Part One, Chapter 4

1984

Mountaineers · 10th–12th

Copywork

Winston’s greatest pleasure in life was in his work. Most of it was a tedious routine, but included in it there were also jobs so difficult and intricate that you could lose yourself in them as in the depths of a mathematical problem – delicate pieces of forgery in which you had nothing to guide you except your knowledge of the principles of Ingsoc and your estimate of what the Party wanted you to say. Winston was good at this kind of thing.

Comrade Ogilvy, unimagined an hour ago, was now a fact. It struck him as curious that you could create dead men but not living ones. Comrade Ogilvy, who had never existed in the present, now existed in the past, and when once the act of forgery was forgotten, he would exist just as authentically, and upon the same evidence, as Charlemagne or Julius Caesar.

Winston finds it “curious” that you could create dead men but not living ones. What is it about a living man that print cannot make?

For the educator Two passages, six sentences, both from the last stretch of the morning. The first opens on a short, plain claim and then gives the long sentence its room. That sentence turns on “but”, from “a tedious routine” to jobs “so difficult and intricate”, compares them to “the depths of a mathematical problem”, and only after a dash says what they are: “delicate pieces of forgery”. On the way it slips from Winston to “you”, as if any skilled hand would feel the same. Then a short, flat sentence of quiet pride: “Winston was good at this kind of thing.” The second passage fences a phrase between subject and verb, “unimagined an hour ago”, so the hour that made Ogilvy sits inside the sentence that calls him “a fact”. The middle sentence turns on one antithesis, “dead men but not living ones”. The last sets “never existed in the present” against “now existed in the past”, holds its point back behind a clause about forgetting, pairs “just as authentically, and upon the same evidence”, and ends on two of the most famous names in history. Students copying them practise a long sentence held open by “but” and a dash, a simile, a short sentence after a long one, a phrase fenced by commas between subject and verb, antithesis, and a sentence that saves its weight for the end. For the talk prompt, listen for two readings. One says a living man has to be met: he eats, talks and can be seen, so the present has witnesses, while the dead have only records, and records are what the Ministry owns. The other says no living person could be Ogilvy: a man with no wife, no pastimes and “no subjects of conversation except the principles of Ingsoc” can exist only in print. A strong student may notice that even the dead man is safe only “when once the act of forgery was forgotten”, so the whole making rests on forgetting.

Discussion

Narration Give a short account of Winston’s morning, from the four slips of paper to the birth of Comrade Ogilvy. Then pick the one sentence you think matters most, and say what it shows about the chapter as a whole.

1. Every room in the building has a slit for waste paper. “For some reason they were nicknamed memory holes.” What is the joke in that name, and who is it on?Tone

2. In the next cubicle, a woman spends her days deleting the names of people who have been vaporised. Her own husband was vaporised a couple of years ago. Winston sees “a certain fitness” in this. Is that a cold thought, or a clear one?Moral reasoning

3. Winston hardly knows Tillotson and has no idea what he works on. By the end of the morning, Tillotson is “his rival”. What has turned a stranger into a rival?Character

4. Winston makes four guesses about why Withers fell. The likeliest, he thinks, is that it “had simply happened”, because purges were “a necessary part of the mechanics of government”. Why might that be the likeliest guess, to him?Character

5. Winston dictates in Big Brother’s style, which is “easy to imitate”. Earlier that morning he rewrote a paragraph of a Big Brother speech. If a clerk can do the voice this well, who is speaking when Big Brother speaks?Inference

6. In Winston’s draft, Big Brother says no one can think of Ogilvy’s death “without feelings of envy”. Ogilvy reported his uncle at eleven and vowed never to marry. Why would the Party want people to envy a death like his?Theme

Make a Connection Think of a time, in a story or in your own life, when people agreed to call something by a softer name than it deserved. Why might they do that?

Vocabulary

rectify Winston’s job was to rectify the original figures by making them agree with the later ones.

invariably Books, also, were recalled and re-written again and again, and were invariably re-issued without any admission that any alteration had been made.

palimpsest All history was a palimpsest, scraped clean and re-inscribed exactly as often as was necessary.

incurred More commonly, people who had incurred the displeasure of the Party simply disappeared and were never heard of again.

denunciation He might turn the speech into the usual denunciation of traitors and thought-criminals, but that was a little too obvious; while to invent a victory at the front, or some triumph of over-production in the Ninth Three-Year Plan, might complicate the records too much.

unimagined Comrade Ogilvy, unimagined an hour ago, was now a fact.

authentically Comrade Ogilvy, who had never existed in the present, now existed in the past, and when once the act of forgery was forgotten, he would exist just as authentically, and upon the same evidence, as Charlemagne or Julius Caesar.

Critical thinking

1. Winston thinks his work on the figures is “not even forgery”, since the first figures were made up too. Meanwhile perhaps half of Oceania goes barefoot. When one made-up number replaces another, who, if anyone, is harmed?

Thesis

Objection

Revision

2. Winston hates the Party’s lies, yet making up Comrade Ogilvy is the part of his day he enjoys most. Does that pleasure make him part of what he hates?

Thesis

Objection

Revision