1984 Quotes and Analysis4 PART 1 Quote It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen. Techniques Contrasting imagery, striking first lines, disruptive and demonstrates that setting unnatural and distorted from normality, foreshadowing, 24 hours clock represents modernisation and sharp discontinuity with past The black moustachioed face gazed Historical allusion to Stalin, down from every commanding makes image relevant to audience corner…BIG BROTHER IS by connecting it to reality, WATCHING YOU capitalisation demonstrates authority and the notion that many voices have been drowned out into singular narrative, second person intimidates reader, feel sense of insecurity and uncertainty alongside Winston, commanding tone You had to live – did live, from Internal focalisation on Winston, habit that became instinct – in the motif of darkness with meaning assumption that every sound you upended to demonstrate its value, made was overheard, and except in sense of insecurity, imagery of darkness, every movement ‘habit’ suggests lack of agency scrutinised The Ministry of Truth…was Imagery of modernism is startlingly different from any other undermined by impersonal nature, object in sight. It was an enormous reversal of machine age optimism pyramidal structure of glittering white concrete, soaring up terrace after terrace, three hundred metres into the air. Winston who was thirty and had a Emaciated imagery, degradation varicose ulcer above his right of society is reflected in the bodies ankle…a smallish frail figure, the of the people, Winston subverts meagreness of his body merely the hero at the centre of the hero’s emphasised by the blue overalls journey which were the uniform of the Party To begin with, he did not know Undermines the certainty of the with any certainty that this was title and further disconcerts the 1984. reader, ambiguity demonstrates the perversion of truth and reality, connotes potentiality of this occurring at any point in history Relevant human experiences Normality Truth Insecurity Lack of agency Power of narrative Insecurity and lack of agency Insufficiency of technology Individuality Hero’s journey Insecurity Truth Satiric warning against totalitarianism His small but childish handwriting straggled up and down the page, shedding first its capital letters and finally even its full stops A hideous ecstasy of fear and vindictiveness…seemed to flow through the whole group like an electric current, turning one even against one’s will Goldstein in spite of his isolation, his helplessness and the doubt that hung about his very existence, seemed like a sinister enchanter, capable by the mere power of his voice of wrecking the structure of civilisation HE was the primal traitor, the earliest defiler of the Party’s unity. It resembled the face of a sheep, and the voice, too, had a sheeplike quality The dull rhythmic tramp of the soldier’s boots formed the background to Goldstein’s bleating voice. She had some mechanical job on one of the novel writing machines The Hate rose to its climax Vivid beautiful hallucinations flashed through his mind…he would tie her naked to a stake and shoot her full of arrows like Saint Sebastian. He would ravish her and cut her throat at the moment of climax. She picked up a heavy Newspeak dictionary and flung it at the screen Images of writing are messy and imperfect, stream of consciousness comes into play, writing becomes an emotional release and therefore freedom Juxtaposing emotions highlight the contradictions between action and thought in oppressive regime, simile suggests the mechanisation of humanity, lack of freedom Prophetic of Winston’s goal, words transcend the lives of their creators, is Goldstein even a real person or just a fictional creation of the party, simile conveys this power of language Winston as storyteller Sound imagery, metaphor, all mobilised by the party to create narrative with fictitious character at centre Party’s reliance on narrative Agency Individuality Inconsistencies Storytelling Reality and truth Ironic simile since Goldstein defies the symbolism of the sheep – shows party control over narrative Irony, mechanical imagery again becomes symbolic of lack of individuality and true expression, suggests the political function of narrative but its lack of value Sexual innuendo, power connected to sexuality, capitalisation of Hate demonstrates manipulation of language to weaponise human emotion rather than experience it Juxtaposition of ‘beauty’ with shockingly violent sexual imagery, subverts understanding of Winston as everyman, individual power can be exercised even in totalitarian over women, sexual fantasy entwined with fantasy of power Symbolism of degradation of language Party reliance on narrative Individuality Power constructs human emotion Gender Gender Individual power Language DOWN WITH BIG BROTHER DOWN WITH BIG BROTHER DOWN WITH BIG BROTHER He had committed – would still have committed, even if he had never set pen to paper – the essential crime that contained all others in itself. Thoughtcrime they called it. He was a lonely ghost uttering a truth that nobody would