Part Two, Chapter 10 — Teaching Companion

What it asks It asks the student to weigh a division Winston makes while he holds Julia at the window. The two of them will never have a family: “That was one thing they could never do. Only by word of mouth, from mind to mind, could they pass on the secret.” In the next breath he decides: “The woman down there had no mind, she had only strong arms, a warm heart and a fertile belly.” Later he sets the two halves side by side: “you could share in that future if you kept alive the mind as they kept alive the body”. All the while the woman has been singing, of “the dreams they stirred” and “the smiles an’ the tears across the years”. The student judges how fair the split is to her. The card must not treat her as only comic or only a symbol, and must not say what happens to her once the men reach the yard.

One reading

Unfair. He has watched her from a window and never heard her speak, yet he takes away her mind in one sentence. The song she sings is about memory and longing, which is the stuff of a mind. The split suits Winston: if she is all body, then the mind, the part he prizes, is left to him and Julia.

• The woman down there had no mind, she had only strong arms, a warm heart and a fertile belly.
• But the smiles an’ the tears across the years

Another reading

Fair on Winston’s own terms, and even generous. He is not sneering at her: he finds her beautiful and feels a “mystical reverence” for her. In his scheme the body is not the lesser part, since it carries the life the Party cannot reach. He gives the mind to himself and Julia because they can pass nothing on through the body, not because they are better.

• Only by word of mouth, from mind to mind, could they pass on the secret.
• passing on from body to body the vitality which the Party did not share and could not kill

Listen for

• Hears where the split starts: “That was one thing they could never do.” Does Winston give the woman “no mind” because of what he sees, or because of what he and Julia lack?
• Weighs the song against “no mind”: the words she sings are about dreams, and smiles and tears across the years.
• Notices “a warm heart”. What is Winston granting her, and what is he holding back?
• Keeps to the page: she is neither a joke nor only a sign, and the reading does not say what happens to her once the men are in the yard.

If stuck

• What does Winston think he and Julia can pass on, and how?
• What does he think the woman passes on?
• Can you tell what a stranger thinks by watching her work?

A strong answer A strong response judges how fair Winston’s split is to the woman and argues from the lines where he makes it. One reader finds it unfair: he takes away her mind from a window while she sings of dreams and of “the smiles an’ the tears across the years”, and the split leaves the part he prizes to himself and Julia. Another finds it fair on his own terms: he reveres her, and in his scheme the body carries the life the Party “could not kill”. The best answers notice that the split begins with what he and Julia cannot do, and do not make the woman a joke or a sign.

What it asks It asks the student to watch what Winston does with a correction. He asks Julia whether she remembers “the thrush that sang to us, that first day, at the edge of the wood”. She answers: “He wasn’t singing to us,” and, “He was singing to please himself. Not even that. He was just singing.” Winston says nothing back. The next paragraph opens, “The birds sang, the proles sang, the Party did not sing.”, and runs on to the same “solid unconquerable figure” all round the world, “toiling from birth to death and still singing.” The student says what Winston does with Julia’s answer. The card must not reduce her remark to a quarrel, and must not say what happens to Julia or to the woman in the yard.

One reading

He takes it in and makes it part of the hope. A bird that sings for no one is just what the Party cannot share: a song that serves nothing and nobody. Her plain answer becomes the first item in his list, with the birds ahead of the proles.

• He was singing to please himself. Not even that. He was just singing.
• The birds sang, the proles sang, the Party did not sing.

Another reading

He does not hear it. Julia will not let the bird mean anything, and he makes it mean everything: in the next breath the singing woman stands for every worker on earth. His thoughts run on as if she had not spoken, the way he has read the woman in the yard all evening, from a window.

• He wasn’t singing to us
• everywhere stood the same solid unconquerable figure, made monstrous by work and childbearing, toiling from birth to death and still singing.

Listen for

• Hears what Julia corrects first: “to us”. Winston remembered a bird singing for the two of them, and she takes that away.
• Notices that Winston never answers her aloud. Whatever he does with her words, he does in his thoughts.
• Weighs “just singing” against the woman in the yard: if the bird sings for no reason, can her song be proof of anything?
• Keeps to the page: Julia’s remark is more than a disagreement, and the answer should not say what happens to her or to the woman.

If stuck

• What does Winston ask Julia about the thrush?
• What does Julia say the bird was doing?
• Have you ever told someone a plain fact and watched them turn it into a sign of something bigger?

