1984

• Winston

  • Member of the Outer Party, works in the Ministry of Truth -- rewrites news articles to fit the Party’s current history

  • Writes in a diary - hides behind his telescreen

  • Fears rats 

  • In some sort of way, his mother and sister sacrificed their lives for him & they vanished

  • Has a ton of philosophies about the Party, believes in the Brotherhood -- wants to do something to change the current state of the society 

  • Sees sex as rebellion and revolutionary potential

• Julia

  • The dark haired girl with a red sash → Junior Anti-Sex League -- Winston thought she was a loyal Inner Party member

    • The girl who gave the “I love you” note

  • Rebellious, cunning, sexually active -- participates intensely in the 2 minutes of Hate

  • Believes Party is undefeatable through organized resistance  -- refers secret disobedience

  • Doesn’t care about the past or what’s happening → falls asleep when Winston talks about it

    • Is a superficial person; prefers to live in the moment

  • Different POV about sex than Winston

    • If sex and love was allowed, then the citizens wouldn’t have as much energy to do all the propaganda / marching / activities 

    • “Sex gone sour”

• O’Brien

  • Antagonist -- represents the Inner Party

  • Winston believed O’Brien was part of the Brotherhood (addressed his diary to him)

    • O’Brien eventually makes him believe that he is to rat him out

      • Winston and Julia go to visit him -- drinking wine

    • Gives him Goldstein’s book to read, saying it would allow them to “join” the Brotherhood

    • The two of them believe him and read it together in Charrington’s room 

  • When caught, O’Brien tortures both of them (but we only read about Winston’s side)

    • The one who brings the rats and such

    • When WInston first sees O’Brien in the jail room place, he believes O’Brien was also caught 

  • Winston admires and respects O’Brien and his intelligence, even after knowing that he was loyal to the Party

• Parsons

  • A family of 4 (one son and daughter) -- Winston’s neighbors

  • The kids are part of the junior version of the Inner party --- they scout out disloyalty, even if its their parents

  • Tom Parson -- the father & Winston’s coworker

    • Winston believes he will be vaporized because he doesn’t actually play an important role (just does what the Party asks of him) -- enthusiastic 

  • Denounced by his daughter (7) who heard him thoughtcriming through the keyhole

    • Was proud of his daughter, believes himself to be guilty too

    • Winston meets him in the jail room

• Syme

  • Newspeak editor -- very passionate about the new language

    • Worked on the new edition that eliminated more words

  • “Knew too much” and for that reason, would be vaporized (and he was!)

• Newspeak

  • The official language 

  • Consists of condensed words to condense thought and eliminate thoughtcrime

  • Appendix is in the back of the book → characterized into 3 sections

    • A vocabulary → everyday words

    • B vocabulary → INGSOC terms that promote the party’s ideology

    • C vocabulary → scientific terms 

• Oceania, Eurasia, Eastasia and the disputed territories

  • Oceania → English speaking countries (America, UK)

  • Eurasia → rest of Europe

  • Eastasia → East Asian countries (China, Korean, Japan)

• INGSOC

  • The newspeak word for the Party’s political ideology

  • English Socialism → oligarchical collectivism (small party controls power and the rest/majority is controlled)

    • Includes propaganda and thought control, surveillance, repression, manipulation of reality and history 

• The Brotherhood

  • A secret organization said to be working against the Party and Big Brother

  • Led by Emmanuel Goldstein -- former Party leader who is now the greatest enemy of the Party

    • His image is used in the 2 Minutes Hate

  • Goldsteins book → “The Theory and Practice of Oligarchial Collectivism”

    • Explains the Party’s rules and how they work, serving as an analysis and hope for resistance

  • Unsure whether it is real or fake

    • Winston believes 

• Big Brother

  • Symbolic leader of the Party

  • Face appears literally everywehre → slogan = “Big Brother is watching you” as a reminder/threat

  • Is the object of the citizen’s love -- name is meant to initiate positive emotions

• The proles

  • Make up majority of the population -- hope lies within the proles

  • Are considered stupid and incapable of starting an uprising → but if they realized that they could, then they could (hence the hope lies in proles)

    • Less surveillance, less education, do not go through same amounts of propaganda 

  • Lowest of the social ladder, the working class

  • Have a degree of freedom that Party members lack -- can engage in gambling, drinking, casual relationships

