Part One, Chapter 5 — Teaching Companion

What it asks It asks the student to find the edge of Syme’s sight. He catches the “certain lack of enthusiasm” behind Winston’s “vapid eagerness”, and he names it: “Even when you write it you’re still thinking in Oldspeak.” “In your heart you’d prefer to stick to Oldspeak, with all its vagueness and its useless shades of meaning.” Yet Winston believes that if Syme grasped “the nature of his, Winston’s, secret opinions, he would betray him instantly to the Thought Police.” So, as Winston sees it, Syme has not grasped them. The student explains why so sharp a reader might stop there. The card must not say what Syme knows of Winston’s secret opinions: the page gives only Winston’s belief.

One reading

His sight is for words. Syme hears Winston’s prose the way a musician hears a wrong note. To him Oldspeak is a weakness of taste and skill, so he speaks of it “almost sadly”, like a teacher about a slow pupil, not like an accuser. He has the evidence in front of him and files it under style.

• They’re good enough, but they’re translations.
• he said almost sadly

Another reading

His belief gets in the way. Syme loves the destruction of words so much that he cannot picture a mind that hates it. When Winston does not share his joy, Syme reads it as a failure to “grasp the beauty”, not as hatred. His zeal sharpens his eyes and also limits what they can imagine.

• You don’t grasp the beauty of the destruction of words.
• Don’t you see the beauty of that, Winston?

Listen for

• Notices “Nevertheless”: Winston did put on the right face, and Syme saw past it anyway.
• Weighs two moments where Syme seems to see more. At the hanging talk his eyes seemed to say “I see through you”, and at “Except –” he “had divined” what Winston was about to say. The first is Winston’s reading of the eyes; the second is the narrator’s, so a student may argue that Syme has seen more than Winston thinks.
• Hears a likeness: the man who catches Winston thinking in Oldspeak “had read too many books” himself, and is talking Oldspeak with real pleasure at this very table.
• Keeps to the page: what Syme knows of Winston’s secret opinions is Winston’s guess, not a fact.

If stuck

• What does Syme say about Winston’s pieces in the Times?
• What does Winston think Syme would do if he saw his secret opinions?
• Can someone be very good at noticing one kind of thing and blind to another?

A strong answer A strong response explains where Syme’s sight stops and argues from the lunch. One reader says his sight is for words: he hears the Oldspeak in Winston’s prose, calls the pieces “translations”, and treats the fault as one of taste, said “almost sadly”, the way a teacher speaks of a slow pupil. Another says his belief blinds him: a man who finds the destruction of words beautiful reads Winston’s coldness as a failure to “grasp the beauty”, not as hatred. The best answers notice “Nevertheless”, weigh the mocking eyes at the hanging talk, and leave what Syme knows as Winston’s guess.

What it asks It asks the student to test Syme’s argument on one word. Syme asks why anyone needs “bad” when there is “good”. His answer is that “Ungood” will do “just as well – better, because it’s an exact opposite, which the other is not.” In the end, he says, “the whole notion of goodness and badness will be covered by only six words – in reality, only one word.” And he gives the reason: “the whole aim of Newspeak is to narrow the range of thought”, so that thoughtcrime becomes “literally impossible, because there will be no words in which to express it”. The student decides whether “bad” carries anything the newer word cannot. Keep the talk on Syme’s plan to make some thoughts impossible to have, not on Newspeak as a list of odd words.

One reading

Nothing that matters, on Syme’s terms. His case has force. The word “bad” is loose and the newer word is exact, and one root is easier to learn and to control. A word with its meaning “rigidly defined” cannot be misread. If the aim is clear meaning, he wins the argument.

• “Ungood” will do just as well – better, because it’s an exact opposite, which the other is not.
• Every concept that can ever be needed will be expressed by exactly one word, with its meaning rigidly defined and all its subsidiary meanings rubbed out and forgotten.

Another reading

A whole way of judging. The newer word makes badness only a lack of good, measured from good. The word “bad” stands on its own, so a person can condemn something without first asking what the Party calls good. Take the word away and that judgment has nowhere to live. Syme would not deny it. Narrowing thought is, in his words, “the whole aim”.

• Every year fewer and fewer words, and the range of consciousness always a little smaller.
• In the end we shall make thoughtcrime literally impossible, because there will be no words in which to express it

Listen for

• Notices that “excellent” and “splendid” go too, as “vague useless words”: what is cut is not only the opposite but every shade between.
• Hears “useless shades of meaning”, Syme’s charge against Winston’s Oldspeak, and asks who decides what is useless.
• Weighs “A word contains its opposite in itself”: a clever line, and a test of whether opposites are really that simple.
• Notices that Syme argues this “with a sort of pedant’s passion”, his face “animated”: the plan to narrow thought is defended by the liveliest mind at the table.

