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1984
Mountaineers · 10th–12th
Winston’s only proof that Oceania was once allied with Eurasia is in his own head. If no record agrees with him, is that knowledge still worth trusting?
The tension Asleep, he sees his mother and sister look up at him from sinking water with “no reproach”, and the girl’s gesture seems to “annihilate a whole culture”; awake and bending to touch his toes, he cannot fix the year he first heard of Big Brother, and the screen singles him out: “6079 Smith W!”
Waking from two dreams into the morning exercises, Winston tries to think back past the ’fifties and finds that without written evidence even his own life loses its outline.
Winston dreams of his mother, who disappeared when he was ten or eleven; he supposes that she and his father were swallowed up in the first great purges. In the dream she sits far below him with his baby sister in her arms, in a sinking ship, looking up at him through dark water. They are dying so that he can live, and there is no blame in their faces. He cannot remember what really happened, but he wakes understanding that her death was a true tragedy, the kind of deep, private sorrow that he believes no longer exists. The dream shifts to the Golden Country, an old pasture he has dreamed of so often that he is not sure whether he has really seen it. A dark-haired girl crosses the field and throws off her clothes with a single careless gesture, which seems to him to sweep away the whole Party. He wakes with the word “Shakespeare” on his lips. The telescreen’s whistle sounds, and Winston, after a fit of coughing, joins the Physical Jerks, the morning exercises a woman on the screen leads. As he exercises he tries to recall his childhood, but without records almost everything has faded. He remembers an air raid: hurrying down into a Tube station, and an old man reeking of gin who wept and kept saying that they should not have trusted “’em”, though Winston cannot now remember whom he meant. War has been almost continuous since then, with changing enemies, but no record ever admits any alliance except the present one. Oceania is at war with Eurasia, and so has always been at war with Eurasia, though Winston knows that four years ago Eurasia was an ally. That knowledge exists only in his own mind, and if everyone accepts the Party’s lie, the lie becomes the truth. He turns over doublethink, the Party’s way of holding two contradictory beliefs at once and forgetting that one has done so. He cannot even date when he first heard of Big Brother. Once, he recalls, he held real written proof that the Party had falsified the past, but before he can remember it, the instructress shouts his number from the screen and orders him to bend lower. He hides his alarm, and at last touches his toes with his knees straight for the first time in years.
Before reading, ask the student for the earliest thing they remember, and how they know it really happened. Then read the chapter in three stretches: the two dreams, up to the word “Shakespeare”; from the whistle to the old man in the shelter; and from the war with Eurasia to the end. In the first stretch, mark what Winston learns while asleep. In the third, mark each time the exercise breaks into his thinking. Read the doublethink paragraph (“To know and not to know”) aloud slowly; it is built to be hard to hold in the mind. The chapter does not say how his mother disappeared or what his one piece of proof was, so leave both open.
Retell The student retells the chapter in three movements: the two dreams, the memory of the Tube shelter, and his thoughts during the exercises, from the change of allies through doublethink and the dates he cannot fix to the call of his number. Look for the order of his thoughts, and for what his body is doing at each turn.
Imitate the author After copying, the student writes two short passages of their own. The first gives two reasons for a feeling, each opened by “because”, with a short aside fenced by commas, then ends a short sentence on a word that the next sentence picks up, as “today. Today” does. The second describes something true in the dry voice of an official who disapproves of it, then ends on a colon and a “therefore” whose logic sounds sound and is not.
Debate Take sides on the last written question. One side argues that Winston’s knowledge is worth trusting, and gathers the alliance only “four years ago”, the aeroplanes, and the slogan about who controls the past. The other argues that it is not, on its own, and gathers the year he cannot be sure of, the Big Brother he cannot date, and the events “which had quite probably not happened”. Each side must answer the other’s best line. Neither may say what the documentary proof was, or that the Party’s past is false in every detail.
Purpose Close on the chapter’s shape. Ask why Orwell opens on a mother whose loyalty needed no reason and closes on a man bending to a voice on a screen. Then ask why the thought of real proof breaks off mid-sentence, “And on that occasion –”, and why the last thing Winston manages, “for the first time in several years”, is touching his toes for the Party.