A strong answer A strong response says what Winston does with Julia’s answer and argues from the lines on either side of it. One reader finds that he takes it in: a bird that sings for no one is just what the Party lacks, so her plain words lead straight into “The birds sang, the proles sang, the Party did not sing.” Another finds that he does not hear it: she refuses to make the bird mean anything, and he answers in silence by making it, and the woman in the yard, stand for the whole world’s future. The best answers notice “to us”, notice that Winston never replies aloud, and ask whether a song sung for no reason can prove anything.

What it asks It asks the student to follow one sentence as it changes hands. Winston’s thoughts end: “You were the dead; theirs was the future. But you could share in that future if you kept alive the mind as they kept alive the body”. He says it aloud, and Julia gives it back: “‘We are the dead,’ echoed Julia dutifully.” Then “‘You are the dead,’ said an iron voice behind them”, and “‘You are the dead,’ repeated the iron voice.” The voice goes on saying their words back: “It was behind the picture”, “The house is surrounded”, “You may as well say good-bye”. The student says whose sentence “We are the dead” has become. The card must not say how long the voice had been listening or what the Thought Police knew before tonight, and must not bring O’Brien into the arrest.

One reading

The Party’s. One word changes and the meaning turns over: what Winston said as a hope, that the mind can pass the secret on, comes back as a verdict on two people in a room. And the voice keeps doing it with every line they speak, as if nothing they say is their own any longer.

• ‘You are the dead,’ repeated the iron voice.
• ‘The house is surrounded,’ said the voice.

Another reading

Still Winston’s. He said it first, and he meant something the voice cannot reach: that the dead can hand on a future through the mind. The voice can turn the words into a threat against two bodies, but it tells him nothing he had not just said about himself.

• You were the dead; theirs was the future.
• ‘We are the dead,’ he said.

Listen for

• Hears “dutifully”. Julia gives the line back too. What kind of echo is hers, beside the voice’s?
• Notices the one word that changes, “We” to “You”, and who is left out once it does. Some students will hear both senses of “sentence”: a line of words, and a judgment passed on someone.
• Sets the voice beside what Winston thinks next: “It was starting, it was starting at last!” Does the voice tell him anything he had not already said?
• Keeps to the page: the reading does not say how long the voice had been listening, and the answer should not guess.

If stuck

• What does Winston say aloud, and what does Julia say back?
• What does the voice say, and what else does it repeat?
• When someone repeats your own words back to you with one word changed, are they still your words?

A strong answer A strong response says whose sentence “We are the dead” has become and argues from the minute around it. One reader says it is the Party’s now: one changed word turns a hope about passing the mind on into a verdict on two people, and the voice goes on taking their lines, “It was behind the picture”, “The house is surrounded”, until nothing they say is their own. Another says it is still Winston’s: he said it first, meaning that the dead can hand on a future, and the voice can only make the words a threat to two bodies in a room. The best answers hear “dutifully”, mark the one changed word, and do not guess how long the voice had been listening.

What it asks It asks the student to read one object at the worst moment of the evening. Winston stands with his hands behind his head. “There was another crash. Someone had picked up the glass paperweight from the table and smashed it to pieces on the hearth-stone.” Then: “The fragment of coral, a tiny crinkle of pink like a sugar rosebud from a cake, rolled across the mat. How small, thought Winston, how small it always was!” Later, Mr Charrington’s eye falls on the fragments: “‘Pick up those pieces,’ he said sharply.” The student says what the glass did for the coral before it broke. The card must not turn the talk into naming Mr Charrington as Thought Police, and must not say what anyone knew about the room before tonight.

One reading

Making it look bigger. Inside the glass, a crinkle of pink could look like a whole world to gaze into. Out of it, Winston sees it plainly, and “always” says the smallness was there the whole time. The room above the shop may have done the same for the two of them.

• a tiny crinkle of pink like a sugar rosebud from a cake
• How small, thought Winston, how small it always was!

Another reading

Keeping it safe. The glass held the coral and sealed it off. Out of it, the coral is a crumb on a mat, to be swept up on a stranger’s order. Nothing about the coral has changed; what has gone is the thing that held it.

• Someone had picked up the glass paperweight from the table and smashed it to pieces on the hearth-stone.
• ‘Pick up those pieces,’ he said sharply.

