1984

Part Three, Chapter 6

George Orwell · Mountaineers 10th–12th

Teaching Companion Print Adapt for your student

Copywork

There were things, your own acts, from which you could not recover. Something was killed in your breast: burnt out, cauterised out.

Under the table Winston’s feet made convulsive movements. He had not stirred from his seat, but in his mind he was running, swiftly running, he was with the crowds outside, cheering himself deaf. He looked up again at the portrait of Big Brother. The colossus that bestrode the world!

The first passage says something in Winston was killed. In the second, his feet jerk under the table while his mind runs with the crowd. Is this Winston coming back to life?

For the educator Two passages, six sentences. The first, two sentences, comes just after Winston traces 2 + 2 = 5 in the dust and remembers what Julia and O’Brien once told him; the second, four sentences, comes just after the trumpet-call and the bulletin of victory. The first speaks of Winston’s own life as “you” and “your”, as if it were true of anyone. Its first sentence sets an appositive, “your own acts”, inside the clause, so the reader has to stop on it. Its second sentence turns on a colon, and after it two short phrases, “burnt out, cauterised out”, where the second sharpens the first: to cauterise is to burn flesh on purpose, as a treatment. The passive “was killed” names no killer. The second passage opens on the body, then sets the still body against the running mind with “but”, repeats and sharpens a word, “running, swiftly running”, and runs two clauses together with a bare comma, “swiftly running, he was with the crowds”, as if there were no time for a joining word. A plain sentence follows, and then a cry with no verb at all, in a grand, public register: “The colossus that bestrode the world!” Students copying them practise an appositive set inside a clause, a colon that opens onto a pair of phrases, a word repeated and sharpened, a comma splice used for speed, and a verbless exclamation. For the talk prompt, listen for more than one answer. One student says yes: for the first time in the chapter he is moving, even running, and he is with other people. Another says no: “convulsive” movements are not chosen, he has “not stirred from his seat”, and the cry he thinks is not in his own words. A third says it is something new, not Winston coming back. Each helps with both written questions. Keep to the page: the chapter gives only the bulletin, not whether the victory is real.

Discussion

Narration Tell back the chapter in order, from the almost empty café to the face on the wall.

With the chess problem in front of him, Winston thinks, “White always mates.” In these problems black never wins; “it is so arranged.” What does Winston get from that thought? Character
When Winston pictures defeat in Africa, his thoughts run all the way to “the destruction of the Party!” His feelings come in layers, and he cannot say which one is at the bottom. Which do you think it is? Inference
With his arm round Julia’s waist, Winston remembers dragging a corpse out of ruins after a rocket bomb. Why is that the picture his mind reaches for? Inference
Julia could say it was only a trick, and that she did not really mean it. Instead she says, “At the time when it happens you do mean it.” Why won’t she take that excuse? Character
Right after Winston thinks about how he betrayed Julia, he hears a voice sing, “I sold you and you sold me”. But the page says it may be “only a memory” that sounds like singing. If the song is only in his head, who is singing it? Inference

Make a Connection Think of a memory, your own or one from a story, that someone else might call untrue. What would it take to make you give it up?

Vocabulary

cauterised: Something was killed in your breast: burnt out, cauterised out. Burnt on purpose to seal a wound or destroy damaged flesh, as a doctor might (Greek kauterion, a branding iron). It is a word from healing. Here what is burnt out is “Something” in Winston that the sentence does not name.
convulsive: Under the table Winston’s feet made convulsive movements. Jerking suddenly, without being willed, as in a fit (Latin convellere, to tear loose). Winston has not moved from his seat; his feet move on their own.
bestrode: The colossus that bestrode the world! Stood over something with one leg on each side, like a giant (the past tense of bestride). A colossus is a huge statue; the line pictures Big Brother standing astride the whole world.
undifferentiated: A violent emotion, not fear exactly but a sort of undifferentiated excitement, flared up in him, then faded again. Not sorted into separate kinds, so the parts cannot be told apart (un-, not, and differentiate, to tell apart). Winston feels “not fear exactly”, and cannot say what the excitement is.
inextricably: The cloves and saccharine, themselves disgusting enough in their sickly way, could not disguise the flat oily smell; and what was worst of all was that the smell of gin, which dwelt with him night and day, was inextricably mixed up in his mind with the smell of those – So tangled together that they cannot be pulled apart (Latin in-, not, and extricare, to untangle). The smell of gin is bound up in his mind with something he will not name, even to himself.
sinecure: He even had a job, a sinecure, more highly paid than his old job had been. A paid post with little or no real work in it (Latin sine cura, without care). Winston’s pays better than his old job, and his committee’s task is a question about commas and brackets.

Critical thinking

In his happy daydream, Winston is back in the Ministry of Love. He confesses everything and names everybody. Yet his soul is “white as snow”. How can giving everybody away make him feel clean?
A happy memory of his mother still comes to Winston, and he calls it false. Is anything of the old Winston left by the last line?