Part One, Chapter 8 — Teaching Companion

What it asks It asks the student to read one gesture. A prole shouts “Steamer!”, Winston throws himself down, and the bomb demolishes “a group of houses two hundred metres up the street”. In a little pile of plaster he sees “a bright red streak”, and then the hand: “Apart from the bloody stump, the hand was so completely whitened as to resemble a plaster cast.” The next sentence gives him no thought at all, only the act: “He kicked the thing into the gutter, and then, to avoid the crowd, turned down a side-street to the right.” The student says what the kick is. The card must not pass over the hand as background: with the street that goes on “as though nothing had happened”, it is the chapter’s first picture of prole life.

One reading

Getting it out of his sight. The page gives Winston no feeling here, and that silence can be read as a man refusing to feel. He kicks the hand away and turns from the crowd in the same sentence. Whatever he cannot look at, he puts in the gutter and leaves behind.

• He kicked the thing into the gutter, and then, to avoid the crowd, turned down a side-street to the right.
• When he got up to it he saw that it was a human hand severed at the wrist

Another reading

Doing what the street does. The hand already looks like a made thing, white as plaster, and the narrator calls it “the thing”. Winston treats it as rubbish, and within minutes the whole quarter does the same. The kick is not his own coldness so much as the habit of a city where bombs fall and life goes on.

• Apart from the bloody stump, the hand was so completely whitened as to resemble a plaster cast.
• Within three or four minutes he was out of the area which the bomb had affected, and the sordid swarming life of the streets was going on as though nothing had happened.

Listen for

• Hears “the thing”: the word the sentence uses for what was a moment ago “a human hand”.
• Notices how quickly the proles move: a young woman snatches a little one out of a puddle and is back in the doorway “all in one movement”, and the proles seem to know “several seconds in advance” when a rocket is coming. Their bodies are ready for bombs in a way Winston’s are not.
• Sets the hand that looks made beside the made thing that looks alive: later that evening Winston holds a glass whose coral “recalled a rose or a sea anemone”. A student may ask why the chapter lets a dead hand look like a thing, and a thing look alive.
• Keeps to the page: the chapter never says what Winston feels about the hand, and a good answer argues from the act.

If stuck

• What does the hand look like when Winston first sees it?
• What does Winston do in the minutes right after the kick?
• Can a person learn not to feel what they see again and again?

A strong answer A strong response says what the kick is and argues from the two sentences around it. One reader says Winston is getting it out of his sight: the page gives him no thought, and he kicks the hand away and turns from the crowd in one breath. Another says he is doing what the street does: the hand already looks like “a plaster cast”, the narrator calls it “the thing”, and within minutes life goes on “as though nothing had happened”. The best answers notice that the chapter gives no feeling here at all, and argue from the gesture rather than inventing one.

What it asks It asks the student to weigh the one written record a prole keeps in this chapter. The man says, “Back ’ome I got the ’ole lot of ’em for over two years wrote down on a piece of paper. I takes ’em down reg’lar as the clock.” The other man argues from memory: “I could pretty near tell you the bleeding number.” Meanwhile Winston knows “that the prizes were largely imaginary”, the big winners being people who do not exist. The student decides what the record is worth. The card must not pass over the Lottery as comic background: it shows prole life going on, and it is a quarrel about whether paper or memory is right.

One reading

Nothing. His paper copies down what the Ministry of Plenty announces, so it can be no truer than the Ministry, and the big prizes are false. It is a small picture of the chapter’s larger point: written records can be falsified at the source, and then there is nothing left to test them against.

• Only small sums were actually paid out, the winners of the big prizes being non-existent persons.
• In the absence of any real intercommunication between one part of Oceania and another, this was not difficult to arrange.

Another reading

Something. It is the one written record a prole keeps in this chapter, kept for his own reasons, “reg’lar as the clock”, and it shows that the proles can remember with great care when they care. Even people who “could barely read and write”, the chapter says, manage “intricate calculations” here. What the record cannot do is reach the fraud itself, because no winner he could ask is real.