ever hear. But so long as he uttered it, in some obscure way the continuity was not broken. From the age of uniformity, from the age of solitude, from the age of Big Brother, from the age of doublethink – greetings! Repetition, capitalisation, mimics the form of slogans showing grasp on language prevents Winston thinking independently Turns attention to internal focalisation, casts doubt on the privacy of that emotion Control of language Despondent metaphor that suggests the death of truth, yet reafforms power of storytelling and retaining humanity, personal power gained through individuality Anaphora, empowered tone, addressed to future audience demonstrating longevity of words, responds to despair of: Storytelling Individuality Hero’s journey ‘And what way of knowing that the dominion of the Party would not last forever?’ To know and not know, to be Long sentence, accumulation of conscious of complete truthfulness paradoxes demonstrates while telling carefully constructed irrationality of doublethink that lies…to use logic against logic, to disconcerts the audience, as they repudiate morality while laying try to conceptualise it they are claim to it…Even to understand the made victims of it by Orwell, word ‘doublethink’ involved the showing how one can manipulate use of doublethink. truth For, how could you establish even Internal focalisation explicates the the most obvious fact when there power of knowledge and the existed no record outside your own personal, rhetorical question memory? elucidates Winston’s individuality and value of knowledge You did not have friends Control of language, allusion to nowadays, you had comrades Stalinist Russia ‘It’s a beautiful thing, the Gleeful tone but paradoxical destruction of words’ statement disconcerts audience It was not the man’s brain the was Synecdoche, the man, as an speaking, it was his larynx. The individual, collapses into a series stuff that was coming out of him of metonyms, medicalised consisted of words, but it was not imagery, disdainful simile speech in the true sense: it was invoking animalistic imagery of noise uttered in unconsciousness, the duck demonstrates the like the quacking of a duck dehumanisation that comes with losing expression Individuality Storytelling Truth Truth Individual power Winston as a storyteller Relationships Language Language Language Individuality …the cold water, the gritty soap, the cigarettes that came to pieces, the food with its strange evil tastes? Why should one feel it to be intolerable unless one had some kind of ancestral memory that things had once been different? Your worst enemy, he reflected, was your own nervous system. So the performance continued to happen, once a week quite regularly whenever it was not impossible. The sexual act, successfully performed, was rebellion. Desire was thoughtcrime. It struck him that the truly characteristic thing about modern life was not its cruelty and insecurity, but simply its bareness, its dinginess, its listlessness. The ideal set up by the Party was something huge, terrible and glittering – a world of steel and concrete, of monstrous machines and terrifying weapons Three hundred million people all with the same face Rhetorical question once again focuses of Winston’s internal focalisation and its value, degraded imagery accumulation, questions if there is a common human spirit Collective humanity and shared experience – can it be wiped out by power? Bitter irony, pathologizes own body, disjunct between external and internal self Performance imagery, routine language + plainness of prose becomes impersonal Individuality Truth Emphatic tone (which implicitly arises from Winston), truisms Gender and sexuality Barren imagery, lack of individuality is centre of totalitarianism, lack of individual power Individuality Reversal of machine age optimism, impersonal nature of technological imagery Individuality vs technology Face is symbolic of individuality and erased in collective, collective imagery, inspires fear in audience of collective The immediate advantages of Writing becomes process of falsifying the past were obvious but clarification and enlightenment, the ultimate motive was capitalisation of the interrogative, mysterious. He took up his pen internal focalisation, again and wrote: I understand HOW: I do not understand WHY The hypnotic eyes gazed into his own. It was as though some huge force were pressing down upon you – something that penetrated inside your skull… Truisms are true, hold on to that! The solid world exists, its laws do not change. Stones are hard, water is wet…’ Gender Individuality Winston as storyteller, individuality Fictitious character impresses huge power, body affected by power, simile Party as storyteller Exclamatory language, addresses the audience implicitly, truisms are undermined finally Truth Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else follows. ownlife Mathematical creates sense of objectivity, aphorism, freedom associated with truth in the individual, writing in his diary Jargon dehumanises individuality, becomes more impersonal When he got up to it, he saw that it Ironically Winston dehumanises was a human hand severed at the body parts while claiming to be an wrist. Apart from the bloody individual, individuality is always stump, the hand was so whitened as subjugated to survival to resemble a plaster cast. He kicked the thing into the gutter. The thing was doubly attractive Objects are symbols of the past – because of its apparent uselessness, concrete, beauty becomes valued, though he could guess that it must represents preserved past once have been intended as a paperweight. ‘Oranges and lemons’ Motif – represents preserved past in language, ironic because it’s a Ironically undercut by ‘Here comes childish game yet represents such candle to light you to bed, Here significance comes a chopper to chop off your head.’ Foreshadowing creates sinister undertone to the preservation of the past ‘like a leaden knell the words came Referring to the slogans, sound back to him’ imagery, shows the their overwhelming nature PART 2 I love you Italicisation, lineated in a similar way to the slogans but not capitalised and familiar to readers, simples sentence, shows how plain prose communicates truths At the sight of the words I love you Communication/language inspires the desire to stay alive had welled new emotion, contorts our up in him, and the taking of minor individual experience owing to risks suddenly seemed stupid. our responsibility to loved ones It was like trying to make a move Metaphor of manipulation but at chess when you were already does not level the playing field, mated. Whichever way you turned, ubiquity of the party through the telescreen faced you. technology It occurred to him that he did not Foreshadowing, eyes represent the know what colour the girl’s eyes soul and personality, denied by the were…To turn his head and look at Party, true connection is unable to her would have been inconceivable be fostered and one cannot truly folly. know the other Winston as a storyteller Truth Associations between power and truth Individuality and conformity Individuality History History Truth Storytelling Love Inconsistencies in human experience Storytelling Individuality Agency Love Individuality With their hands locked together, invisible among the press of bodies, they stared steadily in front of them, and instead of the eyes of the girl, the eyes of the aged prisoner gazed mournfully at Winston out of nests of hair. To look around was to show guilt The sweetness of the air and the greenness of the leaves daunted him. Already on the walk from the station, the May sunshine had made him feel dirty and etiolated, a creature of the indoors, with the sooty dust of London in the pores of his skin. ‘Always yell with the crowd, that’s what I say. It’s the only way to be safe’ Julia Internal monologue, actions curtailed for survival Juxtaposition, feels displaced in nature which is not governed by authoritarianism Party’s control reflected in the body of its citizens, dehumanises self to show how technology which symbolises party has fashioned his being Colloquial language, maxim, Julia prioritise individual safety over rebellion, performance of conformity Them it appeared, meant the party, Disdainful tone, separation and above all the Inner Party, about through pronoun, ironically whom she talked with an open delineates herself yet performs jeering hatred… conformity for safety No mate, no rival was watching it. Rhetorical question in internal What made it sit at the edge of the monologue creates suspicion in lonely wood and pour its music audience, nature is foil for the into nothingness? constraints of humanity, it does not perform, it only acts as it pleases Perhaps at the other end of the Metaphor, dehumanises Party instrument some small beetle like members, repetition highlights man was listening intently – momentousness of bird’s beauty listening to that. Anything that hinted at corruption Paradoxical human desires under filled him with wild hope. oppression, juxtaposition ‘I hate purity! I hate goodness! I don’t want any virtue to exist anywhere. I want everyone to be corrupt to the bones.’ But you could not have pure love or pure lust nowadays. No emotion was pure because everything was mixed up with fear and hatred Their embrace had been a battle, the climax a victory. It was a blow Exclamatory language, demonstrates strength of emotion when it has been suppressed and only now voiced Internal focalisation, Winston sees how emotion is distorted by the Party, how it becomes constructed by power Metaphor, declarative statements, emphatic tone makes political statements, anaphora, Agency Agency Individuality Individuality Agency Individuality Performative conformity Individuality Agency Individuality Constraints of technology Individuality Individuality (its paradoxes) Individuality Emotion Gender and sexuality struck against the Party. It was a political act. …accepting the Party as something unalterable, like the sky, not rebelling against its authority but simply evading it, as a rabbit dodges a dog With Julia, everything came back to her sexuality. Oh rubbish! Which would you sooner sleep with, me or a skeleton? Don’t you enjoy being alive? Don’t you like the feeling: This is me, this is my hand, this is my leg, I’m real, I’m solid, I’m alive! Don’t you like this? ‘We are the dead’ he said ‘We’re not the dead yet,’ said Julia prosaically ‘The old-fashioned clock with the twelve-hour face was ticking away on the mantelpiece.’ The improvement in her appearance was startling. With just a few dabs of colour in the right places she had become not only very much prettier, but, above all, far more feminine. ‘I’ll wear silk stockings and highheeled shoes! In this room I’m going to be a woman not a Party comrade.’ ‘I wonder what a lemon was,’ she added inconsequentially. The paperweight was the room he was in, and the coral was Julia’ life and his own, fixed in a sort of eternity at the heart of the crystal. Simile, Julia becomes a foil for Winston’s intellectual rebellion against Party authority, simile is rather scathing of this attitude Rebellion against authority Julia as foil for Winston, Julia’s rebellion tied up in sexuality and politicisation of her femininity, polticisation of personal identity? Stream of consciousness, anaphora, manifesto against party of unconsciousness, emphatic tone, despite not being political becomes politicised, contrasts Winston’s intellectualising Gender Polticisiation of personal identity Foreshadowing, ominous tone, Winston’s pessimism Power Individuality Agency Contrast to opening lines, return to Humanity over past and human beauty technology Limited perspective of Winston invites the male gaze, femininity as performance for male gaze becomes a form of power and entrapment Gender Signifiers of a specific type of femininity, identity as female separates her from conformity, but ironically still speaks to a feminine conformity existing in Orwell’s context, women still constrained by power Past tense, blasé tone, disconcerts audience, use of familiar object as symbol of lost truths, natural imagery Paradoxically beautiful and sinister imagery, denotes beauty of human connection yet their entrapment, motif of paperweight illustrates the humanity not condoned by Party, romantic imagery is metaphorical BUT entrapping, symbolism Gender Truth Individuality Connection It was enough. Syme had ceased to exist: he had never existed. Dirty or clean, the room was paradise. To hang on from day to day and from week to week, spinning out a present that had no future, seemed an unconquerable instinct, just as one’s lungs will always draw the next breath so long as there is air available. The room was a world, a pocket of the past where extinct animals could walk. Getting there was difficult and dangerous, but the room itself was sanctuary. Often she was ready to accept the official mythology, simply because the difference between truth and falsehood did not seem important to her. ‘You’re only a rebel from the waist downwards.’ They simply swallowed everything and what they swallowed did them no harm, because it left no residue behind, just as a grain on corn will pass undigested through the body of a bird. He moved from thoughts to words, and now from words to actions. The last step was something that would happen in the Ministry of Love. He had the sensation of stepping into the dampness of a grave, and it was not much better because he had always known that the grave was there and waiting for him. Winston’s dreams of his mother If you loved someone, you loved him, and when you had nothing else to give, you still gave him love. Short sentences, shocks audience, foreshadowing Room becomes metaphorical microcosm for private life and human connection Importance of survival over individuality, foreshadowing Terror Metaphor, imagery is reminiscent of the paperweight, extinct animals represent the old human emotions and experiences, Ironically optimistic, does not mesh with reality, reminiscent of the hero’s journey Foil to Winston, power shows people don’t care between fluid notions about truth and fiction Privacy Emotion History All themes Hero’s journey Privacy Julia as a foil, femininity is Julia’s method of rebellion but is demeaned Animalistic imagery, simile, dehumanises them by not understanding storytelling of Party, encourages to deconstruct normative narratives Gender Process of words becoming actions and the importance of language, hero’s journey subverted Storytelling/language Hero’s journey Foreshadowing, metaphor, subversion of hero’s journey, audience still retains optimistic hopes for his success, bleak tone, imagery Represents the private emotions and sacrifices on individuals in the past, dreams connote the immaterial nature of these things Limitless nature of love Hero’s journey Failure Connection Privacy Individuality Truth Party as storyteller Individualism Family Individuality and the loss of it When the last of the chocolate was gone, his mother had clasped the child in her arms. It was no use, it changed nothing, it did not produce more chocolate, it did not avert the child’s death or her own; but it seemed natural to her to do it. ‘Confession is not betrayal. What you say or do doesn’t matter; only feelings matter. If they could make me stop loving you – that would be real betrayal.’ Winston But if the object was not to stay alive but to stay human, what difference did it ultimately make? They could not alter your feelings. …the inner heart, whose workings were mysterious even to yourself, remained impregnable. He began asking his questions in a low, expressionless voice, as though this were a routine, a sort of catechism, most of whose answers were known to him already You are prepared to cheat, to forge, to blackmail, to corrupt the minds of children, to distribute habit forming drugs, to encourage prostitution, to disseminate venereal disease Nothing holds it together except an idea which is indestructible. You will never have anything to sustain you except the idea. Again O’Brien nodded. With a sort of grave courtesy he completed the stanza: Winston was gelatinous with fatigue. Gelatinous was the right word. It had come into his head spontaneously The Theory and practice of Oligarchical Collectivism It said what he would have said, if it had been possible for him to set his scattered thoughts in order. It Chocolate is representative of love in the past era which has been untainted by the Party Emotions are valorised, betrayal equated with losing connection, externalising political thought, political, short statements Connections Human emotion Rhetorical question, dramatic irony allows audience to remain hopeful before it is crushed, importance of emotion, love/humanity essential to rebellion Emotion Interior self/individuality Religious allusion, transforms political movement into religious, part of counternarrative that empowers the rebellious Party as storyteller Individuality Listing, undermining humanity Winston stands for, chant-like, repetition, irony in that rebellion involves losing humanity, later mobilised against him Individuality Truth Fallibility of language Metafictively reflects the nature of the Party, held together by narrative that overwhelms individuals O’Brien ironically finishes the rhyme that represents Winston’s hope but ominously leads into the final ‘chop off your head line’ Defies newspeak rules, importance of language Party as a storyteller Oxymoron, complex intellectual thinking allows one to think independently, book encapsulates power of storytelling Power of storytelling, internal focalisation Power of storytelling Party as a storyteller Language, personal storytelling Storytelling is politicised was the product of a mind similar to his own, but enormously more powerful, more systematic, less fear-ridden. Being in a minority, even a minority of one, did not make you mad. There was truth and there was untruth, and if you clung to the truth even against the whole world, you were not mad. ‘You are the dead’ repeated the iron voice Internal focalisation, emphatic statement, aphorism, Truth Mirrors the first sentence, images demonstrate the power against the individual Truth Optimism is destroyed by iron voice, inflexibility of the image, impersonal image It was starting, it was starting at Final phase of journey, of failure, last! is expected Motifs all shift as hope is destroyed Shatters the motif of hope and security ‘The fragment of coral, a tiny crinky of pink like a sugar rosebud from a cake, rolled across the matt’ PART 3 He hardly thought of Julia…He Impersonal language underscored loved her and would not betray her; by mathematical allusion, short but that was only a fact, known as sentences, love is only response to he knew the rules of arithmetic. He totalitarian power, ironic since he felt no love for her will betray her In this place, he knew instinctively, Meaning of light is subverted, the lights would never be turned instead of hope it means torture, out. It was the place with no demonstrates the deceptive nature darkness of party storytelling He thought: ‘If I could save Julia Internal focalisation, Winston is by doubling my own pain, would I incapable of feelings, perception do it? Yes, I would.’ But that was of the hero is distorted, archetypal an intellectual decision. hero journey/action In the face of pain, there are no Repetition, internal focalisation, heroes, no heroes, he though over violent imagery, Winston’s power and over as he writhed on the floor, of storytelling is neutralised by clutching uselessly at his disabled greater power (pain) arm He became simply a mouth that Metonymical images, synecdoche, uttered, a hand that signed, dehumanises Winston when whatever was demanded of him. subject to power, terror overcomes the hero in journey ‘Sometimes they are five. Equivocation, truth is fluid, Sometimes they are three. anaphora conveys the uncertainty, Sometimes they are all of them at paradoxical statements, once. You must try harder. It is not disconcerts audience easy to become sane.’ Truth Hero’s journey Security Privacy Personal connection As superficial Agency Storytelling Hero’s journey Emotion Connection Hero’s journey Hero’s journey Individuality Truth Power of storytelling ‘Don’t worry Winston…I shall save you. I shall make you perfect ‘You are the flaw in the pattern, Winston. You are the stain that must be wiped out.’ ‘You will be hollow. We shall squeeze you empty and then we shall fill you with ourselves.’ ‘You preferred to be a lunatic, a minority of one. Only the disciplined mind can see reality, Winston.’ ‘She betrayed you, Winston. Immediately – unreservedly’ Paradoxical, biblical allusion, O’Brien takes on the language of religious god-like figure, individuality is moulded by power, conformity is deemed ‘perfection’ Similes make Winston individual, the ‘hero’ non-conformist figure, hope of audience continues but is eventually stamped Metaphor of vacuum, violent imagery, individuality is removed, Party replaces individual narrative Ironically euphemistic, reverse Winston’s words on themselves Adverbs, short sentence, love and connection irrelevant in face of power He had the air of a doctor, a Irony since O’Brien is the torturer, teacher, even a priest, anxious to simile draws on nurturing figures explain and persuade rather than that are juxtaposed with the role of punish torture, exposing the paradoxes and ironies in the Party’s system that allow it to control citizens, mentor to the hero role remains but as a torturer ‘You remember it’ Contradiction and refutations bend ‘I do not remember it’ said O’Brien reality, short sentences epitomise Winston’s heart sank. That was defeat and despair doublethink. He had a feeling of deadly helplessness. ‘I wrote it. That is to say, I Undermines the narratives collaborated in writing it. No book established by Winston, Party’s is produced individually, as you storytelling supersedes the know.’ individual, metafictvely meditates on the political nature of text and therefore the malleability of language Reality is in the skull Suggests the postmodern theories of multiple truths that are equally valid, only to undermine with the absolute control and dictatorship over truth, ironic, critique of multiplicity and flexibility of truth, the need to re-articulate the concreteness of truth Individuality Individuality Hero’s journey Individuality Party vs individual storyteller Storytellers Truth Individuality Connection Emotion Power Storytellers Hero’s journey Truth Truth Language Storytellers Truth If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face – forever. ‘We are the priests of power’ ‘You are rotting away; you are falling to pieces. What are you? A bag of filth. Now turn round and look into that mirror again. Do you see that thing facing you? That is the last man. If you are human, that is humanity.’ ‘You are a difficult case. But don’t give up hope. Everyone is cured sooner or later. In the end we shall shoot you.’ The so-called laws of Nature were nonsense. The law of gravity was nonsense. The arithmetical problems raised, for instance, by such a statements as ‘two and two make five’ were beyond his intellectual grasp Stupidity was as necessary as intelligence, and as difficult to attain. …in the mind he had surrendered, but he had hope to keep the inner heart inviolate To die hating them was freedom Contrast with ending: loving BB Do it to Julia! Do it to Julia! Not me! Julia! Synecdochical boot has no identity behind it but represents the faceless collective, face is symbolic of individuality, it is erased by collective embodied I the synecdochical boot, hyphen creates pause that emphasises the forever and heightens audience tension Metaphor invokes the power of religion, religious texts are further the dictators of truth to the populace, heightening the potency of the metaphor Second person pronoun includes audience and they feel similar despair as Winston, emaciated imagery reflects the state of humanity, Winston becomes symbol for society writ large, mirror imagery Dispassionate tone, grotesque subversion of the hero’s journey, euphemistic irony of ‘cured’, curing is distortion of reality and erasure of identity Anaphora, dismissive tone, rationality even its most authoritative forms in scientific, objective laws, are overcome by totalitarian power Internal focalisation remains, thoughts that transform into the irrational are still sincerely expressed, motif shifts to show how stupidity is needed by party Truth Individuality Separation of mind and human emotion as final frontier to control, foreshadowing Hero’s journey motif returns in hope spot that foreshadows the ending, emphatic tone, political slogan Exclamatory language, fragmented sentences, repetition, symbolic of splintered individual Emotion Love Connection Individuality Truth Power Storytelling Individuality How power is able to construct various things – regardless of individual Hero’s journey Truth Individuality Truth Truth Individuality Connection His soul as white as snow He had won victory over himself. He loved Big Brother. Appendix cracked apart by power, betrayal of own internality Represents purity of spirit, religious connotations, simile is bitterly ironic given the nature of his beliefs Short statement, definite tone, disturbing lexical reversal and negation, ironic Big Brother does not get last word and implies that he was defeated through language, Newspeak din’t take and as long as people have speech they have freedom Individuality Individuality Power Truth The lot