If stuck

• Which words does Syme want to keep, and which does he want to cut?
• If the only word you had was a form of “good”, how would you describe something cruel?
• Can the words a person has shape what that person is able to think?

A strong answer A strong response decides whether anything is lost and argues from Syme’s own words. One reader says nothing that matters, on Syme’s terms: the newer word is exact where “bad” is loose, and a language with every meaning “rigidly defined” cannot be misread. Another says a whole way of judging goes: the newer word makes badness only a lack of good, while “bad” lets a person condemn something in a word of its own, and Syme himself says the aim is to narrow “the range of consciousness”. The best answers take Syme’s argument seriously before answering it, notice that “excellent” and “splendid” go too, and keep the question on what Newspeak is for.

What it asks It asks the student to read Syme’s tone. The man at the next table gives out “a quack-quack-quacking”: “It was not the man’s brain that was speaking, it was his larynx.” Syme, tracing patterns in the puddle of stew with his spoon, offers the word: “duckspeak, to quack like a duck. It is one of those interesting words that have two contradictory meanings. Applied to an opponent, it is abuse; applied to someone you agree with, it is praise.” He does not say which he means. The very next line is Winston’s: “Unquestionably Syme will be vaporised, Winston thought again.” The student decides whether Syme is praising the man or mocking him, or whether the word lets him do both. The card must not say that Syme is vaporized: Winston predicts it.

One reading

Praise. The man’s noise is “pure orthodoxy, pure Ingsoc”, and Syme’s own rule is “Orthodoxy is unconsciousness”. A man who quacks without thinking is Newspeak working as it should. Syme is a believer, and he offers the word as a philologist’s treat, one of “those interesting words”.

• Whatever it was, you could be certain that every word of it was pure orthodoxy, pure Ingsoc.
• It is one of those interesting words that have two contradictory meanings.

Another reading

Mockery, or both at once. Syme’s tone gives him away elsewhere: when Parsons comes in, his voice seems to add “that bloody fool”. A man who loves exact words can hardly admire a mouth with no mind behind it. A word with two meanings lets him sneer and stay orthodox, and Winston’s certainty about him comes straight back.

• Something in the tone of his voice seemed to add, ‘that bloody fool.’
• Unquestionably Syme will be vaporised, Winston thought again.

Listen for

• Sets “two contradictory meanings” beside Syme’s promise that every concept will have one word “with its meaning rigidly defined”: the word he enjoys holds a doublethink inside it.
• Notices the man’s spectacles, “two blank discs instead of eyes”: no one can read his face, and Syme is busy tracing patterns in his stew.
• Hears “unconsciousness” in both places, the quacking man’s noise and Syme’s “Orthodoxy is unconsciousness”.
• Weighs “again”: Winston’s first certainty came after “Orthodoxy is unconsciousness”, and it returns the moment Syme names duckspeak.

If stuck

• What can Winston make out of what the man is saying?
• What two meanings does Syme give the word?
• Can you say something that sounds like praise and means the opposite?

A strong answer A strong response decides what Syme means and argues from his words and his manner. One reader says praise: the noise is “pure orthodoxy, pure Ingsoc”, Syme’s own rule is “Orthodoxy is unconsciousness”, and a believer can admire a man who has stopped needing to think. Another says mockery, or both at once: a man whose tone, when Parsons arrives, seems to add “that bloody fool” can hardly admire a mouth with no mind behind it, and a word with two meanings lets him sneer while staying orthodox. The best answers notice that the word keeps “two contradictory meanings” in a language meant to have one, weigh Winston’s “again”, and leave Syme’s fate as Winston’s prediction.

What it asks It asks the student to judge a seven-year-old’s cleverness, and the Party’s taste in it. On a hike with her troop, “She got two other girls to go with her, slipped off from the hike and spent the whole afternoon following a strange man.” “They kept on his tail for two hours, right through the woods”, then “handed him over to the patrols.” Her reason: “She spotted he was wearing a funny kind of shoes – said she’d never seen anyone wearing shoes like that before. So the chances were he was a foreigner.” Parsons asks, “Pretty smart for a nipper of seven, eh?” The student decides what kind of mind the story shows, and why her father is proud of it. The card must not say what happened to the man. Parsons “couldn’t say”, and his rifle gesture is a guess.

One reading

Real cleverness, aimed outward. She noticed a detail no one else did, made a plan, led two other girls, and kept it up for two hours. That is sharp, and it is the sharpness the Party wants: eyes that look hard at other people and never turn back on themselves.