• Where the Lottery was concerned, even people who could barely read and write seemed capable of intricate calculations and staggering feats of memory.
• I got it all down in black and white.

Listen for

• Hears the quarrel as paper against memory: “I got it all down in black and white” against “I could pretty near tell you the bleeding number. Four oh seven”. The chapter does not say who is right.
• Sets the man’s paper beside Winston’s own: Winston too keeps a written record at home, the diary in which he wrote that if there is hope, it lies in the proles. A student may ask whether one private record is worth more than the other, and why.
• Sets the proles’ “staggering feats of memory” for the Lottery beside Winston’s later verdict that the old “remembered a million useless things”. A student may ask whether the proles lack memory, or only remember what Winston thinks is the wrong thing.
• Keeps to the page: the record is not said to expose anything, and nothing shows the man knows the prizes are false.

If stuck

• What are the two men actually arguing about?
• What does Winston know about the Lottery that they do not?
• Is a record worth keeping if the thing it records is false?

A strong answer A strong response weighs the record and argues from the quarrel and what Winston knows. One reader says it is worth nothing: the prizes are “largely imaginary”, the big winners are “non-existent persons”, and a careful record of a fraud only copies it. Another says it is worth something: it is the one record a prole keeps in the chapter, kept for himself, and the proles show “staggering feats of memory” for what they care about. The best answers hear the quarrel as paper against memory, “black and white” against “pretty near”, and do not claim the record exposes the fraud.

What it asks It asks the student to test a detail Winston throws away. Reciting the history book, Winston says the capitalists “drank champagne, they wore top hats –”, and the old man brightens: “The last time I wore one was at my sister-in-law’s funeral.” He adds, “Of course it was only ’ired for the occasion, you understand.” Winston answers “patiently” that the top hats are not important and goes back to the lords of the earth. The student decides whether the hired hat supports the book’s picture or complicates it. The card must not play the old man only for comedy, and must not say whether life was better before the Revolution.

One reading

It backs the book up. He did not own a top hat. He hired one, for one day, for a funeral. Later the hat comes back on the rich: the young gent who shoved him on Boat Race night wore “dress shirt, top ’at, black overcoat”. The hat stands where the book puts it, above him.

• Of course it was only ’ired for the occasion, you understand.
• Quite the gent, ’e was – dress shirt, top ’at, black overcoat.

Another reading

It quarrels with the book. In Winston’s version the top hat belongs to a few thousand capitalists. In the old man’s life it was something an ordinary family could put on to bury their dead. The book has a hat for a class; the old man has a hat for a day of mourning. That is a world with more in it than lords and slaves.

• The last time I wore one was at my sister-in-law’s funeral.
• And at the same time there were a very few people, only a few thousands – the capitalists, they were called – who were rich and powerful.

Listen for

• Notices who is reciting: Winston’s questions are the history book’s lines in his own mouth, “I’m only quoting what I’ve read in history books”.
• Hears what the old man brightens at: top hats and “Lackeys!”, single words that take him back. Winston is asking about a system; the old man answers through things and words.
• Weighs the cap: “They liked you to touch your cap to ’em.” Then: “I didn’t agree with it, myself, but I done it often enough.” A student may say the old man does answer one of Winston’s questions, and Winston does not stop to notice.
• Keeps the large question open, as the chapter does: one hired hat cannot settle whether life was better or worse.

If stuck

• What does the history book say about top hats?
• Why did the old man wear one?
• Can one small story from a life change a big story in a book?

A strong answer A strong response decides what the hired hat does to the book and argues from the old man’s words. One reader says it backs the book up: he only hired one for a day, and the gent who shoved him wore one, so the hat stands above him as the book says. Another says it quarrels with the book: a hat the book gives to a few thousand capitalists was worn by an ordinary family to bury its dead. The best answers notice that Winston throws the detail away “patiently”, and leave the larger question, better or worse, where the chapter leaves it.

