1984

Part Three, Chapter 3

George Orwell · Mountaineers 10th–12th

Teaching Companion Print Adapt for your student

Copywork

It is the exact opposite of the stupid hedonistic Utopias that the old reformers imagined. A world of fear and treachery and torment, a world of trampling and being trampled upon, a world which will grow not less but more merciless as it refines itself. Progress in our world will be progress towards more pain. The old civilisations claimed that they were founded on love or justice. Ours is founded upon hatred. In our world there will be no emotions except fear, rage, triumph and self-abasement.

The last sentence names the only feelings O’Brien says will be left. Who in his world will feel each one?

For the educator One passage, six sentences, from the middle of O’Brien’s answer to “why”, a little before the boot. It opens by naming what it is against, “the stupid hedonistic Utopias that the old reformers imagined”. The second sentence has no main verb. It is built by anaphora, “a world of … a world of … a world which”, and each step runs longer than the last. It turns one verb both ways, “trampling and being trampled upon”, holds an antithesis, “not less but more merciless”, and closes on “refines itself”, words that usually promise improvement. The third sentence sets its key word on both sides of the verb, “Progress … progress”, and lands on “pain”. Then an antithesis split over two sentences: the old civilisations “claimed” love or justice, and “Ours is founded upon hatred.” At five words it is the shortest sentence in the passage. The last sentence is a list that saves its longest word for the end. Students copying it practise a verbless sentence built by anaphora, antithesis inside one sentence and across two, a word repeated so that it turns against itself, a short sentence after long ones, and a list that ends on its heaviest item. For the talk prompt, listen for more than one answer. One student sorts the list by side: triumph for the Party, fear and self-abasement for the face under the boot. Another notices that O’Brien says “no emotions except” these for everyone, so one person may feel all four in turn, and the Party member is afraid too. A third may ask whose rage it is, the Party’s or the victim’s. Some will notice what is missing from the list: love. Each helps with the last written question, since the one thing Winston has left at the end of the chapter is a loyalty. Keep to the page: this is O’Brien’s picture of the future, not the book’s verdict on whether it will come.

Discussion

Narration Tell back the chapter in order, from the three stages O’Brien names to his answer about when Winston will be shot.

Winston thinks “the terrible thing” would be O’Brien really believing that the Party rules for the good of the weak. Is the answer he gets worse than that, or easier to fight? Character
O’Brien admits that to steer a ship or predict an eclipse, the Party treats the stars as far away. Does that admission help Winston? Inference
O’Brien says the heretic “will always be there”, to be beaten again and again. A little later he tells Winston, “Your kind is extinct”. What would have to be true for O’Brien to mean both? Theme
Winston sees how tired O’Brien’s face is, and O’Brien asks, “Do you die when you cut your fingernails?” If “the individual is only a cell”, what does that make O’Brien himself? Character
Winston has told the Party everything about Julia, but “in the sense in which he intended the word, he had not betrayed her.” Is that a fair way to use the word? Moral reasoning

Make a Connection O’Brien says a person alone is always defeated, and only the Party never dies. Think of a story or a time in history when people gave up who they were to belong to something larger. Was it a fair trade?

Vocabulary

solipsism: The word you are trying to think of is solipsism. The belief that nothing is real except your own mind (Latin solus, alone, and ipse, self). Winston cannot find the word for the idea he is fighting, and O’Brien hands it to him, then says the Party’s view is not that but “Collective solipsism”: the Party’s shared mind in place of one man’s.
digression: All this is a digression,’ he added in a different tone. A turn away from the main subject onto a side track (Latin digredi, to step aside). O’Brien uses it to wave away the whole argument about the stars and the bones; for him the real subject is power over people, and power over things is the side track.
hedonistic: It is the exact opposite of the stupid hedonistic Utopias that the old reformers imagined. Living for pleasure and treating pleasure as the highest good (Greek hēdonē, pleasure). O’Brien sneers at the old dreams of a happy future as hedonistic, and offers instead a world in which every pleasure but the thrill of power will be destroyed.
self-abasement: In our world there will be no emotions except fear, rage, triumph and self-abasement. Making yourself low, humbling or shaming yourself before someone stronger (abase, from Old French abaissier, to lower). In O’Brien’s list it stands last, just after “triumph”, its opposite.
vitriol: He heard himself promising to lie, to steal, to forge, to murder, to encourage drug-taking and prostitution, to disseminate venereal diseases, to throw vitriol in a child’s face. An old name for sulphuric acid, which burns flesh (Latin vitrum, glass, for its glassy look); later, any bitter, burning speech. Here it is the literal acid, and the last item in the vow Winston hears in his own voice.
emaciation: But the truly frightening thing was the emaciation of his body. Extreme thinness from hunger or illness, the body wasted to the bone (Latin macies, leanness). The narrator ranks it above the dirt and the sores as “the truly frightening thing”, and O’Brien repeats the word as an order: “Look at your emaciation.”

Critical thinking

O’Brien pulls out one of Winston’s teeth with his own fingers. Later he tells him, “you reduced yourself to it.” Is there any truth in that?
O’Brien answers Winston’s claim to be better than the Party with a recording and a mirror. Is Winston still right to call himself better?