Easier Read aloud the dream of the sinking ship, the Golden Country, the Tube shelter, the paragraph that begins “The Party said that Oceania had never been in alliance with Eurasia”, and the call of his number. Make two lists: what Winston is sure of, and what he cannot be sure of. Talk through the first, third and sixth discussion questions, then answer the last written question aloud before writing it.
On level Talk through all six discussion questions in order, then write both written questions as a thesis, the strongest objection and a revised thesis, each with lines from the chapter.
Harder Ask for one argued essay on the word “annihilate”, which the chapter uses twice. The girl’s gesture seems “to annihilate a whole culture”, and Winston’s own consciousness “must soon be annihilated”. What does the chapter suggest can be destroyed, and what cannot? The essay should meet the objection that the gesture is only a dream.
1. In the dream, his mother and sister sink so that he can live, and their faces show “no reproach”. But it is Winston who is dreaming. When he sees no blame in them, is he seeing them truly, or excusing himself?Moral reasoning
What it asks It asks the student to judge the calm in the first dream, knowing that the dreamer made it. His mother and baby sister are “in the saloon of a sinking ship, looking up at him through the darkening water”, and “they were down there because he was up here.” “There was no reproach either in their faces or in their hearts, only the knowledge that they must die in order that he might remain alive, and that this was part of the unavoidable order of things.” In the same dream he sees that “she had died loving him, when he was too young and selfish to love her in return”, and the memory “tore at his heart”. The student decides whether the dream shows him who his mother and sister were, or lets him off, and argues from the page. The card must not say how his mother and sister disappeared or what part Winston had in it: he “could not remember what had happened”, and the chapter does not tell.
Seeing them truly. The calm fits what he knows of his mother: a woman who “had died loving him” and gave herself to a loyalty “private and unalterable”. A mother like that would not blame her son. And this is the kind of dream that brings “facts and ideas which still seem new and valuable after one is awake”. What it brings him is her love.
His mother’s memory tore at his heart because she had died loving him, when he was too young and selfish to love her in return, and because somehow, he did not remember how, she had sacrificed herself to a conception of loyalty that was private and unalterable.
in which one becomes aware of facts and ideas which still seem new and valuable after one is awake
Excusing himself. He cannot remember what happened, and the dream fills the gap with a pardon. Calling their deaths “part of the unavoidable order of things” takes away anyone’s choice, his included. The dream’s grammar names no one who acts: their lives “had been sacrificed”, by no one named. Yet a few lines on he calls himself “too young and selfish”. The blame the faces hold back is one he already feels, so their pardon is one he wants.
There was no reproach either in their faces or in their hearts, only the knowledge that they must die in order that he might remain alive, and that this was part of the unavoidable order of things.
He could not remember what had happened, but he knew in his dream that in some way the lives of his mother and his sister had been sacrificed to his own.
A strong answer A strong response takes a side and argues from the dream. One reader says the dream sees them truly: the calm fits a mother who “had died loving him” and kept a loyalty “private and unalterable”, and this dream is one whose ideas still seem “new and valuable” after he wakes. Another says the dream excuses him: it fills a gap he “could not remember” with “the unavoidable order of things”, while a few lines on he calls himself “too young and selfish”. The best answers notice that the dream says the lives were “sacrificed to his own” while the next thought says she “sacrificed herself”, see that neither brings him peace, and leave open what really happened.
2. In the Golden Country, Winston barely looks at the girl’s body. What he admires is the way she throws her clothes aside, with “grace and carelessness”. How could one movement of an arm seem to sweep away the whole Party?Theme
What it asks It asks the student to explain why a dream gesture carries so much weight. In the Golden Country the dark-haired girl “tore off her clothes and flung them disdainfully aside”. “Her body was white and smooth, but it aroused no desire in him, indeed he barely looked at it.” What overwhelms him is the gesture: “With its grace and carelessness it seemed to annihilate a whole culture, a whole system of thought, as though Big Brother and the Party and the Thought Police could all be swept into nothingness by a single splendid movement of the arm.” The narrator adds: “That too was a gesture belonging to the ancient time.” The student says what in the gesture the Party could not survive, and defends it from the chapter. The card must not say that the girl feels anything for Winston: it is his dream, and she says nothing.
