1984 Study Guide (George Orwell)

Book One

In the year 1984, Winston Smith is a thirty-nine year old man who lives in an old apartment building calling Victory Mansions in Airstrip One (formerly England) which is part of the larger Oceania. The ruling party is known only as the Party and Winston is a low member of this ruling party, though he does not respect or agree with the totalitarian regime.

There are posters all over the place with the phrase “Big Brother is watching you” and telescreens all over the place that record everyone’s every move. Winston works for the Ministry of Truth, a government office, where he manipulates historical records to match up with the official position of the Party on past events. 

The other offices of government are the Ministry of Peace (wages war), the Ministry of Plenty (plans economic shortages), and the Ministry of Love (where people are tortured). Winston possesses a journal, which is illegal, that he purchased in the Prole neighborhood, where the poor people who are not seen as a threat to government live and thus is an area that is not closely monitored as the others are. Winston writes of his hatred for the government and will likely be punished for this “thought crime” by the Thought Police. Winston thinks that O’Brien, a member of the Party, really hates the regime as much as he does and is determined to find out.

Winston goes to his neighbor Mrs. Winston’s home to help her with the plumbing while her husband is away. She seems fearful of her children, as Winston is skeptical of them, because they are Junior Spies, which are children who are trained to watch their parents and neighbors for signs of rebellion against the Party.

The Party has managed to eliminate all love between married couples, parents and children, and other family members as such a close bond threatens the Party’s control. Just as love is not allowed, neither are personal possessions as the only possessions in Oceania are the citizens who are possessions of the government. 

Later that day Winston has a dream where he sees his mother who disappeared twenty-some years ago, then sees the pretty dark haired girl from work running at him naked, and finally wakes up thinking of Shakespeare and cannot put the pieces together. He hears the whistle coming from his telescreen that serves as an alarm clock for the government employees and proceeds to do his mandated exercises. Winston tries to remember his childhood but has a hard time because he has no photos or videos, as the citizens are not allowed possessions because they are also possessions of the government.

He suspects that Big Brother did not exist before 1960 but knows the modified records state that he has been in charge since at least the 1930’s. A voice from the telescreen interrupts Winston’s thoughts by reprimanding him for not exercising hard enough.

Winston heads to work where on the way he notes that any scraps of paper that are found on the street or need to be disposed of are sent through slits on the side of buildings and into furnaces underground where they are incinerated.

Winston works at the Ministry of Truth where it is his job to destroy the real records and dictate to a “speakwrite” the new records he wishes to record. The people of Airstrip One believe everything that Big Brother tells them even when it is obviously the opposite from the truth. This day Winston is modifying an article about a man named Comrade Withers who was executed for opposing the Party.

The article showed him in a positive light, and such documents cannot be allowed to exist for heretics. Winston invents a person to replace Comrade Withers named Comrade Ogilvy who stands for all of the Party’s ideals, and he is only one of many workers inventing stories to save face for the Party. Later in the day Winton meets a coworker named Syme for lunch.

Syme is in charge of updating Newspeak (the official language of Oceania) in a way that will essentially make it impossible for anyone to commit thoughtcrime by eliminating all words that would express someone’s distaste for the Party; they would not even be able to think negative thoughts. Winston muses that Syme is almost too intelligent for his own good, and it is a strong possibility that someday the Party may have him destroyed as he would be a serious threat to them if he ever decided to rebel.

Winston sees the dark-haired girl from work staring at him from across the canteen though rather than assuming she has a thing for him, which she obviously does, he assumes she is a member of the Thought Police and that he is in trouble. A message from the Ministry of Plenty comes over the speaker announcing some increases in production that were made and Winston notes that there were no increases but actually decreases.

Winston cannot believe when he hears the people around him rejoicing over the news of the increased rations as it is obvious that there was no increase, but he cannot say anything because he knows he is probably being watched and looks up to see the dark-haired girl from work staring at him.

Winston writes in his journal that night about the sex he had with a prostitute in the Prole district as he cannot have sex with anyone affiliated with the Party is it is forbidden.

They only allow sex for the purpose of reproduction and not for pleasure. Winston was once married, but his wife hated sex, and they were unable to have children, so their marriage did not last for long. Katharine, Winston’s wife, has not been seen for about ten years.

Winston wants nothing more than to find someone he can have a torrid sexual affair with that he actually enjoys, rather than an old prostitute, because writing his thoughts of rebellion do not assuage his desires any. Winston realizes that the only change for defeating the Party is to get the Proles to launch a rebellion as they represent about eighty-five percent of the population and The Brotherhood does not hold enough clout, but the Proles are far too lazy, ambivalent, and unaware to care. Winston feels that if only the Proles could realize how strong they are then maybe they would care.

