Part One, Chapter 6 — Teaching Companion

What it asks It asks the student what Winston wanted from the woman under the lamp. He writes, “It was really the paint that appealed to me, the whiteness of it, like a mask, and the bright red lips.” The next line gives his reason: “Party women never paint their faces.” So the mask draws him because it is not a Party face. The student decides whether he was hoping for someone behind it, or for the mask itself. The card should handle the scene plainly and add nothing the chapter does not give.

One reading

A woman the Party has not reached. Paint, scent and red lips belong to the proles. They mark a face the Party has not shaped. What he wants is someone outside the Party’s rules, the opposite of a wife who seemed to wince at his touch. The mask is the sign of a person the Party does not own.

• Party women never paint their faces.
• nevertheless alluring, because no woman of the Party ever used scent, or could be imagined as doing so

Another reading

The mask, not the person. He does not see her properly until he turns up the lamp. While the mask held, she could be whatever he needed. When a real woman shows through it, old and toothless, he is horrified. He scorned Katharine’s face for having nothing behind it, yet a face with nobody behind it is what he chose here.

• For the first time he could see the woman properly.
• a face that one might have called noble until one discovered that there was as nearly as possible nothing behind it

Listen for

• Sets the two masks side by side: “like a mask” in the dark, and in the light a paint “plastered so thick on her face that it looked as though it might crack like a cardboard mask”. The paint has not changed; the light has.
• Notices “appealed”: what draws him first is a colour and a surface, “the whiteness of it”. The only words she says in the entry are a price.
• Links Katharine, “like embracing a jointed wooden image”, to the cardboard mask: both women come back to him as things not quite alive. A student may ask whether that is the Party’s doing or Winston’s way of seeing.
• Keeps to the page: the chapter tells us nothing of the woman beyond what Winston saw and wrote.

If stuck

• Why does Winston say the paint appealed to him?
• When does he first see the woman properly?
• Can someone want a disguise more than the person wearing it?

A strong answer A strong response says what Winston was hoping for and argues from both lights. One reader says he wanted a woman the Party had not reached: paint, scent and red lips are the proles’ marks, and “Party women never paint their faces.” Another says he wanted the mask itself: he does not see her “properly” until the lamp goes up, and the face with nothing behind it that he scorned in Katharine is the face he chose here. The best answers set the two masks side by side and notice that only the light has changed.

What it asks It asks why the twitching man comes into the confession just here. The entry breaks off, Winston presses his fingers to his eyes, and he wants “to do any violent or noisy or painful thing that might black out the memory that was tormenting him.” Then: “Your worst enemy, he reflected, was your own nervous system.” He remembers the man’s face “suddenly contorted by a sort of spasm”, and his own thought at the time. The student links the stranger to the memory. The card must not say what became of the man: Winston thinks he is “done for”, and the chapter says no more.

One reading

A warning. The urge to shout and kick over the table is just the kind of “visible symptom” that marks a man. The memory makes Winston a danger to himself, even alone in his room. The stranger shows what one slip of the body can cost.

• At any moment the tension inside you was liable to translate itself into some visible symptom.
• He had an almost overwhelming temptation to shout a string of filthy words at the top of his voice.

Another reading

A likeness. The memory is a vision “that kept recurring”, and the twitch was “obviously habitual”. Both come back unasked, and neither stops because he wants it to. Winston thinks of the man because the memory is his own twitch, something in him he cannot stop.

• trying to squeeze out the vision that kept recurring
• And what was frightening was that the action was quite possibly unconscious.

Listen for

• Hears “rapid as the clicking of a camera shutter”: the twitch is like a picture being taken, and the memory is a picture Winston cannot stop seeing.
• Follows the thought to its end, “talking in your sleep”: the danger is what comes out of you without your choosing. A student may ask whether the diary says the same things on purpose.
• Notices that the man is “quite ordinary-looking”, a Party member carrying a briefcase, as ordinary as Winston.
• Keeps to the page: the stranger’s fate is Winston’s guess.

If stuck

• What does Winston want to do when he cannot go on writing?
• What did he think when he saw the man’s face twitch?
• Has your body ever given away something you meant to hide?

A strong answer A strong response ties the stranger to the memory and argues from the paragraph. One reader says he is a warning: the urge to shout and hurl the inkpot is the kind of “visible symptom” that gives a man away, so the memory makes Winston a danger to himself. Another says he is a likeness: the vision “kept recurring”, the twitch was “obviously habitual” and “quite possibly unconscious”, and neither can be stopped by wanting. The best answers follow the thought to “talking in your sleep” and leave the stranger’s fate as Winston’s guess.