The carelessness. The Party lives on care: every face and every movement is watched and shaped. In the drill Winston wears the look “which was considered proper”, and he knows that one flicker of the eyes could betray him. A person who moves with no thought of being seen is outside the Party’s reach. If one person can be, its hold is not complete.
wearing on his face the look of grim enjoyment which was considered proper during the Physical Jerks
A single flicker of the eyes could give you away.
The scorn, and the time it comes from. She throws the clothes off “disdainfully”, as if what she sheds were worth nothing, and in Oceania even clothes are rationed by coupon. The narrator puts the gesture in “the ancient time”, beside his mother’s loyalty. It belongs to a whole older way of living, which the Party’s “system of thought” cannot hold. That is why he wakes with “Shakespeare” on his lips.
With what seemed a single movement she tore off her clothes and flung them disdainfully aside.
That too was a gesture belonging to the ancient time.
A strong answer A strong response names what in the gesture the Party could not survive, and argues from the chapter. One reader says it is the carelessness itself: a Party that requires the look “which was considered proper” and fears “A single flicker of the eyes” cannot hold a person who moves with no thought of being watched. Another says it is the scorn and the older world behind it: she flings the clothes “disdainfully”, and the narrator places the gesture in “the ancient time”, beside the mother’s loyalty. The best answers notice “seemed” and “as though”, set her free arm beside Winston’s arms in the drill, and keep the girl as Winston dreams her, silent.
3. Winston still remembers the old man’s gin, his tears and his very words. But he cannot remember who the old man was blaming. Why might that be the part he lost?Inference
What it asks It asks the student to think about which parts of a memory last, from a memory of his early childhood that Winston can still picture. In the Tube station an old man in “a decent dark suit” sits by them, scarlet-faced, his eyes “blue and full of tears”. “He reeked of gin.” He keeps saying: “We didn’t ought to ’ave trusted ’em. I said so, Ma, didn’t I?” Then: “But which buggers they didn’t ought to have trusted Winston could not now remember.” The student explains why this, of all the details, is the one he lost. A few lines later the chapter says that no record “ever made mention of any other alignment than the existing one.” The card must not say who the old man meant: the chapter does not know.
Because it never mattered to a small boy. A boy that age sees the tears and smells the gin. He takes in the grief and even guesses its cause, a dead granddaughter perhaps. Which side had broken its word meant nothing to him, so it never stuck.
In his childish way Winston grasped that some terrible thing, something that was beyond forgiveness and could never be remedied, had just happened.
Someone whom the old man loved, a little granddaughter perhaps, had been killed.
Because nothing since has kept it alive. A smell or a face can stay with you on its own. But who was on which side is the one kind of fact that no paper and no voice ever repeats. His memory had nothing to hold it to, so it wore away.
since no written record, and no spoken word, ever made mention of any other alignment than the existing one
But which buggers they didn’t ought to have trusted Winston could not now remember.
A strong answer A strong response explains why this detail, and not the others, has gone. One reader says a young boy keeps what he feels and drops what he does not understand: Winston “grasped” the grief and even guessed its cause, but the name of a side meant nothing to him. Another says the world since has worn it away: tears and gin need no record, but who fought whom is never spoken again, since no record mentions “any other alignment than the existing one”. The best answers notice the word “now”, and the way the old man’s warning about trust survives while its object is lost.
4. Winston thinks it is “more terrifying than mere torture and death” for the Party to say of an event, “it never happened”. Death would end him. What could the Party take from him that death would not?Theme
What it asks It asks the student to weigh the strangest ranking in the chapter: the loss of the past above his own death. Just after he thinks, for the ten thousandth time, that “it might all be true”, he asks: “If the Party could thrust its hand into the past and say of this or that event, it never happened – that, surely, was more terrifying than mere torture and death?” He expects to die in any case. His knowledge lives “Only in his own consciousness, which in any case must soon be annihilated.” The student says what the Party could take from him that death could not, and argues from the chapter. The card must not say that the Party’s account of the past is false in every detail: this is the fear Winston himself names.
