1984 Quotes

"It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen."

"It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen."

Foreshadowing - 13 is an unlucky number.

"The Ministry of Truth, which concerned itself with news, entertainment, education, and the fine arts. The Ministry of Peace, which concerned itself with war. The Ministry of Love, which maintained law and order. And the Ministry of Plenty, which was responsible for economic affairs. Their names, in Newspeak: Minitrue, Minipax, Miniluv, and Miniplenty."

The names of the Ministries are an example of doublethink - the act of simultaneously accepting two mutually contradictory beliefs as correct, often in distinct social contexts.

"Don't you see that the whole aim of Newspeak is to narrow the range of thought? In the end we shall make thoughtcrime literally impossible, because there will be no words in which to express it. 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." (Syme)

Language - by narrowing the language the Party aims to narrow thought, so people will not commit thoughtcrime and/or rebel.

"Until they become conscious they will never rebel, and until after they have rebelled they cannot become conscious."

Paradox - One cannot happen without the other, which, to Winston's dismay, means that neither will happen.

"Who controls the past controls the future: who controls the present controls the past,"

The Party exercises total control by changing history.

"We control matter because we control the mind. Reality is inside the skull..." (O'Brien)

Reality is whatever the Party says.

People simply disappeared, always during the night. Your name was removed from the registers, every record of everything you had ever done was wiped out, and your one-time existence was denied and then forgotten. You were abolished, annihilated: vaporized was the usual word.

How the Party deals with its enemies.

"With those children, he thought, that wretched woman must lead a life of terror. Another year, two years, and they would be watching her night and day for symptoms of unorthodoxy. Nearly all children nowadays were horrible."

Family values do not exist any more, everyone must be loyal only to the Party.

"Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else follows." Part 1, Chapter 7

Truth exists independently of the Party's ideology. Free speech is the most important form of liberty

"Comrade Ogilvy, who had never existed in the present, now existed in the past, and when once the act of forgery was forgotten, he would exist just as authentically, and upon the same evidence, as Charlemagne or Julius Caesar." Part 1, Chapter 4

The Party sometimes creates new identities of persons who never existed in order to manipulate the people of Oceania. Then, such people seem to exist together with real persons like Charlemagne or Julius Caesar about whom we know from written sources.

"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." Part 1, Chapter 6

Winston's wife, Katharine, also described as a mouthpiece for the Party. She is loyal to the Party all the time without questioning its doctrines.

"They were born, they grew up in the gutters, they went to work at twelve, they passed through a brief blossoming period of beauty and sexual desire, they married at twenty, they were middle-aged at thirty, they died, for the most part, at sixty. Heavy physical work, the care of home and children, petty quarrels with neighbors, films, football, beer, and, above all, gambling filled up the horizon of their minds." Part 1, Chapter 7

The Proles - 85% percent of the population of Oceania. Orwell introduces this in Part One of the book. They are kept dumb, brainwashed, and useless by the Party, so they are controlled more easily. They are given some freedom. The Party also treats them as inferiors.

"We shall meet in the place where there is no darkness." Part 1, Chapter 2, pg. 27

Winston believes that O'Brien is also against the Party, but the "place where there is no darkness" is in the Ministry of Love.

"The past was dead, the future was unimaginable." Part 1, Chapter 2, pg. 28

Past and future

"If there is hope, wrote Winston, it lies in the proles." Part 1, Chapter 7, pg. 72

Winston hopes that the proles will rebel one day and overthrow the Party, but at the same time the are not conscious enough to so it. The Party has brainwashed them and they cannot rebel.

"she only questioned the teachings of the Party when they in some way touched upon her own life. Often she was ready to accept the official mythology, simply because the difference between truth and falsehood did not seem important to her." Part 2, Chapter 5

Unlike Winston, Julia rebels on a more personal level, she hates the Party but her aim is to have fun and survive.

"It's the one thing they can't do. They can make you say anything - anything - but they can't make you believe it. They can't get inside you." Part 2, Chapter 7

Julia says this but that is the ultimate aim of the Party - to control the mind.

"The old feeling, that at bottom it did not matter whether O'Brien was a friend or an enemy, had come back. O'Brien was a person who could be talked to... O'Brien had tortured him to the edge of lunacy, and in a little while, it was certain, he would send him to his death. It made no difference." Part 3, Chapter 2

O'Brien tortures Winston physically but, Winston still doesn't completely hate O'Brien. O'Brien stops the pain, so Winston feels some affection for him. Winston values intellectual conversation and thought, which he can only get from O'Brien.

"We control matter because we control the mind. Reality is inside the skull." Part 3, Chapter 3

O'Brien claims that by controlling people's thoughts and feelings, the Party doesn't just control people's perceptions of reality. It actually controls reality. Chapter

"But always - do not forget this, Winston - always there will be the intoxication of power, constantly increasing and constantly growing subtler. Always, at every moment, there will be the thrill of victory, the sensation of trampling on an enemy who is helpless. If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face - for ever." Part 3, Chapter 3

The Party is chiefly concerned with attaining and maintaining the power.

"But it was all right, everything was all right, the struggle was finished. He had won the victory over himself. He loved Big Brother." Part 3, Chapter 6

The Party doesn't have to try to control Winston's reality. He controls it himself, and in doing so keeps himself as one with the Party. He has lost himself. He has given himself to Big Brother.