Listen for

• Hears “always”: the coral has not shrunk. Then what has changed?
• Notices the “sugar rosebud from a cake”, something sweet and made to be eaten, and sets it beside the rose-hip and the rose in the first copied passage.
• Notices when the thought comes: men all round him, his hands behind his head, and his mind goes to something tiny on the mat.
• Keeps to the page: no symbol hunt, and no claim about what anyone knew of the room before tonight.

If stuck

• What happens to the paperweight, and what was inside it?
• What does Winston notice about the coral once it is out?
• Has something you treasured ever looked different once it was broken or out of its place?

A strong answer A strong response says what the glass did for the coral and argues from the moment it breaks. One reader says the glass made it look bigger, a world to look into, and “always” admits the smallness was there all along. Another says the glass kept it safe, and that what Winston sees is how little is left once the shelter goes, a crumb swept up on order. The best answers weigh “always”, notice the sugar rosebud, and leave the paperweight as a thing on the mat rather than a symbol to name.

What it asks It asks the student to read Winston after Julia is carried out. “He stood dead still. No one had hit him yet. Thoughts which came of their own accord but seemed totally uninteresting began to flit through his mind.” He wonders about Mr Charrington and the woman in the yard, notices that he needs to urinate, and sees that “the clock on the mantelpiece said nine, meaning twenty-one. But the light seemed too strong. Would not the light be fading at twenty-one hours on an August evening?” He wonders whether they had slept the clock round. “But he did not pursue the thought further. It was not interesting.” Minutes earlier he had thought they could share the future “if you kept alive the mind as they kept alive the body”. The student says what is left of that mind. The card must not explain the clock or the empty stove, and must not reach ahead to what happens to Winston.

One reading

More than he feels. The mind is still at work: it notices the light, reasons about an August evening, and finds a better answer than the clock gives. What has gone is the wish to follow it. The habit of checking a fact against the world is still there, even unasked.

• He noticed that the clock on the mantelpiece said nine, meaning twenty-one.
• Would not the light be fading at twenty-one hours on an August evening?

Another reading

Very little that is his. The thoughts come “of their own accord” and leave with no one following them. A man who called two plus two a doctrine worth passing on lets a plain question of fact go because it bores him. With Julia gone, there is no one left to pass a fact to.

• Thoughts which came of their own accord but seemed totally uninteresting began to flit through his mind.
• But he did not pursue the thought further.

Listen for

• Hears “No one had hit him yet.” What is a mind doing while a body waits to be hit?
• Notices the list: Mr Charrington, the woman in the yard, his bladder, the clock. Which of these would have mattered to him an hour ago?
• Sets it beside “One thing alone mattered: to keep still”. Has the body taken over the job the mind had?
• Keeps to the page: the reading does not explain the clock or the stove, so the answer should not either.

If stuck

• What thoughts drift through Winston’s mind as he stands still?
• What does he notice about the clock and the light?
• When you are badly frightened, what happens to your thoughts?

A strong answer A strong response says what is left of the mind Winston meant to keep alive and argues from the paragraph after Julia is carried out. One reader finds more than he feels: the mind still notices the light and reasons about an August evening, though the will to follow it has gone. Another finds very little that is his: the thoughts arrive “of their own accord”, and a man who prized two plus two lets a plain fact go as “not interesting”. The best answers set this beside “kept alive the mind” and do not explain the clock.

What it asks It asks the student to test one step in Winston’s thinking at the window. Straight after “The future belonged to the proles”, he puts a question to himself: “And could he be sure that when their time came the world they constructed would not be just as alien to him, Winston Smith, as the world of the Party?” The next sentence answers it: “Yes, because at the least it would be a world of sanity. Where there is equality there can be sanity.” A few lines before, he has called the proles “people who had never learned to think”; a line after, he says “strength would change into consciousness”. The student builds a thesis on whether his reason settles the doubt he raised, meets the strongest objection, and revises. The card must not settle whether his hope in the proles is right, which is the last question’s work, must not judge it with what later chapters show, and must not say what happens to the woman in the yard.

One reading

It does. What makes the Party’s world alien to Winston is its lies, not its strangeness: people everywhere are “almost exactly the same”, kept apart only by hatred and lies. Take the lies away and what is left is a world where two plus two make four, the very doctrine he means to pass on. A sane world would be his world, however different its people.

• held apart by walls of hatred and lies, and yet almost exactly the same
• Where there is equality there can be sanity.