The dead. Death would end one life. Unsaying the past would end the lives that came before his. The dream has just told him that his mother’s and sister’s lives were “sacrificed to his own”. If the Party can say of any event that it never happened, that sacrifice, and the old man’s grief in the shelter, can be wiped out too. Winston’s death would leave them as they were. The Party’s power would not.
He could not remember what had happened, but he knew in his dream that in some way the lives of his mother and his sister had been sacrificed to his own.
The past, he reflected, had not merely been altered, it had been actually destroyed.
His trust in his own mind, while he is still alive. Torture and death would leave him knowing the truth to the end. A past the Party can unsay makes his knowing stop counting before he dies. Then he starts to doubt it himself, which is the fear in “it might all be true”. Death takes his life. This takes his reason to believe what he remembers.
the frightening thing was that it might all be true.
And if all others accepted the lie which the Party imposed – if all records told the same tale – then the lie passed into history and became truth.
A strong answer A strong response names what the Party could take that death could not, and argues from the chapter. One reader says it is the dead: death ends one life, but unsaying the past can wipe out the lives behind his, his mother’s and sister’s among them, which the dream says were “sacrificed to his own”, and a past that is “actually destroyed” keeps none of them. Another says it is his trust in himself: torture and death would leave him knowing the truth to the end, while a past the Party can unsay makes him fear, “for the ten thousandth time”, that “it might all be true”. The best answers weigh “mere”, notice the exercise breaking into the thought, and do not claim the Party’s past is false in every detail.
5. Winston’s mind slides away into doublethink. When the toe-touching starts, the “half-pleasant quality” goes out of his thoughts. What was pleasant about them?Character
What it asks It asks the student to account for a mood the narrator mentions only as it ends. At “Stand easy!” Winston “slowly refilled his lungs with air. His mind slid away into the labyrinthine world of doublethink.” The long sentence that follows sets out what doublethink asks, from “To know and not to know” to “consciously to induce unconsciousness”. Then the toe-touching begins, with “shooting pains all the way from his heels to his buttocks”, and “The half-pleasant quality went out of his meditations.” The student decides what was pleasant in thinking about doublethink, and defends it from the paragraph. Doublethink here is not plain hypocrisy: it means holding two opinions “knowing them to be contradictory and believing in both of them”.
Thinking itself. For a few minutes his mind is free to work, and he follows a hard idea all the way down. It is like the dream that was “a continuation of one’s intellectual life”. Mapping the Party’s maze is a pleasure, even when the maze is a prison, and he calls its last step “the ultimate subtlety”.
It was one of those dreams which, while retaining the characteristic dream scenery, are a continuation of one’s intellectual life
That was the ultimate subtlety
Doublethink’s own pull. His mind “slid”, the easy way down. Doublethink offers rest from the strain of knowing: forget what hurts, recall it only when needed, then forget it again. It is a kind of hypnosis, and part of him finds it soothing until the pain wakes him.
to forget whatever it was necessary to forget, then to draw it back into memory again at the moment when it was needed, and then promptly to forget it again
consciously to induce unconsciousness, and then, once again, to become unconscious of the act of hypnosis you had just performed
A strong answer A strong response names what was pleasant and argues from the paragraph and its edges. One reader says the pleasure is thinking itself: a mind free for a moment to follow a hard idea, the same “intellectual life” the dream carried, admiring “the ultimate subtlety” even of a trap. Another says the pleasure is doublethink’s own pull: his mind “slid” into it, and a way of thinking that lets you forget what hurts is restful, a kind of hypnosis. The best answers notice that pain, not reason, ends the mood, and that his next thought is the darkest in the chapter.
