1984 by George Orwell ~ Discussion Questions
Book One, Chapters I & II
Vocabulary: nebulous, sanguine, obscure
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6.
What is Oceania like? (Keep in mind the setting will be significant throughout the novel)
Describe Winston Smith’s living conditions.
Describe Telescreens.
Describe the Thought Police.
What are 3 party slogans? How are they paradoxes? (4)
Describe the 4 ministries that run the government, specifically what each is responsible for
and the irony surrounding each name. (4)
7. What is significant about Winston’s diary? Why is it illegal? (6)
8. For what could Winston’s ulcerous sore be an objective correlative?
9. The only victim remotely identified in the “flicks” of the previous night is the middle-aged
woman sitting with the boy in the boat (8). How is she identified? Give the time period, 1949,
why might this identification be significant?
10. What is significant about the Two Minutes Hate?
11. Who is Julia?
12. Goldstein?
13. O’Brien?
14. What is the point of view of the narration?
15. What makes children so frightening to Winston?
16. What is ironic about the statement: “the mutability of the past”? (26)
17. Winston says there is nothing of your own except what one small thing?
18. Winston sees opposition as futile, yet, what is his conclusion about “human heritage” and
dying?
Book One, Chapters III-V
Vocabulary: inscrutable, gesticulating, pedant
1. What do we learn of Winston’s memory of his mother?
2. How does the Party use doublethink?
3. In Chapter IV, find a quote describing the callousness with which people are treated and
why the Party acts as it does.
4. Who is Syme?
5. Why does Winston feel the man sitting next to him in the cafeteria is “not a real human being
but some kind of dummy”? (48/54)
6. After Parsons compliments the Party on a “good job this year” he then asks Winston for a
razor blade (53/60). What makes this ironic?
7. Why does Winston start to sweat when he realizes the dark-haired girl sitting next to him has
been staring at him?
1984 by George Orwell ~ Discussion Questions
Book One, Chapters VI-VIII
Vocabulary: impregnable, axiom, falsification, heresy, nostalgia
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4.
For what reason would the Party not approve a marriage between two people?
In Chapter VI, what significant fact do we learn about Winston’s past?
What do the proles have that the upper classes do not?
What is Winston speaking of when he says, “I understand HOW: I do not understand WHY”?
(68/80)
5. Why does Winston think of renting Mr. Charrington’s room?
6. What is Winston’s first reaction when he sees the dark-haired girl on the street? What action
does he consider? Why, up to this point in the novel, is the dark-haired girl never
acknowledged with a name?
Book Two, Chapters I-III
Vocabulary: incriminating, daunted, enunciating, infallible
1. What problems exist with the relationship that Winston and Julia form? Why would the Party
and Big Brother be against their relationship?
2. What is revealed in their arranged meeting?
3. What imagery is depicted in the beginning of Chapter II?
4. What made Winston, a man 10 or 15 years older than the girl, and not particularly
handsome, attractive to her, and what does it say about her?
5. Why does the scarcity of consumer goods exist? What does this say about the society of
1984?
6. What is the meaning of the last three sentences in Chapter II?
7. Although she hates the Party, why would Julia be considered apolitical?
8. From Julia’s perspective, why does the Party want to extinguish sexual activity?
9. What is the difference in the way Winston and Julia appear to view the future?
Book Two, Chapters IV-VII
Vocabulary: apathetic, effigy, obsolete, pathos
1. Why, although they know it is dangerous, do Winston and Julia rent the room above Mr.
Charrington’s shop?
2. Since Orwell puts a great deal of emphasis into the discussion on rats, what can we
assume?
3. What happens to Syme? Why is this important?
4. In the course of Chapter V, why and how does Winston change?
5. What points does Julia raise in Chapter V that Winston has never considered, especially in
regard to Party propaganda?
6. For what reason does Winston believe that O’Brien has talked with him? How does Winston
feel about his as Chapter VI ends?
7. What realization does Winston make regarding the proles? How does he reach this
conclusion?
8. What does Winston say is the one thing Julia and he must never do?
1984 by George Orwell ~ Discussion Questions
Book Two, Chapters VIII-X
Vocabulary: demoralization, debauch, meritorious, livid
1. What is the one thing Winston and Julia will not do for the cause?
2. What is confusing about the encounter with O’Brien?
3. According to Goldstein, for what reason do the three superpowers prefer continuous warfare
to peace?
4. For what reason does Goldstein say that it is important for an artificial scarcity of goods to
exist?
5. He also says that the war being waged against another superpower is not the real war.
What is the real war?
6. Who does Goldstein say Big Brother is?
7. What is it that Goldstein says holds the ruling members of the Party together and ensures
the survival of the party?
8. What does Winston admire about the prole washerwoman?
9. Of what might the shattering of the coral encased in the glass dome be symbolic?
10. Although the reader may or may not be surprised by Mr. Charrington’s identity, why does it
make perfect sense that he does turn out to be who he is?
Book Three, Chapters I-VI
Vocabulary: emaciation, insidious, erroneous, surly, fallacy, capitulated, admonished
1. When O’Brien arrives, he says to Winston, “You knew this, Winston…Don’t deceive yourself.
You have always known it.” (197/239) What is O’Brien claiming that Winston has always
known?
2. What does O’Brien say is the object of the interrogation?
3. Winston asks why they are going to the trouble of trying to change him when he is pretty
sure they are just going to execute him. What answer does the interrogator give?
4. What is the frightening question Winston hesitates to ask?
5. What does O’Brien tell Winston about Goldstein’s book?
6. When Winston is asked why he thinks the Party clings to power, what answer forms in his
head? What is Winston told is the real reason?
7. What does O’Brien’s answer about the real reason the Party seeks total power tell us about
Orwell’s view of why totalitarian governments exist?
8. Winston says the Party will ultimately fail. What does he say will eventually destroy the
Party?
9. By Chapter IV, Winston has “capitulated” almost completely. How and why can you tell?
10. Winston tells us that he has surrendered his mind. How does he reveal what is in his heart?
11. What is in Room 101, as O’Brien describes it?
12. In order to save himself, what does Winston cry out, and why is it that in crying this out, he
will be saved?
13. In addition to having changed physically by Chapter VI, how else has Winston changed
since his arrest?
14. How do Winston and Julia feel about each other? Why?
15. At one point, while waiting for the news bulletin, “Winston looked up at the portrait of Big
Brother.” (238/289) Then several pages later: “As though for reassurance he looked up at
the imperturbable face in the portrait.” (242/295) What is conveyed about Winston’s
thoughts in these paragraphs?
16. Does a reading of the last paragraph of the novel suggest that O’Brien or Winston won?
17. Would you say that the novel’s ending represents for Orwell an optimistic or pessimistic view
for the future of our society?