The Party actually does not police the Proles at all because they feel the Proles, being poor, are useless and unintelligent; not worth the effort of attempting to brainwash and not smart enough to rebel.

Winston is determined to learn the real history of Oceania as he expects that it is all fake though he has no way to prove his suspicions are correct as the entire history has been written by the Party. He remembers catching the Party in a lie once when he discovered a picture that proved some Party members who were accused of being in Eurasia and committing a crime against the Party were actually in New York at that time.

Unfortunately, Winston destroyed the picture out of his horror, rather than holding onto it for proof of the lies. In Winston’s mind his diary, the record of his thoughtcrimes, was written as though it was a letter to O’Brien whom Winston was convinced to be a member of the Brotherhood and ready for rebellion at any moment.

Winston longs for the day when he can tell it how he sees it and has the freedom to say what he feels as freedom of mind is real freedom to Winston as physical evidence can always be tampered with, but the mind cannot be controlled, despite the fact that the Party brainwashes everyone they rule over.

Later that day Winston takes a walk through the Prole district, envying the lies of the poor people who are not monitored and can do what they wish without fear of punishment. He sees an old man and thinks the old man is the key to solving the mystery about the past, but when he asks the old man what he can remember from the days before the Party ruled but his memory is not sharp enough to remember any details.

Winston knows that the Proles are the only ones who can remember the past, though they do not care enough to recall the details so the past is lost. Winston visits the secondhand shop owned by Mr. Charrington where he purchased his illegal diary. At the shop, Winston buys a paperweight with a coral center that he likes because it is totally useless and it is a link to the past though it cannot tell him anything.

Mr. Charrington brings Winston upstairs to the room he used to live in with his wife before she passed and Winston notices that there is no telescreen in this room but rather a poster of St. Clement’s church where the telescreen should be. Winston is intrigued by this room and wonders if there is any way he could rent it, so he could be alone and away from the telescreens.

On his way home, he notices someone in blue overalls (the uniform of the Party) following him and realizes it is the dark-haired girl from work, now convinced more than ever that she is stalking him. He thinks about killing her with the paperweight he just purchased but decides against it. When Winston finally makes it home later that night he is too exhausted to actually write in his journal, so he just jots down the Party slogans he heard that evening (“war is peace”, “freedom is slavery”, and “ignorance is strength”), and goes to bed.

Book Two

One morning when Winston is at work he heads to the bathroom and sees the dark-haired girl, with her arm in a sling, on his way. She falls, Winston helps her up, and she manages to pass him a note that says “I love you.”

Winston is mightily confused by this note as he has assumed the girl was a spy for the Thought Police, and now she is telling him that she loves him, which gives Winston a singularly intense desire to live for the first time. Winston avoids the girl for a couple of days but finally gets up the nerve to sit at the same table as her during lunch. In an effort to not be discovered Winston and the girl keep their heads down while they talk and they make plans to meet in Victory Square later that night where they can talk to one another because they will be hidden by the crowds.

In Victory Square, there is a commotion as Eurasian prisoners are being taunted by the masses and Winston and the girl get to speak briefly where she tells him to get on a train to the countryside the next Sunday to go somewhere they can be alone. Before they part company Winston, and the girl mange to hold hands for a moment without being seen.

Winston and the girl meet in the country, and Winston is extremely excited. He has no idea what he should think or expect, but he at least no longer thinks she is a spy for the Thought Police, but he does wonder if there may be microphones hidden in the bushes around them recording their voices.

The girl’s name is Julia, and she takes off her abstinence sash which arouses Winston, and they head into the woods where they have sex. Winston is pleased that sex is almost exactly like it was in his dream. When they are done Winston inquires as to whether Julia has done this before, and she says she has done it many times. Rather than being turned off by how many men Julia has been with Winston is excited by it because it means she is as rebellious against the Party as he is and there are many more people who are also rebellious and committing crimes. Winston and Julia stay overnight, and the next morning Julia plans their trip back to London.

Over the next few weeks, Winston and Julia meet several times in places they will not likely be discovered such as a dilapidated old church where Julia tells Winston about her first sexual encounter which happened when she was living in a hostel. Julia does not want to rebel as Winston does but simply wants to be able to enjoy herself, and so she does.