6. The screen shouts “6079 Smith W!” just as Winston starts to recall the one real proof he ever held. All it wants is for him to bend lower. What does the screen know about him at that moment?Inference
What it asks It asks the student to judge what the watching screen actually has on Winston. He is thinking that “Just once in his whole life he had held in his hands unmistakable documentary proof of the falsification of a historical fact. And on that occasion –” The thought stops there. “‘Smith!’ screamed the shrewish voice from the telescreen.” The voice wants him to bend lower: “You can do better than that. You’re not trying.” Then: “A sudden hot sweat had broken out all over Winston’s body. His face remained completely inscrutable.” The student decides what the screen knows, and what follows from that. The moment is funny as well as frightening, and the talk should keep both. The card must not say what the proof was: the chapter cuts the thought off before he recalls it.
Nothing that matters. It sees a man in the exercise group not bending far enough. The screen that watches everything misses the most dangerous thought in the room and scolds his back instead. That is the dark joke: the Party watches bodies, and the mind slips past it.
Bend lower, please! You can do better than that. You’re not trying.
His face remained completely inscrutable.
Enough. It does not need his thoughts. It has his number, his body and his face, and his thinking breaks off the moment it calls. A man who must hide even a flicker of his eyes is watched closely enough. Whether the screen knows or not, the thought is stopped.
A sudden hot sweat had broken out all over Winston’s body.
A single flicker of the eyes could give you away.
A strong answer A strong response judges what the screen knows and argues from the moment. One reader says it knows nothing that matters: it scolds a back that is not bending, while the thought it should fear goes unseen, and Winston’s face stays “completely inscrutable”. Another says it knows enough: his number, his body and his sweat are in its view, and the thought ends the instant it calls, so the screen works whether or not it reads his mind. The best answers keep the joke and the threat together, notice that the proof is cut off for the reader as well, and leave what it was unsaid.
1. Winston thinks families once “stood by one another without needing to know the reason.” Doublethink, too, sets reason aside: it means “to use logic against logic”. What, if anything, makes his mother’s loyalty different from what the Party asks?
What it asks It asks the student to set the chapter’s two kinds of holding on side by side. In the dream Winston sees that tragedy belonged to a time “when the members of a family stood by one another without needing to know the reason”, and that his mother “had sacrificed herself to a conception of loyalty that was private and unalterable.” Later, the Party’s way of thinking asks a person “to use logic against logic”, and to hold two opinions “knowing them to be contradictory and believing in both of them”. The past is “of its nature alterable”, yet “Whatever was true now was true from everlasting to everlasting.” The student builds a thesis on what, if anything, divides the two, meets the strongest objection, and revises. The card must not say how his mother disappeared or what she did: he “did not remember how”.
Something real: what each holds to. Hers was a loyalty to people, and it was “private and unalterable”: it did not shift when the news did. The Party’s truth changes partners every few years and is held in place by fear. She gave herself up for her loyalty. Doublethink asks a man to give up his own memory for the Party.
she had sacrificed herself to a conception of loyalty that was private and unalterable
Officially the change of partners had never happened.
Less than Winston thinks. Both ask you to stand by something without asking why. The Party also says its truth never changes. And the mother he admires is a woman he last saw when he was ten or eleven, whose sacrifice he cannot remember, so he may be making her into what he needs.
Whatever was true now was true from everlasting to everlasting.
to use logic against logic
A strong answer A strong response states a thesis on what, if anything, divides the two loyalties, meets the strongest objection, and revises. One thesis says they are opposites: hers was “private and unalterable” and given to people, while the Party’s truth swaps enemies and allies and is kept up by fear. The strongest objection is that both stand by something “without needing to know the reason”, and the Party too claims its truth runs “from everlasting to everlasting”. A good revision might hold that the difference lies not in the lack of reasons but in what the loyalty is given to, or in who chooses it. Another might ask how much of the mother Winston admires is memory and how much is dream.
2. Winston’s only proof that Oceania was once allied with Eurasia is in his own head. If no record agrees with him, is that knowledge still worth trusting?
