Chapter 6

Chapter 6 begins with Winston recalling events that happened years ago, to write in his diary. Although it was illegal to interact with a prostitute, Winston did so anyways. Remembering this experience also brought to mind his wife, Katharine. They had been separated for several years by this time, but they were still married, as divorce was forbidden for Party members.

He also thinks about how the Party is attempting to kill the human sex drive, as it can be one of the greatest factors in some relationships. The Party, in trying to eliminate loyalties to others than itself, tries to control the sexual desires of the People. The only reason to have sex, according to the party, was as a duty, to create more Party-following people.

Chapter 7

The Proles (the people who were not members of the Party), Winston thought, could potentially have great power in overthrowing the Party. They had great numbers (about 85% of the total population, or so Winston thought), and they were largely unpoliced. They were seen by the Party Leaders as uneducated, uncivilized, and “natural inferiors, who must be kept in subjugation, like animals.” (page 74) In this way, they were simply allowed to do as they please, as long as they kept a sense of “primitive patriotism” and continued to work and breed.

According to the Party, the Proles had been liberated from the horrors of Capitalism (eg. the child workers in the factories of London, the Capitalists who exploited their workers, etc.) However we may know these things to be true, Winston had no way of proving it, as it could have just as easily been made up by Minitrue.

Chapter 8

Winston decides to confirm what he had been thinking, about Capitalism and its horrors. He goes among one of the Prole neighbourhoods in London, and to a pub. He offers a drink of beer to an elderly man, and begins to ask questions about what London was really like before the Revolution, though he gets no useful answers.

Feeling let down, Winston leaves the pub and begins to wander the streets until he suddenly became aware of where he was: at the antiques shop where he bought the journal. After admiring a glass paperweight, he buys it for $4. The shopkeeper, aware of Winston’s fascination with antiques, takes him upstairs to a room in which he formerly lived with his wife.

Winston soon becomes aware of the fact that the room has no telescreen. He thinks of renting this room out for a few dollars a week, but immediately dismisses the idea, as that would be seen as even more suspicious than visiting a Prole pub and antique shop.

Upon leaving the shop, Winston sees a Party member in the otherwise empty street. Fearful that she was a spy, assigned to watch him, he walks quickly in the other direction until he reaches his flat, where he mentally prepares himself to be taken away in the night by the thought police.

Chapter 3 of 1984 begins by Winston dreaming of how his mother and sister had perished. The details are not clear, although Winston does have a notion that they died as a sacrifice, so that he would not have. He then dreams of what he calls the “Golden Valley,” a place very different to his surroundings. It has lush green grass, rolling hills, and trees. While in this Golden Valley, he encounters a dark haired girl who, as they walk nearer to each other, casts off her clothing. Winston is not interested in what is newly exposed to him, however interested in the motion itself. He imagines this as the casting off of the oppression of Big Brother and the Party with one swift motion.

He wakes upon the production of a high pitched noise from his telescreen. After suffering through the mandatory Physical Jerks (an exercise program), he heads off to work, where he finds 4 memos on his desk. They all instruct him to rewrite either past editions of  the Times, the official newspaper, statements of the other Ministries, or even of Big Brother himself. In one such revision, Winston is told to rewrite an entire front page article, Big Brother’s Order of the Day, from a year earlier, as it makes mention of some unpersons, or people who have gone missing under suspicious circumstances, and so are deemed to never have existed. He then invents a story of a Comrade Ogilvy, a dedicated soldier and follower of Ingsoc (the ideology of the Party).

Winston finds it scary and disturbing that he can simply rewrite history this easily. He can create a person out of thin air, as if they had actually existed and served under Big Brother in the war against Eurasia. Four years earlier, Oceania had been at war with Eastasia, but allied with Eurasia. However, as the opposite is now the truth, it is considered to be that for all of history, Oceania and Eurasia have been at war.

Figures can be “corrected,” so that production targets can be exceeded; Big Brother’s predictions can be made true by rectifying the “misquote” of his original prediction.

In chapter 5, Winston goes to lunch in the canteen, and meets a co-worker who is working on Newspeak.

Newspeak, the government’s new language for its people, is English, except curated, compacted, and flattened. They remove so many words that abstract thought becomes impossible if your only language is Newspeak. It would, if fully implemented, remove the very idea of thoughtcrime, as nobody would even know how to think about defying Big Brother.

I think that it’s a good thing we have insight into the Ministry of Truth, as it certainly seems like the most interesting of the four (followed closely by Love). I hope that at some point during the story, we will get some perspective into Miniluv as well.

Over the next little while, for iHub Reads, I will be posting about the novel 1984 by George Orwell, as it is my subject for the study.

In the first two chapters, the main character, Winston Smith, is introduced, along with his surroundings.

Winston, lives in London, Airstrip One, Oceania (what is now London, England), and lives in an old, drafty Victorian rowhouse. He works for the Ministry of Truth, the government’s propaganda department.

The government is figureheaded, if not run, by somebody called “Big Brother.” He seems to be respected and revered by the people, while simultaneously being feared as the person who is always “watching.”

The government is made up of four ministries, namely that of Truth (Minitrue in Newspeak), responsible for literature, education, the news, and entertainment (all propaganda); that of Love (Minilux), which administers justice and presumably carries out the state’s torture methods on prisoners and criminals; the Ministry of Peace (Minipax), which is made up of the Military and its support staff; and the Ministry of Plenty (Miniplenty), which issues the rations (and so starves people in the process).

The names of these ministries are ironic, and play to Orwell’s idea of doublespeak, where the government attempts to confuse these concepts, which we consider opposites, in the minds of the people. This is further exemplified in the motto of Oceania, “War is Peace, Freedom is Slavery, Ignorance is Strength.”

Big Brother, and the Ministry of Love, monitor the people using telescreens, which are equipped with sound and video transmission systems and play state propaganda constantly.

It is mandatory for Winston, and at least his coworkers at the Ministry (if not everyone else), to take part daily in a Two Minutes Hate, wherein they watch a propaganda video, usually directed towards Emmanuel Goldstien, who was formerly very high up in the Party, “perhaps even in the Brotherhood,” before betraying the Party by publishing a book denouncing the Party and promptly fleeing the country.

Winston, however, demonstrates resistance to the authoritarianism of the government by purchasing a journal (books are a very rare item in Oceania) and pen (equally as rare), and commits thoughtcrimes: outward expression of discontent with Big Brother, the Party, or the Government. He wrote “DOWN WITH BIG BROTHER” repeatedly down a page while not even thinking about it. However, this last detail is irrelevant to the Ministry of Love, as even talking in one’s sleep could constitute a thoughtcrime.

I have enjoyed reading the beginning of this book, and look forward to reading further into what is turning out to be a very interesting novel.