What it asks It asks the student to find the moment an old measure stops working. Before Winston says a word to him, the old man is quarrelling at the bar: “You telling me you ain’t got a pint mug in the ’ole bleeding boozer?” He explains it exactly, and the young barman answers, “Never heard of ’em,” and points him to the litres and half-litres on the shelf. A page later, walking out, Winston decides that once memory fails and records are falsified there is no “standard against which it could be tested”. The student places the moment in the pub when the pint stops being a standard, or argues that it never quite does. The card must not play the old man only for comedy: he is the failed test of Winston’s hope for “a truthful account” of the old days. Nor should it say whether life was better.

One reading

At the bar, when no one else knows it. The old man has the measure exactly. But the barman has never heard of it, and his joke about the treetops turns the old man’s past into a laugh. A standard that only one man keeps cannot test anything. The room relaxes at the very moment the old world is made a joke.

• ‘Never heard of ’em,’ said the barman shortly.
• There was a shout of laughter, and the uneasiness caused by Winston’s entry seemed to disappear.

Another reading

At the table, when the old man gives it up himself. He keeps the pint through his first glass: a half-litre is not enough and a whole litre is too much. Then Winston brings two more half-litres, and the old man drinks the full litre without a word. Nobody takes the standard from him. He drinks his way past it, on Winston’s beer.

• A ’alf-litre ain’t enough.
• The old man appeared to have forgotten his prejudice against drinking a full litre.

Listen for

• Hears the old man compare then and now in his own terms: “We didn’t ’ave these bleeding litres when I was a young man”, and soon after, “The beer was better,” and “And cheaper!” Winston later decides the survivors are “incapable of comparing one age with another”. A student may ask whether the beer is a comparison Winston does not hear.
• Weighs the barman’s joke, “When you were a young man we were all living in the treetops”: the young prole already holds the history book’s view of the past, and he holds it as a joke.
• Notices whose beer it is: Winston buys the half-litres, and “The extra half-litre was already working on him” when the old man leaves the table. The beer that wears down the pint also ends the talk.
• Keeps to the page: the chapter does not say the old measures were better, only that the old man wants one and the young do not know it. Whether life was better stays open.

If stuck

• What does the barman say when the old man asks for a pint?
• What is the old man drinking by the end of his second glass?
• Can a measure still work if only one person knows it?

A strong answer A strong response names a moment in the pub and argues from it. One reader puts it at the bar: the old man has the measure exactly, but the barman has “Never heard of ’em”, the room laughs, and a standard one man keeps alone tests nothing. Another puts it at the table: he grumbles that a half-litre “ain’t enough”, then, two glasses on, “appeared to have forgotten his prejudice against drinking a full litre”, so he gives it up himself, on Winston’s beer. The best answers hear that the old man does compare then and now, in pints and pennies, and leave open whether life was better.

What it asks It asks the student to test Winston’s reasoning with his own evening. Leaving the shop, he sees the girl from the Fiction Department, who “looked him straight in the face, then walked quickly on as though she had not seen him.” He concludes: “There was no doubting any longer that the girl was spying on him.” His proof is that it was “too great a coincidence” for her to be in the same obscure street. Yet he came on impulse, “hardly bothering in which direction he was going”, and found the shop when “his feet had brought him back here of their own accord.” The student weighs the argument. The card must not say that she is spying on him: that is his reading in a panic, not a fact the chapter confirms.

One reading

It weakens it. Winston’s whole evening is a chain of chances: he turned away from the bus-stop “On impulse”, wandered, and found himself, without meaning to, outside the shop. If his own feet could bring him to this street without a plan, someone else’s could. He reaches his verdict just after he was “too paralysed to move”, while walking the wrong way without noticing, and fear is doing his reasoning.

• On impulse he had turned away from the bus-stop and wandered off into the labyrinth of London, first south, then east, then north again, losing himself among unknown streets and hardly bothering in which direction he was going.
• And yet the instant that he allowed his thoughts to wander, his feet had brought him back here of their own accord.

Another reading

It does not touch it. His own coming is not the coincidence; hers is. The street is “kilometres distant from any quarter where Party members lived”, and blue overalls “could not be a common sight in a street like this”, so two Party members meeting there is rare. And she does something strange: she looks straight at him and then acts as if she had not seen him.

