1984 Study Guide

His name is Winston Smith. Winston is very paranoid of his surroundings starting out yet he is very gullible. Although he has friends, he is very judgemental and wary of them. Winston is 39 and has a varicose ulcer above his ankle. 

London(Airstrip One), Oceania

War is peace, freedom is slavery, ignorance is strength

“Big Brother is Watching You” - the poster is designed to remind citizens of Oceania that the party/Big Brother is constantly watching and listening to their everyday lives

1. Ministry of Truth (minitrue) - concerns itself with news, entertainment, education, and fine arts

2. Ministry of Peace (minipax) - concerns itself with war

3. Ministry of Love (miniluv) - concerns itself with maintaining law and order. Also responsible for torturing people and using fear tactics to keep people under the party’s grasp.

4. Ministry of Plenty (miniplenty) - responsible for economic affairs

April 4, 1984

1. A girl who works in the fiction department. She’s about 27, with thick dark hair, a freckled face, and swift athletic movements. She’s a member of the Junior Anti-Sex league and she carried an atmosphere of hockey fields, cold baths, community hikes, and general clean mindedness. Winston feels as though she’s dangerous and believes she may be a member of the thought police.

2. O’Brien is a member of the inner party. He’s a large, burly man with a thick neck and coarse, humorous, brutal face. Obrien is charming. Winston feels deeply drawn to O’Brien.

Emmanuel Goldstein is an enemy of the party. During the two minute hate, his face appears on the telescreens. At one point, Goldstein had been one of the leading fighters of the party but one day betrayed the party. He is believed to still be alive and hatching his conspiracies. He has a lean Jewish face, great fuzzy aureole of white hair and a small goatee beard - a clever face, and yet somehow inherently despicable. He’s an object of anger for the party. He’s also thought to be the leader of the Brotherhood, an underground organization committed to overthrowing the party. 

Big Brother is thought to be the all-seeing and all-knowing leader of the party. He’s described as being “... black-haired, black-mustachio’d, full of power and mysterious calm, and so vast that it almost filled the screen.”

The main character, Winston, commits Thoughtcrime. He does it by writing down his thoughts against the Party in a diary. He would vaporize and cease to exist as his punishment. 

A telescreen is an instrument used by the Party to monitor the civilians of Oceania. It has the appearance of a two-way television that is located in every home and business, and it can not be turned off. 

Thoughtcrime is the act of thinking any thoughts that go against the Party or Big Brother. It is essentially the act of committing a crime against the government within your thoughts. An example of Thoughtcrime is Winston writing in his diary. Before Winston had even written in his diary, he had committed Thoughtcrime, since he was already thinking about going against Big Brother and the Inner Party. 

Once Winston puts the articles in the pneumatic tube, they burn to dust. This is significant because it further illustrates how the ministry of truth has the ability to alter the truth and the past while also deleting the past by burning these articles of the past.

No, he sees it as substituting one piece of nonsense for another, not as a form of rebellion. 

His greatest pleasure in life is his work. It’s important to him because he enjoys the complexity of having to rely on his knowledge and what the Party wants him to say. On top of that he’s good at it.

Newspeak is the official language of Oceania. It replaces complex words that would require thinking in order to use effectively. The purpose of NewSpeak is to eliminate the need for this thinking process for communication. For example, instead of saying something is “bad” or “terrible”, you would just use “ungood”.

Winston isn’t as enthusiastic about newspeak as Syme is. Even though Winston writes in newspeak, he still thinks in oldspeak when writing. 

How the people were able to digest the fact that just the day before they had announced that the rations had been reduced by 20 grams a week. 

 “It was terribly dangerous to let your thoughts wander when you were in any public place or within range of a telescreen. The smallest thing could give you away. A nervous tic, an unconscious look of anxiety, a habit of muttering to yourself—anything that carried with it the suggestion of abnormality, of having something to hide. In any case, to wear an improper expression on your face (to look incredulous when a victory was announced, for example) was itself a punishable offence.”

The dark hair girl was watching him. Winston becomes paranoid because he does not know how long she’s been watching him as well as if she’ll tell on him as a supposed member of the thought police. 

The party’s goal was to remove all pleasure from sex and make all citizens see sex and childbearing as their duty to the party.

Marriage is only allowed to couples who don’t give the impression that they’re attracted to each other. Divorce is permitted under no circumstance and seperation is only permitted when the couple has no kids. The purpose of marriage was for the purpose of begotting children. 