• She got two other girls to go with her, slipped off from the hike and spent the whole afternoon following a strange man.
• They kept on his tail for two hours, right through the woods, and then, when they got into Amersham, handed him over to the patrols.

Another reading

No thinking at all. Her whole case is that the shoes were new to her: different means foreign, and foreign means enemy. Her father’s reasoning is no better: “there is a war on”. It is a reflex dressed up as a reason, and its strength is that it never stops to ask a question.

• said she’d never seen anyone wearing shoes like that before
• ‘What I mean to say, there is a war on,’ said Parsons.

Listen for

• Notices how the men answer: Winston, “somewhat taken aback”, is the only one who asks “What happened to the man?”; Syme says “Good” without looking up; and Winston then adds, “dutifully”, that “we can’t afford to take chances”.
• Sets the shoes beside the ear trumpet at the end of the chapter: the Spies train the same skill, and Parsons calls it “the right idea”.
• Sets the shoes beside facecrime: in both, a small oddity on the surface, “the suggestion of abnormality”, is enough.
• Keeps to the page: Parsons “couldn’t say” what happened to the man, and the rifle gesture is his guess.

If stuck

• What made the girl suspect the man?
• How does each man at the table answer the story?
• Is noticing something odd the same as thinking about it?

A strong answer A strong response names the kind of smart and argues from the story. One reader says it is real cleverness turned outward: she spotted a detail, led two other girls and kept on the man’s tail for two hours, which is exactly the sharpness the Party prizes, so long as it looks at other people. Another says it is no thinking at all: “she’d never seen anyone wearing shoes like that before” is her whole case, as “there is a war on” is her father’s, a reflex that looks like a reason. The best answers notice how differently the three men answer, see the link to facecrime, and leave the man’s fate unknown.

What it asks It asks the student to weigh Winston’s evidence. “It appeared that there had even been demonstrations to thank Big Brother for raising the chocolate ration to twenty grammes a week. And only yesterday, he reflected, it had been announced that the ration was to be reduced to twenty grammes a week.” “Yes, they swallowed it.” Parsons swallows it “easily, with the stupidity of an animal”. The eyeless man swallows it “fanatically, passionately”. Syme swallows it “in some more complex way, involving doublethink”. Then: “Was he, then, alone in the possession of a memory?” The student sorts what Winston can see from what he supposes. The card must not say that Winston is the only one who remembers. The question is his, and the chapter leaves it open.

One reading

Enough. Parsons is right in front of him, listening “with a sort of gaping solemnity”, and he cannot follow a single figure. The quacking man’s voice is nothing but orthodoxy. Winston lives where faces are watched, and he has learned to read them. His judgment rests on what he has seen all through lunch.

• He could not follow the figures, but he was aware that they were in some way a cause for satisfaction.
• Parsons swallowed it easily, with the stupidity of an animal.

Another reading

Very little. The page never shows Syme while the news plays, and the quacking voice has gone quiet for the broadcast. Only Parsons is in plain view. The eyeless man’s “furious desire” to vaporize anyone who remembers is Winston’s picture of him, and Syme’s doublethink is a guess, hedged with “in some more complex way”. Winston himself has “shut his ears to the remoter noises”. His loneliness may be partly his own conclusion.

• Syme, too – in some more complex way, involving doublethink – Syme swallowed it.
• The quacking voice from the next table, temporarily silenced during the Ministry’s announcement, had started up again, as loud as ever.

Listen for

• Notices that this news is announced as a victory, “the battle for production”, and that the chapter’s own example of facecrime is “to look incredulous when a victory was announced”.
• Hears Winston answer his own question: “Was it possible that they could swallow that”, and then at once, “Yes, they swallowed it.”
• Notices that Winston says nothing aloud either: no one at the table can see what he thinks, which is the same limit he faces with them.
• Keeps to the page: whether Winston is alone in remembering is his question, and the chapter does not answer it.

If stuck

• What happened to the chocolate ration, and what does the telescreen say about it?
• Which of the three men can Winston actually watch while the news plays?
• How can you tell, from the outside, whether someone believes what they are told?

A strong answer A strong response sorts what Winston sees from what he supposes. One reader says he sees enough: Parsons, right in front of him, cannot follow the figures and sits in “gaping solemnity”, and the quacking voice gives out nothing but orthodoxy. Another says he sees very little: the page never shows Syme while the news plays, the quacking voice has gone quiet for the broadcast, the eyeless man’s “furious desire” is Winston’s picture of him, and Syme’s doublethink is a guess. The best answers notice that he answers his own question at once, link the broadcast to facecrime, and leave “Was he, then, alone” as an open question.

