22nd March 2018

Nineteen Eighty Four

“for some reason, the telescreen in the living room was in an unusual position”

I first only thought of this to be Winston being lucky and allowing a hero to form inside of him, but through discussion in the class, I thought that with all the meticulous watching of people and trying to catch traitors, how could this have happened, this must be one of the only cases where a person working for the party is able to be out of view of the telescreen, they would not allow someone working for them to be able to not be surveyed. was this an accident, was this fate if George Orwell wanted that to seem the case, or was it by design, to observe if given the opportunity, would people commit crimes just because they could.

“To begin with he did not know with any certainty that this was 1984”

this idea of not knowing the year or one’s age agitated me as I like to know things with certainty most of the time. This showed me at the beginning that big brother able to control everything, we had been given some context of the thought police and the telescreens, but to be able to change the date or take someone’s age away helped to further make this clear.

Page 11, the 2-minute hate

unsure as to why they would allow the propaganda of their enemy allowed to be shown if not to again try and witness any though crimes occur.

“he sees too clearly and speaks too plainly”

I was surprised to hear that even though they have a devoted follower of big brother and someone who clearly aids in the development of their principles, Syme will still be vaporised for being too smart.

“in fact, there will be no thought crime”

I do not believe that if you take away a persons ability to think certain words that they will still not want something for, strive to be better or have it better. All be it they will not know what big brother has done to them but I believe there will always be one person that has a basic instinctive feeling that something is not right with the way they are living, that it is somehow unnatural.

“why should one feel it to be intolerable unless one has some kind of ancestral memory that things had once been different”

again the idea that without that previous knowledge of what things might have been, there will always be someone smart enough to realise they are not. Winston may have only been a boy when he lived in the “old ways/old England” but he would not have retained enough knowledge or memory to be able to recognise that it might have been different. He is simply not satisfied but does not know how things could be better, he just wants it and knows that it should be.

“if there is hope it must lie within the proles”

I found this interesting because Winston is almost pleading to himself that there must be a way. He can’t believe that the proles are controlled and that there is no way to change the way things are, he must believe not only to keep him alive after he has committed thought crimes, but to keep him sane (I believe) because when there is nothing to hope for, where is the point of going on.

“until they become conscious, they will never rebel. until they rebel, they will never become conscious”

I think at this moment Winston has a thought that there will never come a time when the proles will stand up for what is right.

“the only evidence to the contrary was the mute protest in your bones”

Even though Winston has been fed lies to make him believe that airstrip1 is better than the old country it was, there will always be a feeling that things should be better. He has been controlled and programmed all his life, scared into believing that big brother is the best, but no matter that he still doesn’t accept it. I believe there will always be at least one person such as Winston that wants a better future and is smart enough to see through the lies of big brother.

“the past was erased, the erasure was forgotten, the lie became truth”

I like this line because it follows the adage “history is written by the victor” and I love how George Orwell has constructed a world where this is constantly happening to control people.

 

Join the conversation! 1 Comment

  1. Your observations and personal reflection are both excellent – and commendable – and I urge you to keep that up.

    I would also like you to examine a small handful of your selected quotes according to the approach explained here so that you can demonstrate the clear connection between the use of a range of language effects (in the example, it was the use of a metaphor) and the true meaning of what is being conveyed in the passage.

    Let me know if you need assistance in identifying or selecting these examples.

    CW

    Reply

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