1984

Part Three, Chapter 1

George Orwell · Mountaineers 10th–12th

Teaching Companion Print Adapt for your student

Copywork

He loved her and would not betray her; but that was only a fact, known as he knew the rules of arithmetic. He felt no love for her, and he hardly even wondered what was happening to her.

He was a commonplace, mean-looking man who might have been an engineer or technician of some kind. But what was startling was the emaciation of his face. It was like a skull. Because of its thinness the mouth and eyes looked disproportionately large, and the eyes seemed filled with a murderous, unappeasable hatred of somebody or something.

Winston’s love for Julia is now “only a fact, known as he knew the rules of arithmetic.” Is a love like that worth less, or harder to break?

For the educator Two passages, six sentences: Winston’s thought of Julia in the cell, and his first sight of the starving man. The first passage opens on two plain verbs joined, “loved her and would not betray her”, then turns on a semicolon and “but”, shrinks the love to “only a fact”, and ends on a comparison, “known as he knew the rules of arithmetic”. Its second sentence answers the first: “He loved her” becomes “He felt no love for her”. The second passage sets the ordinary against the startling. Its first sentence makes the man as plain as it can, “commonplace, mean-looking”, someone who “might have been an engineer or technician of some kind”. The second opens on “But what was startling was” and holds its noun, “the emaciation of his face”, until the end. The third is a bare simile: “It was like a skull.” The fourth opens on a cause, “Because of its thinness”, and closes on a pair of adjectives, “murderous, unappeasable”, and a target left open, “somebody or something”. Students copying them practise a semicolon turn, two sentences that answer each other, a sentence that saves its key noun for last, a short simile set between longer sentences, and a sentence that names a feeling without naming its object. For the talk prompt, listen for both sides. One student hears a love worth less: a fact cannot make him wonder what is happening to her, and he hardly does. Another hears a love harder to break: a rule of arithmetic does not depend on how he feels this hour, and he still “would not betray her”. Each serves the last written question, since a loyalty that is known but not felt is one of the things the cell puts to the test. Keep to the page: do not say what Winston will later do or say about Julia, or what is happening to her, and do not name the target of the starving man’s hatred.

Discussion

Narration Tell back the chapter in order, from the hand in the pocket to the blow on the elbow. Give each prisoner who comes into the cell a moment of their own, and do not skip the bread.

In the lock-up before this cell, the common criminals shout down the telescreen. The Party prisoners sit silent and terrified. What do the criminals have that the Party prisoners lack? Character
Ampleforth says he “could not help” leaving one word in a poem. Parsons says he can’t help his thoughts, or his body. In this cell, what is still up to a person? Theme
Parsons cries, “Of course I’m guilty!” Right after, his face grows calmer. What has calmed him? Character
The chinless man is the only prisoner who shares anything. The rest of them, Winston too, sit very still while he is beaten. Yet afterward it is his eyes that go from face to face “more guiltily than ever.” Why him, and not them? Moral reasoning
When O’Brien says, “Don’t deceive yourself,” Winston sees that he “had always known it.” So what was the hope of the razor blade doing for him all those hours? Inference

Make a Connection Think of a time when illness, hunger or a long wait made it hard to think straight. What could you still think about, and what slipped away?

Vocabulary

forbearance: The guards, too, treated the common criminals with a certain forbearance, even when they had to handle them roughly. Patience that holds back from punishing or striking when it could (from forbear, to hold back from doing something). It is a gentle word to meet in a prison, and Orwell gives it to the guards, who spend it on the common criminals.
servile: ‘Of course I’m guilty!’ cried Parsons with a servile glance at the telescreen. Eager to please a master, in the way a servant or a slave is made to be (Latin servus, a slave, as in serve and servant). One glance earns the word: as Parsons cries out his guilt, his eyes go to the telescreen.
sanctimonious: His froglike face grew calmer, and even took on a slightly sanctimonious expression. Showing off how good and right you are, in a preachy way (Latin sanctimonia, holiness). It lands on Parsons a moment after he calls himself guilty: a man in a cell for thoughtcrime, wearing a preacher’s face.
sententiously: ‘Thoughtcrime is a dreadful thing, old man,’ he said sententiously. In a solemn, lecturing way, as if handing out wise sayings (Latin sententia, an opinion or a saying, as in sentence). A frightened prisoner speaks to Winston as if repeating a lesson, about the very crime he has been arrested for. Sanctimonious is about how Parsons looks; sententiously is about how he talks.
desultorily: They talked desultorily for some minutes, then, without apparent reason, a yell from the telescreen bade them be silent. In a wandering way, without plan or purpose, drifting from one thing to another (Latin desultor, a circus rider who leaps from horse to horse). Winston and Ampleforth talk like this for a few minutes, and even that is cut off for no reason anyone can see.
emaciation: But what was startling was the emaciation of his face. Being so thin from hunger or illness that the bones show (Latin macies, thinness). It is what tells Winston, and everyone on the bench, that the man is starving, and soon the chinless man’s eyes keep flitting toward him.
unappeasable: Because of its thinness the mouth and eyes looked disproportionately large, and the eyes seemed filled with a murderous, unappeasable hatred of somebody or something. Impossible to calm or satisfy (un-, not, and appease, to calm someone by giving them what they want). Winston reads it in the starving man’s eyes, and “somebody or something” leaves its target open: a hatred that nothing given to him could quiet.

Critical thinking

Alone in the cell, Winston asks himself if he would double his own pain to save Julia. He answers, “Yes, I would.” Then a guard’s truncheon hits his elbow, and it saves no one. On the floor he thinks, “One question at any rate was answered.” Has the blow answered what he asked about Julia?
Winston thinks that in the face of pain there are no heroes. Do the prisoners he watches in the cell prove him right?