What it asks It asks the chapter’s whole question. “The Party said that Oceania had never been in alliance with Eurasia. He, Winston Smith, knew that Oceania had been in alliance with Eurasia as short a time as four years ago. But where did that knowledge exist? Only in his own consciousness, which in any case must soon be annihilated.” No record helps him: “no written record, and no spoken word, ever made mention of any other alignment than the existing one.” And his own memory is weak. He cannot date when he first heard of Big Brother, or when the Party began, or be sure the year is 1984. Yet sometimes, he thinks, “you could put your finger on a definite lie”: “He remembered aeroplanes since his earliest childhood. But you could prove nothing.” The student builds a thesis on whether knowledge no record supports is worth trusting, meets the strongest objection, and revises. The card must not say what the “unmistakable documentary proof” was, and must not say that the Party’s account is false in every detail: Winston fears “it might all be true”.
Worth trusting. The change of sides was only four years ago, a grown man’s memory, not a small boy’s. He can still catch a plain lie, such as the claim that the Party invented aeroplanes. If no memory counts unless a record agrees, then whoever writes the records owns the truth, which is what the slogan says. His own mind is the last check left.
Sometimes indeed, you could put your finger on a definite lie.
‘Who controls the past,’ ran the Party slogan, ‘controls the future: who controls the present controls the past.’
Not on its own. The chapter shows how badly his memory works without records. He cannot date Big Brother, the Party or even the year, and he remembers events that “had quite probably not happened”. He cannot tell whether the Golden Country is real. Knowledge no one can check may be true, but he has no way to tell it from a dream.
He tried to remember in what year he had first heard mention of Big Brother.
The landscape that he was looking at recurred so often in his dreams that he was never fully certain whether or not he had seen it in the real world.
A strong answer A strong response states a thesis on whether Winston’s unrecorded knowledge is worth trusting, answers the strongest objection, and revises. One thesis says it is: the change of allies is four years old, he can still catch a “definite lie” about aeroplanes, and if only records count then the slogan is right that whoever controls the present controls the past. The strongest objection is the chapter’s own evidence against his memory: he cannot date Big Brother or the year, he remembers events that “had quite probably not happened”, and he cannot tell a dream country from a real one. A good revision might hold that recent, specific memory deserves trust that blurred childhood memory does not, or that knowledge can be true without being provable, and that the Party needs only to destroy the proof.
But that was merely a piece of furtive knowledge which he happened to possess because his memory was not satisfactorily under control.Done or kept in secret, out of fear of being caught, like something stolen (Latin furtum, theft). Glances and footsteps are often furtive; knowledge is not, until Orwell makes it so. In Oceania simply remembering the old alliance is a kind of theft from the Party’s record, and Winston must keep it hidden even from his own face.
But that was merely a piece of furtive knowledge which he happened to possess because his memory was not satisfactorily under control.Well enough to meet a required standard (from satisfy; the word of reports, inspections and school marks). The question is always whose standard. Here a memory that works is called one not “satisfactorily under control”, as if remembering were a fault to be fixed. The narrator borrows the Party’s language for a moment, and the irony is in the borrowing.
And yet the past, though of its nature alterable, never had been altered.Able to be changed (from alter, to change; its opposite, unalterable, is the word Winston uses for his mother’s loyalty). The sentence holds two claims that cancel out: the past can be changed, and the past has never been changed. The chapter sets a loyalty that is “private and unalterable” against a history that is alterable by its nature.
To know and not to know, to be conscious of complete truthfulness while telling carefully-constructed lies, to hold simultaneously two opinions which cancelled out, knowing them to be contradictory and believing in both of them; to use logic against logic, to repudiate morality while laying claim to it, to believe that democracy was impossible and that the Party was the guardian of democracy; to forget whatever it was necessary to forget, then to draw it back into memory again at the moment when it was needed, and then promptly to forget it again: and above all, to apply the same process to the process itself.To reject something completely and refuse to own it (Latin repudiare, to cast off, once used of putting away a wife). Doublethink asks a person to repudiate morality and lay claim to it in the same breath. That is why it is not simple lying: the thinker does both, and believes both.
It seemed to breathe out of his skin in place of sweat, and one could have fancied that the tears welling from his eyes were pure gin.Imagined, or let yourself believe for a moment (from fancy, a shortened form of fantasy). Today the word usually means liked or wanted; here it is the older sense. The narrator lets the reader picture tears of gin, a joke, and then insists in the next sentence that the old man’s grief was “genuine and unbearable”.