1. 1984
In Class Notes
Part 1
Ms. Ramirez Cruz

2. Main Character
• Winston Smith is introduced as a frail 39
year old man with a varicose ulcer
• He is malnourished – food is rationed
• He drinks the cheap “Victory Gin” and
smokes
• Although he is extremely fearful and
paranoid of the party when the novel
begins he takes a brave step and rebels
by beginning a diary

3. Setting
• 1984 takes place in the dark, bleak world of
Airstrip One (London) in the fictional empire
of Oceania
• Airstrip One is in a constant state of war with
Eurasia or Eastasia
• The enemy changes from time to time and
the previous enemy must be forgotten
• The city is in shambles with several bomb
sites, shacks and poorly maintained buildings
• Above the city loom the ministry buildings:
Minitrue, Miniluv, Miniplenty, and Minpax

4. Ministries
• The Ministries are the official agencies that control the
government
• Their names are paradoxes:
• Minitruth – Ministry of Truth - Winston’s place of
employment is in charge of recreating and rewriting
events and history
• Minpax – Ministry of Peace – in charge of matters of
war
• Miniplenty – Ministry of Plenty – in charge of rationing
food and products – dealing in “with starvation”
• Miniluv – Ministry of Love – in charge of torturing
opponents of the Big Brother

5. Setting
• Air Strip One is ruled by a tyrannical
government that relentlessly monitors and
controls every move of it’s citizens through
surveillance and telescreens
• Winston must watch even his facial
expressions from the telescreens
• The “leader” of the party is the ever present
“Big Bother” or BB
• His mustaged image can be seen
everywhere with the caption: “Big Brother is
Watching”

6. The Party Slogans
• WAR IS PEACE
• FREEDOM IS SLAVERY
• IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH

7. Newspeak
• Newspeak is the official language of Oceania
• Devised to meet the ideological needs of
Ingsoc – English Socialism - the political
ideology that governs Oceania
• Vocabulary decreases each year and it is
dedicated to the “destruction of words”
• It was created so it would not be possible to
think a dissenting thought and ultimately
eliminate thoughtcrime

8. Newspeak Terms
• Doublethink – the power to hold two
completely contradictory beliefs in one’s mind
simultaneously and accept them both
• Thoughtcrime – to even consider a thought
not in line with the principals of the party
• Thought Police – police force in charge of
eliminating thoughtcrime, they monitor
everything
• Prole – Proletarians – 85% of Oceania’s
population – were viewed as animals –
“Animals and proles are free”

9. Newspeak Terms
• facecrime – to wear an improper expression on
your face that might demonstrate nonconformity
with Big Brother
• Two minute hate – daily propaganda telescreen
specials which all citizens must participate in -
they show terrible images and loud noises – hate
is directed towards enemy and Goldstein (enemy
of the people) former party leader that betrayed
BB and formed the Brotherhood – an underground
network of conspirators dedicated to overthrowing
the state

10. Winston’s Job
• Winston works for Minitrue
• His job is rewrite history by rewriting articles
and news stories to realign them with the
message of Big Brother
• He enjoys his work because he can “lose”
himself in it
• He uses three orifices: speakwrite, a
pneumatic tube, and memory holes
• Memory hole is a paradox – they are used to
destroy evidence thus eliminate proof and
memory

11. Comrade Ogilvy
• In order to replace the disgrace of Comrade
Withers who most likely has now been
vaporized Winston creates Ogilvy
• Ogilvy is the epitome of a party member
• He sacrifices all personality, privacy, family all
sense of “self” for the sake to the party
• This is ironic
• By creating Ogilvy Winston is actually
mocking the ideals of the party someone like
Ogilvy could not possibly exist

12. Winston
• When Winston begins writing in his diary
at first he can’t even remember what he
wanted to say
• After the descriptions of the film and the
two minute hate he writes:
• DOWN WITH BIG BROTHER! several
times

13. Winston
• Is seemingly different from the other party
members
• He still shows empathy and emotion
• The movie scene
• He sees hope in the proles to overthrow the state
• He takes the step of rebelling by writing in the
dairy although he knows it will bring about his
doom
• “Thoughtcrime does not entail death: thoughtcrime
IS death”

14. Winston
• He longs for human connection
• Feels deep resentment and hatred
towards the party for creating his state of
isolation
• Isolation = Death
• He ends his marriage to Katherine
because of its lack of intimacy – sex was
for procreation – “Duty to the party”

15. Winston’s Quest for Connection
• His writing in the journal is the first step to connect
to his consciousness
• In his encounter with the prostitute – at first she is
more human and real – “party women never paint
their faces”
• Her perfume smells of “fornication” – lust, human
desire
• The encounter fails – it is really an encounter with
death
• Basement – underground
• The woman is death – white face, white hair, no
teeth, mouth is “cavernous blackness”

16. Winston’s Quest for Connection
• He hates the party for killing human
connection and intimacy – humanity
• Hatred for women
• Katharine his wife
• The girl with the dark hair – his desire for
her is manifest in his hatred for her –
wants to hill her – Junior – Anti – Sex
League

17. Winston’s Quest for Connection
• Winston believes that O’Brian is a member of
“the Brotherhood”
• A brief glance at the two minute hate
• After he writes in his diary he begins to
dream
• Emotions have been awakened
• Dreams of O’Brien – “We will meet at the
place where there is no darkness”
• Light=Knowledge – awakening

18. • Dreams about his mother and sister –
feels guilt – they died for me
• Dreams about the girl with the dark hair –
the act of her flinging her clothes is
rebellion
• She can destroy an entire era

19. Intimacy and Thought are Rebellion
• His thoughts about O’Brian
• His memories of the past
• The dark haired girl’s clothes in the dream
• Once he had proof of an act of falsification
• At work he had seen a Times article that put
Jones, Aaronson and Rutherford at a party
meeting in New York. During the trials they had
confessed to being in Eurasia conspiring with the
enemy
• “Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two
make four. If that is granted, all else follows.”

20. Winston Longs for the Past
• He feels frustrated that he can’t prove
anything that went on in the past
• This is ironic since it is his job to rewrite
the past
• When finds himself at the antique shop
where he purchased the diary
• Mr. Charrington shows him a room above
the shop

21. The Room Above the Antique Shop
• “There’s no telescreen!” – privacy
• The room is a connection to the past
• Comforting, antique furniture
• “We lived here till my wife died” – a real
couple lived here – love and intimacy
existed in this room

22. The Room Above the Antique Shop
• This is a holy place
• The picture of St Clement’s Church hangs
on the wall
• Finds out from Charrington that it still
exists
• Charrington teaches him the old rhyme
• “Oranges and lemons say the bells of St.
Clement’s”