Another reading

It does not. He asked whether he would belong in their world, and answered whether it would be sane. A world can be sane and still strange to the man who hoped for it. He has just called the proles people who never learned to think, and the change he counts on has no date. The quick “Yes” sets the doubt aside rather than answering it.

• just as alien to him, Winston Smith, as the world of the Party
• people who had never learned to think

Listen for

• Hears “him, Winston Smith”. Why might his full name come in just here, a few lines after “hundreds of thousands of millions of people just like this”?
• Notices how fast the “Yes” comes, and that the sentence after it, “Where there is equality there can be sanity.”, is a general rule, not something he has seen in the yard.
• Weighs “strength would change into consciousness”: until that change, these are people who “had never learned to think”. Where does a man who lives by the mind stand in the meantime?
• Keeps to the page: the answer weighs this one step, not the whole hope, and borrows nothing from later chapters.

If stuck

• What does Winston ask himself about the world the proles will build?
• What reason does he give for his “Yes”?
• Can a place be fair and sensible and still feel strange to you?

A strong answer A strong response states whether Winston’s reason settles the doubt he raised, meets the strongest objection, and revises. One thesis says it does: the Party’s world is alien to him because of its lies, people everywhere are “almost exactly the same” beneath them, and a sane world where two plus two make four would be his. The strongest objection is that he asked whether he would belong and answered whether the world would be sane, about people he says “had never learned to think”, so the quick “Yes” sets the doubt aside rather than meeting it. A good revision can grant that sanity is what Winston wants most, while asking whether wanting it is the same as belonging there, and leaves the whole hope for the last question.

What it asks It asks the student to judge the faith Winston reaches at the window, minutes before the voice speaks. “If there was hope, it lay in the proles! Without having read to the end of the book, he knew that that must be Goldstein’s final message. The future belonged to the proles.” He grounds it in the woman below: “The proles were immortal, you could not doubt it when you looked at that valiant figure in the yard. In the end their awakening would come.” He allows it may take “a thousand years”. The chapter opened on her song: “It was only an ’opeless fancy”. Julia has said the thrush “was just singing”. Then “You are the dead,” and in the yard, “The woman’s singing had stopped abruptly.” The student builds a thesis on whether the faith is real insight or a beautiful dream, meets the strongest objection, and revises. The card must not settle the verdict, must not judge the hope with what later chapters show, must not say what happens to the woman, and must not bring O’Brien into the arrest.

One reading

Real insight. What Winston sees is true on the page: a woman who has worked for decades and still sings, a song that has outlived the Party’s own, a sky that is the same over every country. He looks past the Party’s lies to what people everywhere share. The arrest shows the Party’s power over him; it does not show that he was wrong about them.

• It had outlived the Hate Song.
• It was curious to think that the sky was the same for everybody, in Eurasia or Eastasia as well as here.

Another reading

A beautiful dream. He builds it from a window, a run of guesses, a book he has not finished and an evening sky, and “a thousand years” helps no one now alive. The song he hears calls itself “only an ’opeless fancy”. Minutes later the singing in the yard stops, and the room where he dreamed it turns out to have a telescreen behind the picture.

• though it might be a thousand years
• The woman’s singing had stopped abruptly.

Listen for

• Hears the song that opens the chapter: “It was only an ’opeless fancy”. Does Orwell set the hope to the woman’s own song, or against it?
• Notices “Without having read to the end of the book, he knew”. What kind of knowing is that?
• Sorts what Winston sees from what he supplies: he wonders whether she takes in washing, and a few lines later “It might easily be fifteen.”
• Revises with the arrest in view, but only this chapter’s arrest. Keep to the page: the reading does not say whether the hope is right or what happens to the woman, and the answer should not borrow from later chapters.

If stuck

• What does Winston decide about the proles while he watches the woman in the yard?
• What is that hope built on: what he sees, what he reads, or what he feels?
• Have you ever been sure of something about the future because of how one moment made you feel? Were you right to be?

A strong answer A strong response states whether Winston’s faith in the proles is real insight or a beautiful dream, meets the strongest objection, and revises. One thesis says insight: the woman does work and sing, the song has outlived the Hate Song, the sky is the same everywhere, and the arrest proves the Party’s power, not his error. The strongest objection is that he builds the faith from guesses, an unfinished book and an evening sky, beside a song that calls itself “only an ’opeless fancy”, and that the singing stops within minutes. A good revision separates what Winston sees from what he concludes, and leaves the verdict where the chapter leaves it.