What it asks It asks the student to read one sentence closely. Winston has “only four cigarettes left”, and “The new ration did not start till tomorrow”. After the girl looks away, “His cigarette had gone out, and he laid it carefully on the edge of the table. He would finish smoking it after work, if he could keep the tobacco in it.” Then: “Quite likely the person at the next table was a spy of the Thought Police, and quite likely he would be in the cellars of the Ministry of Love within three days, but a cigarette end must not be wasted.” The danger is weighed twice as “quite likely”. The cigarette end gets a flat “must”. Earlier, “A horrible pang of terror went through him. It was gone almost at once, but it left a sort of nagging uneasiness behind.” The student explains why the small thing is held as a rule and the large one only as a guess. The card must not say that the girl is a spy: Winston fears it, and has just thought “perhaps it was coincidence”.

One reading

The rule is the one thing he can keep. Whether the girl is a spy, and whether he goes to the cellars, is out of his hands, so he can only guess at it. The cigarette is in his hands. A mind that cannot control the large thing holds hard to a small thing it can. Saving the end means planning to smoke it “after work”, an evening he means to have.

• He would finish smoking it after work, if he could keep the tobacco in it.
• It was gone almost at once, but it left a sort of nagging uneasiness behind.

Another reading

Want has trained him more deeply than fear. The terror comes and goes in a moment, but scarcity is every day: there has “never been quite enough to eat”, and cigarettes are “insufficient”. The rule about a cigarette end is older and surer than any fear. The sentence is close to a joke, and the joke is on how ordinary terror has become.

• In any time that he could accurately remember, there had never been quite enough to eat
• cigarettes insufficient

Listen for

• Hears the “but”, which sets the cellars and the cigarette end side by side in one sentence and gives the small thing the last word.
• Notices the last line: “All three men sprang to their feet to join in the struggle round the lifts, and the remaining tobacco fell out of Winston’s cigarette.” He loses what he saved, and loses it by moving with the others.
• Links the sentence to Syme: a mind that does not follow its fear all the way down may have some of the “discretion” Winston finds missing in Syme.
• Keeps to the page: the girl as a spy is Winston’s fear, and the chapter has just offered “perhaps it was coincidence”.

If stuck

• How many cigarettes does Winston have, and when does the next ration start?
• How sure is Winston about the cellars, and how sure is he about the cigarette?
• When people cannot control a big danger, what do they often do with small things?

A strong answer A strong response explains why the cigarette end is a rule and the cellars only a guess, and argues from the chapter. One reader says the rule is the one thing he can keep: the girl and the cellars are out of his hands, the cigarette is in them, and saving it for “after work” plans an evening the fear denies. Another says want has trained him more deeply than fear: the terror “was gone almost at once”, but in a life where there has “never been quite enough to eat”, the rule about a cigarette end is older and surer. The best answers weigh the “but”, notice that the tobacco falls out anyway as all three men spring up, and leave the girl’s purpose open.

What it asks It asks the student to finish the thought Winston leaves open. The doomed: “Mrs Parsons would be vaporized. Syme would be vaporised. Winston would be vaporized. O’Brien would be vaporised.” The safe: Parsons, “The eyeless creature with the quacking voice”, “The little beetle-like men who scuttled so nimbly through the labyrinthine corridors of Ministries”, and “the girl with dark hair, the girl from the Fiction Department”. “It seemed to him that he knew instinctively who would survive and who would perish: though just what it was that made for survival, it was not easy to say.” The student builds a thesis on the rule, tests it on every name, meets the strongest objection, and revises. The card must not treat the list as fact. Syme’s fate and Mrs Parsons’s are Winston’s predictions, and the chapter does not say the girl is a spy: “perhaps it was coincidence”.

One reading

Not thinking. Parsons swallows the figures “with the stupidity of an animal”, the quacking man speaks “in unconsciousness”, and the beetle-like type “seemed to flourish best under the dominion of the Party”. The doomed are the ones who think, Syme above all. Winston has already put it in one line: “Orthodoxy was unconsciousness.”

• Zeal was not enough. Orthodoxy was unconsciousness.
• It was the type that seemed to flourish best under the dominion of the Party.

Another reading

What shows on the face. The survivors give nothing away. The quacking man shows “two blank discs instead of eyes”, the beetle-like men have “fat inscrutable faces with very small eyes”, and the girl looks away the instant she catches his eye. The doomed can be read. Of Syme, Winston thinks, “It is written in his face”, and he fears his own “features had not been perfectly under control”.

• fat inscrutable faces with very small eyes
• It is written in his face.