• She must have followed him here, because it was not credible that by pure chance she should have happened to be walking on the same evening up the same obscure backstreet, kilometres distant from any quarter where Party members lived.
• She looked him straight in the face, then walked quickly on as though she had not seen him.

Listen for

• Notices what fear does next: his “heart seemed to turn to ice”, and minutes later he thinks of following her and smashing “her skull in with a cobblestone”. The glass he bought for its beauty becomes, in his mind, “heavy enough for the job”.
• Hears “Probably she had seen him go into the pub as well”: a guess built on the guess before it.
• Weighs “Whether she was really an agent of the Thought Police, or simply an amateur spy actuated by officiousness, hardly mattered”: Winston does not even need to know what she is to be sure of what she is doing.
• Notices when she appears: in the “perhaps five seconds” that joy made him careless, when he stepped out “without so much as a preliminary glance through the window”. A man who has just been careless may be quick to see a spy. What the girl is doing stays unconfirmed.

If stuck

• How did Winston come to be in that street?
• What does the girl actually do when she passes him?
• Can a frightened person reason well about the thing that frightens him?

A strong answer A strong response tests Winston’s argument against his own evening. One reader says it is weakened: he came “On impulse”, wandering, and his feet brought him to the shop “of their own accord”, so a chance meeting is not impossible, and he reasons moments after he was “too paralysed to move”, walking the wrong way. Another says it stands: the street is “kilometres distant from any quarter where Party members lived”, blue overalls are rare there, and she looks straight at him and then acts as if she had not. The best answers notice how fear runs ahead of the reasoning, to the cobblestone and the glass, and do not say what the girl is really doing.

What it asks It asks the student to test Winston’s own rule on the last pages of the chapter. At home he swallows “nearly a teacupful of Victory Gin”, and still “the dull ache in his belly made consecutive thought impossible.” He sets out the rule: on the battlefield or in the torture chamber, the body “swells up until it fills the universe”, and what you are fighting for is forgotten. Then the night goes on. He opens the diary because “It was important to write something down”, tries to think of O’Brien, “for whom, or to whom, the diary was written”, and thinks instead of what the Thought Police would do to him. He calls up O’Brien “with a little more success than before”, but Big Brother’s face pushes him out, and the slogans come back “Like a leaden knell”. The student builds a thesis on what the night takes from Winston and what it leaves him, meets the strongest objection, and revises. The card must not say that the girl is spying on him, that the Thought Police will come, or what O’Brien’s words about “the place where there is no darkness” will come to mean.

One reading

The body wins. He opens the diary, but the chapter never shows him write in it. The ache makes thought “impossible”, the telescreen’s song sticks in his brain “like jagged splinters of glass”, and when he reaches for O’Brien, Big Brother’s face takes his place. The last words of the chapter are not Winston’s but the Party’s.

• Even now, in spite of the gin, the dull ache in his belly made consecutive thought impossible.
• The face of Big Brother swam into his mind, displacing that of O’Brien.

Another reading

He keeps more than his rule allows. He still opens the diary, because writing something down matters. He still reaches for O’Brien, and does better the second time. And with Big Brother’s face in front of him on the coin, he asks a question of it. A man who had forgotten what he was fighting for would not ask what that smile hides.

• He tried with a little more success than before to summon up the image of O’Brien.
• The face gazed up at him, heavy, calm, protecting: but what kind of smile was hidden beneath the dark moustache?

Listen for

• Hears what comes straight after “made consecutive thought impossible”: the next sentence begins “And it is the same, he perceived”, and a long, ordered argument runs from the battlefield to “an aching tooth”. The ache stops him thinking, yet he thinks his way to a rule.
• Weighs what the body’s “treachery” stopped: “He might have silenced the dark-haired girl if only he had acted quickly enough”. The failure he blames also kept him from a killing. Whether the girl is spying is his reading in a panic, not a fact.
• Sets the coin beside the glass. On the way home the glass bangs “against his thigh at each step”, and he is “half minded” to throw it away. At home it is a coin he slides out of his pocket, and he looks into Big Brother’s face, “heavy, calm, protecting”. A student may ask what it means that the coin, not the glass, is the last thing he looks at.
• Revises by separating two claims: that the body crowds out thought for a time, and that it wipes out what he is fighting for. The first may stand while the second does not.

