasping red skin, bore the same relation to the body of a girl as the rose-hip to the rose. Without contours: with no curves or outline to give it a shape (contour, the line round the edge of a thing, and -less, without). Winston pairs it with “like a block of granite”, a body with no waist or line, the opposite of Julia’s “supple waist”. He sets out to find beauty exactly where the word says there is no shape.
interminable: The mystical reverence that he felt for her was somehow mixed up with the aspect of the pale, cloudless sky, stretching away behind the chimney pots into interminable distances. Seeming to have no end (Latin in-, not, and terminare, to set a limit, as in terminal and terminate). It is usually a complaint, as in an interminable meeting. Here it is wonder: the sky goes on and on behind the chimney pots, and Winston’s hope stretches with it, toward a future “though it might be a thousand years” away.
demeanour: The demeanour of the black-uniformed men suddenly became more subdued. The way a person carries themselves: manner, bearing and face together (from Old French demener, to conduct oneself; American spelling demeanor). The word watches behaviour from outside. The men change before Mr Charrington says a word, so their manner shows who gives the orders here before he gives one.

Critical thinking

Winston wonders if the world the proles build might be as strange to him as the Party’s. He decides it will not, “because at the least it would be a world of sanity.” Does that reason settle his doubt?
Just before the arrest, Winston feels sure the future belongs to the proles. Is his faith in them real insight or a beautiful dream?