Julia thinks that the reason the Party prohibits sex is because they want to use the citizens’ sexual frustration to fuel their hatred for those opposed to the Party and to fuel their passion for Big Brother. Winston shares with Julia that he almost pushed his wife off a cliff when they were taking a walk one day, knowing that it would not have mattered whether he did or not because as they are ruled by the Party they are living in a lose-lose situation.

Winston has rented the room Mr. Charrington brought him to for him and Julia to meet in, though he is not sure if that was a smart decision. Outside the room, Winston notices a large woman hanging her laundry while she sings.

Winston and Julia have not been able to spend much time together because they have been making preparations for the Party’s Hate Week and also because Julia has had her period. Winston wishes that he and Julia could be like an old married couple, and have romance and sex all the time, though that cannot be the case while they are under Party rule.

When Julia arrives she brings coffee, bread, and sugar which are commodities they normally would not be able to obtain. As Julia puts on her makeup Winston is amazed at how beautiful and feminine she is, and he is turned on by it. Later that night while lying in bed Julia sees a rat in the room and Winston freaks out because he fears rats more than anything else in the world. 

Julia asks Winston about the paperweight, and he tells her that it represents the past for him, which is something he is profoundly interested in. While looking at the picture of St. Clement’s Church they begin to sing a song about it together and Julia says that someday she will clean the picture as it is quite dusty. Winston wishes that he and Julia could live inside the paperweight together.

Back at work Winston discovers that Syme has disappeared, as he knew would happen eventually. The people of Oceania become jubilant and energized with the preparations for Hate Week and the hot summer weather that is coming. Winston notices the Parsons family getting into the celebrations as Mr. Parsons hangs decorations and the kids sing a song that has been written in anticipation of the event that they call “Hate Song.”

Winston finds himself thinking about the room he rented from Mr. Charrington all the time, especially when he cannot be there in person with Julia. Winston hopes that someday it will be discovered that Katharine has died, so that he will be free to marry Julia, and have the romantic life he dreams of, or that he could somehow become a Prole so he can be free to live as he wishes. 

Winston tells Julia that he thinks O’Brien is a member of the Brotherhood and, to his disappointment Julia tells him that she believes the Brotherhood, along with its leader Emmanuel Goldstein, is an invention of the Party in an effort to create an enemy for the public to hate. Winston tells Julia that she is not a real rebel she is only interested in rebelling sexually. To Winston’s joy, O’Brien contacts him and asks Winston to meet with him at his home one evening where he can show him a copy of the Newspeak dictionary.

Winston believes that his rebellious dreams are coming true at last though he fears that he will be caught and end up in the Ministry of Love which will likely be the last place he ever visits.

One morning after Winston and Julia have spent the night in the room they rented from Mr. Charrington Winston wakes up in tears. He tells Julia that he just had a dream about his mother that made him remember a lot of things about his past that reassured him that he did not murder his mother, which he had always suspected. He remembered that he, his mother and sister were forced to travel around the underground to keep away from air raids and were constantly starving and in search of food, and they were without Winston’s father because he had left them. 

One day Winston stole some chocolate from them because he was so hungry he could not help himself and then he ran away, never to see them again. Winston immediately despises the Party when he realizes the reason these emotions were suppressed for so long is because the Party did not allow its people to think for themselves or to have human emotions.

Winston envies the Proles whom he believes still have human emotions, knowing that he and Julia are essentially inhuman because they cannot express themselves without being persecuted. Winston and Julia know that they run the risk of being caught by seeing one another at all but especially because they are renting a room, and they know that if they are caught it will mean their lives, or at least their sanity. 

Winston and Julia promise one another that they will still be in love no matter how much they are tortured. They know that they should abandon their affair, and never use the room again, but they cannot drag themselves away.

Winston has to go meet with O’Brien and Julia decides to go with him. When they reach his house they are shocked to see him just turn off his telescreen and Winston finally feels he can speak freely as he is not being watched anymore. Winston tells O’Brien that he and Julia are against the Party and have every intention of joining The Brotherhood, if it exists. O’Brien confirms the existence of The Brotherhood as well as its founder and leader, Emmanuel Goldstein, and tells Winston that he will give him a copy of the resistance manifesto that has been written by Goldstein. 

O’Brien teaches Winston and Julia the song of The Brotherhood which will initiate them into the movement and serves them wine which Winston dedicates to the past. As they are getting ready to leave O’Brien says he and Winston will probably see each other again someday, and Winston inquires as to whether O’Brien means in “the place where there is no darkness”. O’Brien repeats this statement, teaches O’Brien and Julia the rest of the poem about St. Clement’s Church, and bids them farewell. As they leave, O’Brien turns his screen back on and gets back to work as though he never missed a beat.