Winston believes that hope lies in the Proles because they aren’t constantly monitored and can think freely.

The party sees the proles as inferior, and could care less about them.

He found a half-torn piece of a newspaper talking about Rutherford, Jones, and Aaronson’s crimes against the Party that confirmed that their confessions to their crimes were lies. Winston feared being caught by a telescreen though, and he threw it down the memory hole.

Winston knows that he is living just to get caught and to never have existed.

The fear that some accident or unfortunate situation would betray him to the Thought Police. The fact that he knows things aren’t in their natural order and nobody else seems to notice. (kinda iffy on this one)

In 1984, 'the heresy of heresies' refers to challenging the party's orthodoxy which is terrifying to Winston as it is considered a punishable offense in Oceania. This fear also symbolizes Winston's desire for personal freedom.

Winston believes that he is writing his diary for O’Brien because he thinks O’Brien is on his side.

Reject the evidence of your eyes and ears.

Winston documents his memories, thoughts, but also his hatred for the Party.

Winston learns the history of an old rhyme (Chruch of St. Clements Song) and he buys a paperweight, on his way out he sees the dark haired girl.

Her arm is in a sling. She falls near Winston, and he helps her up. While he is helping her up, she slips a note in Winston's hand.

The content says, "I Love You"

He is stunned and finds it hard to concentrate on his work for part of the day. He feels a desire to stay alive. That night in the dark he thinks about ways to meet with the girl. Then he becomes afraid that he might lose her.

It takes places at lunch time in the canteen a week later. Winston sits at her table and they are able to arrange a meeting in Victory Square for that night.

They stand next to eachother and watch a parade of prisoners go by. They do not look at eachother. The girl gives Winston directions for a place to meet the following Sunday. They manage to hold hands for about 10 Seconds.

He feels incredulity and pride. He does not feel any physical desire.

Julia

She says there is something in his face that shows he does not belong. She knew right away that Winston was against the Party.

She hates the Party. She says the Party wants to stop people from having fun, so she breaks the rules whenever she can. She has no interest in Party doctrine. However, she always acts interested in the Party and participates in many activities.

the Party prohibits sex in order to channel the sexual frustration of the citizens into fervent opposition to Party enemies and for passionate worship of Big Brother.

 They have made it in a way where children are raised to be the watcher of their parents. If they make any deviations or commit any crimes then their children should report them. The kids were essentially an extension of the Thought Police.

He buys further beautiful scraps from Mr. Charrington, and his reason was to drag the rest of a poem out of his mind. The poem is about the church of St. Clements.

Chocolate from the black market

He exclaimed and squealed like a child. Winston has a fear of rats.

Winston also throws a shoe at the rat

Syme

Winston had dropped his habit of drinking gin at all hours. He seemed to have lost the need for it. He had grown fatter, his varicose ulcer had subsided, leaving only a brown stain on the skin above his ankle, his fits of coughing in the early morning had stopped. The process of life had ceased to be intolerable, he had no longer any impulse to make faces at the telescreen or shout curses at the top of his voice. 

They know it cannot last.

He realizes that it is easy to look like one was supporting the Party when one has no idea what was really going on.

O’Brien compliments Winston’s article that was featured in the times. Within Winston’s article, he uses two words which have now become obsolete in the Newspeak language. O’Brien notices this and asks Winston if he’s read the new Newspeak dictionary. Winston has not so O’Brien invited Winston to his house to read it since he already owns a copy.

Winston sees his meeting O’Brien as another step in Winston’s involuntary plan, the first step being thoughtcrime and the second being the use of Winston’s journal.

He thinks the meeting means that the conspiracy against The Party is real and he has reached it. He also thinks it will mean his death.

if they can be made to stop loving each other

Winston believed that the party could never truly grab hold of them because they could never tamper with their heart. 

After O'Brien turns off his telescreen, they tell him they are there to join the Brotherhood. After doing so, O’Brien breaks down all the rules. Winston and Julia have to be willing to do anything no matter what even if it means hurting children. If they’re caught, they’re expected to tell all of the Brotherhood’s secrets. O’Brien will try to sneak a razor blade into their prison to allow them to kill themselves. He mentions that Julia and Winston may be separated but Winston and Julia are not willing to do so. O’Brien also mentions that if Winston and Julia are caught, there’s a chance that the Brotherhood may be able to grab ahold of them and provide surgery that will change their identities. O’Brien will send someone to give Winston Goldstien’s book where he will learn of the Brotherhood’s ideals and the inner workings of the party.