What it asks It asks the student to weigh Winston’s judgment of his wife against the doubt he tucks inside it. The whole sentence runs: “Very early in their married life he had decided – though perhaps it was only that he knew her more intimately than he knew most people – that she had without exception the most stupid, vulgar, empty mind that he had ever encountered.” The doubt comes first, between dashes, and the judgment goes on as if it had not been said. The student decides what the doubt does to it. The card must not say what became of Katharine: “so far as he knew his wife was not dead”, and the chapter says no more.

One reading

It weakens the judgment. If knowing her closely is what made her look empty, the fault may lie in closeness, or in Party life, and not in her. And her mind was not what he could not bear: he says he could have lived with her but for sex. A man that unhappy in his marriage is not a fair witness to his wife.

• though perhaps it was only that he knew her more intimately than he knew most people
• Yet he could have endured living with her if it had not been for just one thing – sex.

Another reading

It leaves the judgment standing. The doubt is a moment of fairness, and he walks straight past it. Then he gives his evidence: every thought a slogan, any nonsense swallowed, and a phrase she really used. His “without exception” and “absolutely none” are louder than his “perhaps”. And knowing her closely is a reason to trust what he saw, not to doubt it.

• She had not a thought in her head that was not a slogan, and there was no imbecility, absolutely none, that she was not capable of swallowing if the Party handed it out to her.
• yes, she had actually used that phrase

Listen for

• Notices where the doubt sits: between dashes, before the judgment arrives, so one sentence lets him say the harsh thing and the fair thing at once.
• Follows the doubt outward: if anyone looks this empty up close, the judgment may fall on everyone the Party has shaped. He makes the same move about all Party women: “His reason told him that there must be exceptions, but his heart did not believe it.”
• Notices what the page records that his judgment does not explain: a body that clasped him and pushed him away at once, and two choices that were hers, to refuse to stay celibate and, in the end, to give up trying.
• Keeps Winston’s contempt as his own bitter view, given in his own thoughts, not as the book’s verdict on her.

If stuck

• What does Winston decide about Katharine’s mind?
• What doubt does he put inside that same sentence?
• Does knowing someone well make your judgment of them fairer, or less fair?

A strong answer A strong response says what the doubt does and argues from the sentence around it. One reader says it weakens the judgment: if knowing her “more intimately” is what made her look empty, the fault may lie in closeness or in Party life, and Winston admits her mind was not what he could not bear, since he could have endured her “if it had not been for just one thing”. Another says the judgment stands: the doubt is brief, and “without exception” and “absolutely none” drown out the “perhaps”. The best answers notice where the doubt sits, and keep his contempt as his, not the book’s.

What it asks It asks the student to read the diary against the memory. In the memory the paint looks as if it “might crack like a cardboard mask”, there are “streaks of white in her hair”, and “the truly dreadful detail was that her mouth had fallen a little open, revealing nothing except a cavernous blackness. She had no teeth at all.” The diary says only: “When I saw her in the light she was quite an old woman, fifty years old at least. But I went ahead and did it just the same.” The student explains the gap. The card should handle the scene plainly and add nothing to it.

One reading

It is still too hard to write. The entry breaks off four times, and he writes the end “hurriedly, in scrabbling handwriting”. The worst of it stays unwritten. That may be why the writing “made no difference”: the confession is not complete.

• He wrote hurriedly, in scrabbling handwriting:
• He had written it down at last, but it made no difference.

Another reading

It is not what he has to confess. Her mouth is not his sin. What “had got to be confessed” is his own act, so the diary keeps to her age, which is what made going on so bad, and to what he did, “just the same”.

• It had got to be written down, it had got to be confessed.
• But I went ahead and did it just the same.

Listen for

• Notices that “fifty years old at least” is a guess, written where the thing he saw should be.
• Hears “just the same”: the same as if she had been young, or the same as every lapse before it.
• Weighs the moment he “halted, full of lust and terror”, and the broken thought “If he went away without even doing what he had come here to do –!”: the reason he went on is in the memory, not in the diary.
• Keeps the old woman at the centre of the confession, not as a shock ending: she is what he felt he “had got to” write down.

If stuck

• What does Winston write about the woman once the lamp is up?
• What does he remember that he does not write?
• Have you ever told a story and left out the worst part?

A strong answer A strong response explains the gap between the memory and the entry. One reader says the worst is still too hard to write: the entry breaks off four times, ends in “scrabbling handwriting”, and leaves out the open mouth, which may be why the writing “made no difference”. Another says her mouth was never his to confess: what “had got to be confessed” was his own act, and the diary keeps to that, “just the same”. The best answers notice what he writes in place of what he saw, and where the reason for going on is kept.

What it asks It asks the student to explain one odd word. After the committee, the “slightly disgusting minor operation” and the Junior Anti-Sex League comes this: “The Party was trying to kill the sex instinct, or, if it could not be killed, then to distort it and dirty it. He did not know why this was so, but it seemed natural that it should be so.” The student builds a thesis on how the Party’s aim can seem natural to Winston, meets the strongest objection, and revises. The card must not say why the Party wants this: Winston “did not know why this was so”.