Listen for

• Tests the hardest names: Mrs Parsons, “with her wispy hair and the dust in the creases of her face”, is no Syme, yet she is on the doomed list; Parsons, “a little boy grown large”, is easy to read, yet he is on the safe one. O’Brien is named and nothing more is said about him here.
• Notices “instinctively”: Winston claims to know without a reason, the very kind of knowing he cannot defend.
• Notices what comes next: the girl he has just put among the safe turns round and looks at him, and he feels “A horrible pang of terror”.
• Revises by asking whether the list sorts people by what they are, or by Winston’s fear: he names himself among the doomed, and the one survivor he dreads is the girl.

If stuck

• Who is on each of Winston’s two lists?
• What do Parsons and the quacking man have in common?
• Which name on the doomed list is hardest to explain?

A strong answer A strong response states a rule, tests it on every name, meets the strongest objection, and revises. One thesis says the survivors do not think: Parsons swallows the figures “with the stupidity of an animal”, the quacking man speaks “in unconsciousness”, and Winston has already said it himself, “Orthodoxy was unconsciousness.” The strongest objection is Mrs Parsons, in whom the chapter shows nothing like Syme’s mind, yet who is still on the doomed list, and the girl, of whom Winston knows almost nothing. A good revision might move from minds to faces: the survivors are the unreadable, the blank discs and the “fat inscrutable faces”, and the doomed are those whose fate can be read, as Syme’s “is written in his face”. Or it might hold that the list shows more about Winston’s fear than about the Party, since he admits the rule “was not easy to say.”

What it asks It asks the chapter’s whole question. Winston is sure that “Syme will be vaporized. He is too intelligent. He sees too clearly and speaks too plainly.” “There was something that he lacked: discretion, aloofness, a sort of saving stupidity.” Yet “You could not say that he was unorthodox”: he believes “not merely with sincerity but with a sort of restless zeal”. The same mind loves Newspeak, “It’s a beautiful thing, the destruction of words”, enjoys a hanging, “That’s the detail that appeals to me”, and sees through Winston’s face. The student builds a thesis on whether that mind is his weakness or the best thing about him, meets the strongest objection, and revises. The card must not say that Syme is vaporized: Winston predicts it, and this chapter does not show it. Nor should it make Syme a plain villain: Winston enjoys his talk and thinks of his fate “with a kind of sadness”.

One reading

His weakness. In this world clear sight marks you out. Worse, what Syme sees clearly he loves: a language built so that thought like his can no longer happen. His sharp eye finds the bright blue tongue at a hanging as easily as it finds the flaw in Winston’s prose. The mind that should be his best part works for a plan that has no room for him.

• That’s the detail that appeals to me.
• He sees too clearly and speaks too plainly.

Another reading

The best thing about him. It is the one part of him the Party has not made. The Party wants unconsciousness, and Syme is wide awake. He is “authoritative and interesting”, he says plainly what Newspeak is for, and Winston enjoys his talk, even knowing Syme would betray him. A sharp mind that tells the truth about the Party, even with joy, is worth more than a stupidity that saves.

• Talking to him was largely a matter of getting him away from such subjects and entangling him, if possible, in the technicalities of Newspeak, on which he was authoritative and interesting.
• He thought it with a kind of sadness, although well knowing that Syme despised him and slightly disliked him, and was fully capable of denouncing him as a thought-criminal if he saw any reason for doing so.

Listen for

• Weighs “saving”: a stupidity that saves, but saves whom, and from what? The word makes dullness sound like a kind of grace.
• Notices that the same mind is a danger to Winston: anyone would betray him, “but Syme more than most”.
• Sets the blue tongue beside “useless shades of meaning”: an eye for the exact detail at a hanging, and a love of cutting exact detail out of language.
• Revises by separating what Syme’s mind is worth to the Party, to Winston and to Syme himself, and keeps his fate as Winston’s prediction.

If stuck

• What does Winston say Syme lacks?
• What is Syme good at, and what does he enjoy?
• Is it ever safer not to understand something?

A strong answer A strong response states a thesis on Syme’s mind, meets the strongest objection, and revises. One thesis says it is his weakness: he “sees too clearly and speaks too plainly”, and what he sees he loves, a language built to end thought like his, so his sharpest gift serves a plan that has no room for him. The strongest objection is that it is the one part of him the Party has not made: in a world where “Orthodoxy is unconsciousness” he is awake, “authoritative and interesting”, and Winston thinks of his fate “with a kind of sadness”. A good revision might hold that the mind is both: the best thing about him as a person, and his weakness only in a world that rewards a saving stupidity, which would turn the question back on that world.