O’Brien knows the St. Clements song

Because the party is preparing for hate week

 is to use up the products of the machine without raising the general standard of living. Ever since the end of the nineteenth century, the problem of what to do with the surplus of consumption goods has been latent in industrial society. At present, when few human beings even have enough to eat, this problem is obviously not urgent, and it might not have become so, even if no artificial processes of destruction had been at work.

The aim of modern warfare is to establish world peace by constantly participating in a war that never progresses or regresses.

Winston stops reading to appreciate how he’s able to read without fear of a telescreen or someone watching him

The current government is able to watch all the citizens all the time because of the invention of the two-way telescreen. Previous governments were not able to watch the citizens all of the time.

Three class make up Oceania society: The Inner Party, which is the ruling class, and it communicates Big Brother's message to the lower classes. The Outer Party, which hold positions of trust, but they aren't decision makers in the government. The proles, short for proletariat and the working class.

Doublethink, as described in "1984," is the act of holding two contradictory beliefs simultaneously and accepting both of them. In the context of the novel, the Party employs doublethink as a means of maintaining its iron grip on the thoughts and actions of its citizens.

They would never have a child together. 

A telescreen within Mr. Charington’s attic room repeats the quote and the secret police invade the area and arrest Julia and Winston. 

Mr Charrington is a member of the secret police

In a prison cell within the ministry of love

6079

Ampleforth - He allowed the the word God to remain at the end of a line of one of Rudyard Kiplings poems. 

Parsons - He was arrested for saying “down with big brother” in his sleep. His daughter overheard him through the keyhole in his bedroom and reported him to the patrols the next day. 

Room 101, most prisoners freak out while others become so afraid that the color leaves their skin and they become too afraid to speak

O’Brien, is a member of the party who has betrayed him

Winston is taken to a room where he’s layed out on a table. Attached to the table is a dial that O’Brien controls. The higher the dial is turned up, the more pain Winston feels. During part 2 of chapter three, O’Brien attempts to convince Winston that 2+2=5, that Oceania has always been at war with Eastasia, and that the evidence that Winston had of Rutherford Jones and Aaronson being innocent never existed.

He says that Big Brother and the Party are forever and will never die. He also denies the fact that the Brotherhood even exists but also admits that it will always be a part of the peoples lives as it has always been.

Winston asks what is room 101, O’Brien responds by saying that Winston already knows

Yes, he does it at the end of chapter 3 part 5.

Learning, Understanding, Acceptance

O’Brian was a part of writing it.

It is to have raw power. Power to control people’s minds and matter because if the mind and material proof is all that survives of the past, then to control the past they must control those. If they control people’s minds they can make sure that they never can understand the material proof. Unrestricted power and the promise that it will last forever is what Big Brother is after.

He becomes extremely skinny and malnourished. Specifically his knees become wider than his thighs, his hair falls out of his head, his spine has curved unnaturally, and his skin has turned gray.

As a result, Winston breaks down and begins to cry next to his prison bed.

Winston responds that he still hasn’t betrayed Julia and O'Brien retorts that he soon will.

Winston wakes up from a dream and screams the word “Julia”. This shows O’Brien that Winston still feels attached to her despite the torture.

His outward showing that he really hasn’t suppressed his emotions leads to O’Brien realizing that the slow way to being “cured” is not going to work. This leads O’Brien to take Winston to room 101.

It is everyone’s worst nightmare. Whatever you fear the most is what is in that room. It is so horrible to everyone that it strips them bare so that they abandon everything else that they are holding onto. For Winston, his worst fear was rats which led him to betray the one thing he hadn’t yet, Julia.

The cage was a mask that had 2 compartments. One compartment was filled with ravenous rats made to attack and eat a person's face out if it was in range. The other compartment was fitted for Winston’s head. O’Brien explained this and then started to bring that mask to Winston’s face. Winston yelled out to take Julia instead and O’Brien stopped as he had finally broken Winston’s final barricade to Big Brother.

The verse that he heard was “Under the spreading chestnut tree, I sold you and you sold me–”. This was just after he found Julia and they both confessed that they betrayed one another. They don’t love or even really interest each other anymore. 

He has been completely and totally transformed to Big Brother. His mind is blank and constantly being molded by whatever lie that Big Brother tells it. His life feels joyless and pointless. His only happiness comes from the lies that he is told by Big Brother which he, very deep down, knows is wrong but he also knows it doesn’t matter.