• Doublethink

  • Newspeak term → to have two contradictory beliefs and believe both are true

  • Ex: war is peace, freedom is slavery, ignorance is strength

  • Cognitive dissonance 

• Thought police

  • Secret force of the Party that searches for thoughtcrime to eliminate it

  • Creates sense of fear and paranoia amongst Party members 

  • Surveillance, symbol of oppression

• Room 101

  • Torture chamber location where people are subjected to their worst fears

  • Located in Ministry of Love

  • Party uses surveillance to determine the person’s worst fear (how O’Brien knew that Winston was afraid of rats)

  • Place of psychological destruction -- is highly feared -- most walk out “cured”

  • Winston is taken to room 101 and is confronted by rats → he betrays Julia and tells O’Brien to have them inflicted on her instead --- demonstrates is newfound loyalty to the Party

    • COmplete submission to Party power

• Rats

  • Winston’s worst fear -- what is confronted with in room 101

  • Saw a rat in Charrington’s room -- jumped, freaked out -- how Party knew he was terrified of rats

• Mr. Charrington

  • Old man running the shop in prole district where Winston buys his diary, the paperweight, and eventually rents out a room to have sex with Julia in

    • He assumes there are no telescreens

    • Was their place of privacy

  • Charrington appears to be someone who thinks of the past -- makes Winston trust him

  • Eventually revelaed to be a member of the thoughtpolice -- hidden telescreen behind the painting

    • Where Charrington’s voice comes out -- arresting Winston and Julia

• Goldstein

  • Emmanuel Goldstein -- former leader of the Party, now the leader of the Brotherhood

    • Fake or real?

  • His image is used during Two Minutes Hate

  • Wrote the book

  • Winston believes he’s real, and is eventually crushed when O’Brien tells him that Goldstein and the Brotherhood were just a trap for thoughtcriminals to identify themselves

1984 Prep Questions

1. After rehability, winston thinks of false memories -- what false memories

   1. Brainwashed into thinking something happened -- mother, relationship with mother (“ but that's a false memory” -- but its not actually false)

   2. Aka the indoctrination aka rehabilitation

2. Which country is oceania at war with in the beginning AND end of novel

   1. Eurasia -- beginning AND end 

      1. (middle of hate week, it switches over to Eastasia -- not needed to know)

   2. Don't need to know which country is first or second -- just know they're at war with one, then another, then back to the same one

   3. And that is possible they're not at war with anybody at all

      1. Missiles probably fired by at own government

3. What is the name of the care where winston saw the rutherford, anstin, jones (3 people)

   1. Chestnut Tree Cafe

   2. Don't need to know the name -- just know the idea

   3. Place of ex politicians -- where winston ends up at the end

4. What is the last line of the book

   1. He now loved Big Brother

   2. Does Not involve the appendix

5. When is the appendix written

   1. Written after the events of the book

   2. The appendix indicates that the Party has fallen

   3. DO NOT NEED TO KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT APPENDIX -- JUST WHEN IT WAS WRITTEN

6. What will happen to winston after the book

   1. He’s going to get shot

   2. He is eventually going to be integrated into the Party first

      1. Ministry of Truth and government want him to be “pure” (thought) first, before being shot 

   3. So why do they go through the process?

      1. Speculation --- the Party is still young & figuring things out (even though it feels its been there forever) and they could be figuring out how to use torture -- hes part of an experiment

7. Does winston ever see julia again after he's out?

   1. Yes, but they are appalled by each other

8. Who is Syme and what happened to him

   1. Newspeak writer -- knew too much

   2. Eventually vaporized

   3. KNOW THE IDEA OF HIM

9. Who is Parson and what happened to him

   1. The neighbor, his children reported him to the party

   2. He was proud of his kids 

   3. Winston muses that Parson will be vaporized -- he's important but his daughter who rats him out is more important to the Party

10. What is the name of the supposed secret group that's going to take down the Party

    1. The Brotherhood -- it's ironic because “big brother”

    2. THERE ARE DISTRACTOR ANSWERS ON THE TEST

11. Fill in the blank -- ignorance is strength, freedom is slavery, and ___

    1. War is peace

    2. Know the 3 paradoxes

12. How does o’brien know that winston hates rats

    1. There as a rat in the room -- the one above charingtons and he flips out (they watched)

    2. Also written in his diary

    3. O'brien said ‘we've been following u for 7 years’ -- LIE (obv they didn't, but winston believes)

13. Which superstate would new orleans be in

    1. Oceania -- all the americas and england 

14. Which superstate Berlin

    1. eurasia

15. Tokyo

    1. East asian

16. Charrington’s a member of what?

    1. The thought police --KNOW WHWT IT IS

17. Why does newspeak get smaller every year

    1. They don't need that many words

    2. they're trying to condense it to condense thought

    3. No word for freedom -- there's no such thing as freedom