One reading

The teaching got into him. It was “rubbed into every Party member from childhood onwards”, and Winston is a Party member. His own word for that night is a dirty one, “filthy scuffles”, and the memory alone makes him want to spit. An aim feels natural when you were raised inside it, even if you hate the people who raised you.

• This again was never put into plain words, but in an indirect way it was rubbed into every Party member from childhood onwards.
• Why could he not have a woman of his own instead of these filthy scuffles at intervals of years?

Another reading

Natural to the Party, not to him. The word “natural” can also mean fitting: the aim fits what the Party is. Just before, the plan for artsem is “not meant altogether seriously”, yet it still fits the Party’s ideas. Winston sees the aim as all of a piece with the Party, and seeing that clearly is not agreeing with it. He even places its success in the women, not in himself.

• This, Winston was aware, was not meant altogether seriously, but somehow it fitted in with the general ideology of the Party.
• And so far as the women were concerned, the Party’s efforts were largely successful.

Listen for

• Hears the Party’s “distort it and dirty it” beside Winston’s “filthy scuffles”: the Party set out to dirty desire, and filthy is how that night feels to him.
• Weighs “nevertheless alluring”: the scent is “villainous” and drawing at once, so the disgust and the desire come together.
• Sets the Party’s “like having an enema” beside Katharine’s “our duty to the Party”: one marriage in which the teaching took hold. A student may ask whether Winston is right to leave himself out of the Party’s success.
• Revises by separating what Winston understands about the Party from what he feels, and asks whether he can have the first without the second.

If stuck

• What does the Party teach its members about sex?
• Which words does Winston use for that night?
• Can something you hate still seem natural to you?

A strong answer A strong response states how the aim can seem natural to Winston, meets the strongest objection, and revises. One thesis says the teaching got into him: it was “rubbed into every Party member from childhood onwards”, and his “filthy scuffles” echoes the Party’s aim to “distort it and dirty it”. The strongest objection reads “natural” as fitting: the aim fits the Party the way the artsem plan “fitted in with the general ideology of the Party”, and seeing that clearly is not agreeing. A good revision might hold that Winston understands the Party better than he escapes it, since he places its success in the women and leaves himself out.

What it asks It asks the chapter’s whole question. Winston thinks: “The sexual act, successfully performed, was rebellion. Desire was thoughtcrime.” Yet “Tacitly the Party was even inclined to encourage prostitution”, and “Mere debauchery did not matter very much, so long as it was furtive and joyless, and only involved the women of a submerged and despised class.” Standing in the lamplight he already felt “defeat and resentment”. The student builds a thesis on whether the night was rebellion or defeat, meets the strongest objection, and revises. The card must not treat Winston’s view of Party women as the book’s, and must not say that a real love affair lies ahead.

One reading

Rebellion. He broke a rule and risked “five years in a forced-labour camp”, in a street with “no telescreens”. Desire is something the Party cannot wholly kill. Writing it down, in a diary that is itself a crime, makes the confession a second act against the Party.

• There was nobody else in the street, and no telescreens.
• To be caught with a prostitute might mean five years in a forced-labour camp: not more, if you had committed no other offence.

Another reading

Another kind of defeat. The night was just what the Party allows: hidden, joyless, and with a woman of the proles. It let off an instinct the Party cannot wholly suppress and left him full of shame. He felt defeat before the act itself, and the confession did not free him.

• Tacitly the Party was even inclined to encourage prostitution, as an outlet for instincts which could not be altogether suppressed.
• in his heart a feeling of defeat and resentment

Listen for

• Notices “successfully performed”: the rule that makes the act a rebellion has a condition. A student may ask whether this night met it.
• Weighs the purges: the crime the accused “invariably confessed to” is one that was hard to imagine ever happening, while Winston confesses a real one to a diary nobody reads.
• Hears the end: “The therapy had not worked”, and the urge is “as strong as ever”. The ending fits either side: a rebel may still feel shame, and a defeat can be one he chose.
• Revises by asking whom the act was aimed at: the Party, the “wall of virtue” he wants to break, or himself.

If stuck

• What does Winston think the sexual act is, in this world?
• What does the Party quietly allow?
• Can you break a rule and still do what the rule-maker wants?

A strong answer A strong response states a thesis on the night, meets the strongest objection, and revises. One thesis says it was rebellion: Winston risked the camp, went where there were “no telescreens”, and now sets the act down in a forbidden diary, in a world where “Desire was thoughtcrime.” The strongest objection is the Party’s own tolerance: the night was “furtive and joyless”, with a woman of “a submerged and despised class”, just the outlet the Party allows, and he stood in the lamplight already feeling “defeat and resentment”. A good revision might hold that the act fitted the Party’s plan while the wish behind it did not, or that any rebellion lies in the confession rather than the act, though the confession changed nothing.