Winston has worked ninety hours in the week leading up to Hate Week and is utterly exhausted though he is not done working because the Party decides that it is going to change allegiances, and enemies of the ongoing war and Winston must change history yet again.

The official position is that Oceania is not, and has never been, at war with Eurasia, and that, in fact, the war has been with Eastasia the entire time. One representative has to change his speech in the middle, and the people holding anti-Eurasia signs feel terrible that they have been holding the wrong signs the whole time, convinced they have been set up by The Brotherhood, and thus they immediately dislike Eastasia.

Winston settles into the room he and Julia are renting and begins reading The Brotherhood manifesto that O’Brien gave him. Winston is delighted to see that the manifesto gives a history of Oceania, how it was created, why there is a constant state of war, and why the upper class continues and will always continue ruling. 

Julia comes into the room and launches herself into Winston’s arms, and the two of them have sex while they listen to the woman with red arms singing. After they are done, Winston reads aloud from the book about how the Inner Party knows the truth to their histories but trades it in for the made-up version. Julia falls asleep while Winston is reading and he follows soon after.

The next morning Winston and Julia lay in bed while the red armed woman sings and think about how the Proles hold much more power than they know if only they would use it. Together Winston and Julia say “We are the dead” and they hear a voice from behind the picture of St. Clement’s say “You are the dead”, as they realize the telescreen was hidden behind the picture the whole time.

Winston and Julia hear stomping and realize they are surrounded while from the telescreen they hear someone recite the last lines to the St. Clement’s poem. In the scuffle, the paperweight is broken, and Winston is overcome by how small it seems as he and Julia are beaten. Winston realizes that Mr. Charrington is the one who is speaking from the telescreen, and he has been a member of the Thought Police all along.

Book Three

Winston notices that he is in the place where he and O’Brien were going to meet again – the place where there is no darkness. He sees that there are lights on all around him that never turn off, and he is surrounded by four telescreens to ensure that he is watched all the time and from every angle. Before he was brought to this room Winston had been in a room with a bunch of other people including a heavy-set woman whose last name is also Smith, and she wonders if perhaps Winston could be her son.

While alone Winston thinks about being tortured and beaten, and wonders if he can keep his promise to Julia under such intense stress and pain. There is another man in the cell with Winston who is imprisoned for not omitting the word “God” from a translation and he is soon taken out of the cell to be taken to Room 101, the dreaded room where unthinkable terror occurs.

Winston is also accompanied by his neighbor, Parsons, who was turned in by his own kids for thoughtcrime. Winston wishes he would just die before he can be tortured and hopes that The Brotherhood will know he is there and send him something sharp, like a razorblade, to slit his wrists. He realizes this will never happen when O’Brien comes in the room.

At first Winston thinks that O’Brien has been arrested as well, but he soon understands that O’Brien is not a member of The Brotherhood at all but a worker from the Ministry of Love, where Winston is now being held. O’Brien points out that Winston knew who O’Brien worked for the whole time, but Winston was too entranced in his own wishful thinking to suspect him. When a guard crushes Winston’s elbow he fears that he will not be heroic as he promised Julia for no one can be heroic when they are being tortured.

O’Brien stays in the cell the entire time Winston is being beaten and tortured until Winston agrees with everything O’Brien tells him no matter how untrue and ridiculous it is. O’Brien says that Winston was arrested for refusing to believe the truth as the Party presented it and trying to mess with his own memories and the past.

When Winston agrees with O’Brien’s nonsense the torture stops, so Winston agrees with him in whatever he says, and even begins to love him because O’Brien brings a break from the constant pain Winston is subjected to. O’Brien tells Winston that he is being tortured to cure him of the insanity that is going on in his brain.

O’Brien states that the Party has managed to accomplish what no other regimes in history have been able to accomplish; they have not only eliminated all enemies, but eliminated the memory of them completely to make it seem as though they never even existed.

Winston slowly embraces O’Brien’s version of events and realizes that it is not that hard to practice doublethinking, or knowing something to be true but disregarding it and believing an entirely different scenario instead. Because Winston is cooperating O’Brien answers some questions for him including what had happened to Julia, and Winston discovers that Julia had rolled over on him immediately and sold him out. O’Brien also tells Winston that he does not exist; he will never know the truth about The Brotherhood, and everyone in Oceania knows what awaits him in Room 101, so it is silly to even ask.