If stuck

• What does Winston do after he swallows the gin?
• Whose face does he try to think of, and whose face comes instead?
• Can pain stop a person thinking, but not stop them caring?

A strong answer A strong response states what the night takes from Winston and what it leaves him, meets the strongest objection, and revises. One thesis says the body wins: the ache makes “consecutive thought impossible”, the page never shows him write in the diary, Big Brother’s face displaces O’Brien’s, and the chapter ends on the Party’s slogans. The strongest objection is that he keeps reaching: he opens the diary because “It was important to write something down”, summons O’Brien “with a little more success than before”, and asks what smile is hidden “beneath the dark moustache”. A good revision might hold that the body crowds out his thinking for a time without wiping out what he is fighting for, and notice that he reasons his way to the rule in the very pain he says stops thought.

What it asks It asks the student to weigh two witnesses to the old world. The old man in the pub was already middle-aged when the Revolution happened, one of “the last links that now existed with the vanished world of capitalism”, and Winston gives up on him: “It was no use going on.” Within the hour he pays four dollars for a lump of glass with coral at its heart, and what draws him “was not so much its beauty as the air it seemed to possess of belonging to an age quite different from the present one.” The student builds a thesis on which of the two tells Winston more, meets the strongest objection, and revises. The card must not say whether life before the Revolution was better or worse; Winston calls the question “unanswerable even now”. Nor should it name the paperweight a symbol for the student.

One reading

The old man. He gives Winston real facts, if Winston would take them: beer at fourpence a pint, the cap he “had to” touch to the rich, a gent in a top hat who nearly shoved him under a bus. He is a living man who was there. The glass tells nothing at all; it can only make Winston feel that the past was different, and a feeling is what the Party can most easily argue away.

• They liked you to touch your cap to ’em.
• ’e puts ’is ’and on my chest and gives me a shove as pretty near sent me under the wheels of a bus.

Another reading

The paperweight. It cannot be talked round, cannot misremember, and cannot be falsified, because it makes no claim. Its glass is “not like any glass that he had ever seen”, and someone once set coral inside it, from the Indian Ocean as Mr Charrington guesses, for no use at all. That is a fact about the old world no history book can rewrite: it had time and care for beautiful, useless things.

• The soft, rain-watery glass was not like any glass that he had ever seen.
• The thing was doubly attractive because of its apparent uselessness, though he could guess that it must once have been intended as a paperweight.

Listen for

• Turns Winston’s simile back on him: the old, he thinks, are “like the ant, which can see small objects but not large ones”, and soon after he is holding a small object in the lamplight.
• Weighs how much of the shop’s old world Winston never lived: the room wakes “a sort of ancestral memory”, and the rhyme gives him “the illusion of actually hearing bells”, though “he had never in real life heard church bells ringing.” A student may ask whether that is knowledge or longing.
• Notices that both old men half remember: the old man in the pub cannot give a date, and Mr Charrington has how the rhyme starts and how it ends, but not the middle: “How it goes on I don’t remember”, and later, “that’s as far as I can get”. Winston gives up on the first and plans to “drag the rest of that poem out of” the second.
• Revises by separating kinds of knowing: the old man gives facts without comparison, and the glass gives a sense of difference without facts. Neither answers whether life was better.

If stuck

• What does the old man actually tell Winston about the old days?
• What does Winston feel when he holds the glass?
• Can a thing tell you something that a person cannot?

A strong answer A strong response states which witness tells Winston more, meets the strongest objection, and revises. One thesis says the old man: he gives facts Winston does not hear, beer at fourpence a pint, the cap he “had to” touch, the gent who shoved him, while the glass only makes Winston feel the past was different. The strongest objection is that the glass cannot be falsified because it claims nothing, and its “rain-watery glass” with coral at its heart shows a world that made beautiful, useless things. A good revision might hold that they tell different kinds of things, facts without comparison and a sense of difference without facts, and that neither answers the question Winston calls “unanswerable even now”.