Winston is tortured and tormented for weeks, and O’Brien agrees to answer some questions for him throughout. O’Brien admits that all the Party wants is total and complete power of everything and everyone, and Winston tells him that they cannot change the universe and the stars in the sky, so they cannot control everything. O’Brien reminds him that they control every human’s brain so they can control any aspect of the world they want to, as the brain’s perception of reality is in fact reality. 

When Winston sees his reflection in the mirror he is wholly taken aback as he looks remarkably gaunt and colorless and tells O’Brien it is his entire fault, though Winston knows, and O’Brien points out, that Winston knew where he would end up when he started to write in his illegal diary. O’Brien compliments Winston’s strength in not betraying Julia even though she betrayed him and Winston is overwhelmed with a love for O’Brien for noticing. O’Brien tells Winston that pretty soon he will be cured from his insanity and all will be well again though it does not matter because everyone is shot eventually anyway.

Winston is brought to a better room where he is tortured much less and is more comfortable. He begins to gain weight and tries to force himself to believe in the Party slogans so he writes them over and over again trying to drill them into his mind. He is making substantial progress though one day he slips and starts to scream Julia’s named at the top of his lungs over and over again which surprises and terrifies him. He knows that he will be tortured incessantly for this outburst, but he does it anyway. He realizes that he made a mistake in going against the Party alone as he should have waited until he had a group gathered together. He still hates the Party with a passion and wants everyone to know when they kill him that he hates Big Brother.

Winston tells O’Brien how much he hates Big Brother, and O’Brien tells Winston that it does not matter if he follows Big Brother’s rules if he hates him, he must love him, as well. O’Brien then tells the guards to take Winston to Room 101.

When Winston arrives in Room 101, he has his head strapped down to the chair, which is ominous given the reputation of the room. O’Brien informs Winston that Room 101 will be terrifying, and it is here that he will greet his biggest fears. Winston’s worst dream involves being trapped in a room in the dark with something awful waiting on the other side of the wall and tells him that, in this particular room, there are rats on the other side of the wall, which is Winston’s biggest fear.

O’Brien shows Winston a cage full of rats and sets it next to him letting him know that when he presses a button the rats will be freed from the cage and will eat Winston’s face. Winston is overcome with fear and cracks under the pressure. Winston tells O’Brien that he wants Julia to have to deal with the rats, rather than him, and O’Brien is happy that he has finally depleted Winston’s strength and takes the rats away.

Winston is free from the Ministry of Love and is sitting in the Chestnut Tree Café which is where everyone who is no longer a member of the Party spends their time. Winston is totally reformed and believes every single thing the Party tells him now. He drinks some Victory Gin as he watches the telescreen and he listens to a song playing in the background while he traces the slogan “2+2=5” in the dust on the counter. He saw Julia one time after he got out of Room 101 and realized that he was not attracted to her at all anymore, and she did not seem to be attracted to him either though they did agree to meet sometime.

Winston is now repulsed at the idea of having sex with her. Winston cries as he listens to the song and he thinks that he remembers a time he was happy with his family though he figures that must have just been a dream because it cannot be a real memory. As Winston sees Big Brother’s face on the telescreen he is overwhelmed with a feeling of contentment, safety, and love.

 Appendix

The appendix serves as an explanation of Newspeak, the official language of Oceania. Newspeak was slated to be recognized as an official language by the year 2050 and would make the ideal of Ingsoc the only acceptable forms of thought or expression. Ingsoc is Newspeak for English Socialism, which is the totalitarian government Oceania practices.

Newspeak does not include any negative terms at all, therefore, thinking or expressing rebellious notions is impossible so there will be no chance of the Party being overthrown or challenged. There are three different sections of vocabulary known as “A”, “B”, and “C,” and there are no parts of speech, so any word can be used in any tense.

The “A” section handles everyday words such as “eating” and “walking” while the “B” section contains all political and ideological words that pertain to the government, such as “goodthink”, “thoughtcrime”, and “doublethink.”

In the “B” section, there are only words that are compound and completely made up into shortened versions of existing concepts, for example, “miniluv” is the Ministry of Love.

The “C” section of vocabulary contains science words though there is no exact word for science as “Ingsoc” is the closest comprehensive word anyone can use. There is no way for anyone to become too intelligent to the point that they can gain any sort of power. Newspeak makes it virtually impossible to translate anything into the language, such as the Declaration of Independence which is only known as “crimespeak”. As there are many technical manuals that will have to be translated, eventually Newspeak will not become an official language until 2050.