1984 Objectives - 2

15. Discuss the meaning of room 101. It represents isolation, because you must be separated from your peers in order to be interrogated. This emphasizes the psychological part of the torture and makes you feel as though you are completely alone in the world which, at that point, you are. It also represents the abuse of power. People are brutally tortured, even when they have maybe done nothing wrong. It also shows just how far the Party can get inside your head, because they know your thoughts and know what your deepest fear is, the thing you could not mentally escape even if you wanted to. It represents dehumanization as a method of control because the people who are taken there are not given baths or food, are beaten and broken until they don’t even resemble people. Supposedly everybody knows what is in room 101, because it is the deepest fear within themselves, but that changes for every person. Room 101 is the place where they completely break you down and then build you up into the loyal party member that you were meant to be, before killing you.

18. Discuss the three movements in the book and summarize what happens in each.
• Part One: this is basically a description of the society. Since it is so different from our own (or anything we have ever known) Orwell had to take a while to set it up, otherwise we would not understand the rest of the book. We learn the ideals of the Party, the principals of Ingsoc, the Party slogans, and all about Big Brother. The first part also introduces us to some important characters, and how Winston views them.
• Part Two: Winston and Julia meet and immediately begin an illicit relationship. It starts with Julia passing Winston a note that says, “I love you” (though they have never spoken before). This is the inciting event of the book. They use their relationship as a form of rebellion against the Party. They continue meeting upstairs in Mr. Charrington’s shop, where they think they are alone. They discuss the Brotherhood, which Winston wants to join (and Julia is indifferent to). Finally, Wisnton gets a message from O’Brien. Julia and Winston go visit O’Brien, where O’Brien tells them about the Brotherhood and Goldstein’s book. Winston then receives said book and reads it, where he finds out that the book says nothing he didn’t know. Winston and Julia are captured in the upstairs room, where they find that a telescreen has been hiding behind a picture. They are taken away.
• Part Three: Winston is in the Ministry of Love, in a cell with many other people and no food. This cell is where he finds out that O’Brien is actually thought police. He is then taken away to be tortured. He is psychologically and physically tortured for a long time, though we don’t know specifics. O’Brien is the chief perpetrator of the torture, and asks Winston questions. He also tells Winston things about the society, and the purpose of the torture, which is to “rehabilitate” wayward individuals. Then Winston is brought to Room 101, where he is asked to face his biggest fear, rats, or completely surrender himself. He does, and betrays Julia as a result. He is then let go, where he lives for a little while at the Chestnut Tree Café. He sees Julia, but there is no feeling anymore, and they both confess that they betrayed each other. At the end, Winston gives up all hope and realizes that he loves Big Brother.

1984 Objectives

3. Be able to explain the significance of the following themes:
• The meaning of freedom: freedom is slavery. There are no laws, so technically everybody is free, but nobody is because they don’t know what is allowed and what is not. Big Brother controls everything, without acknowledging that they control anything really. The Proles are both freer and less free than the upper class. They are freer because they aren’t subjected to the same rules as the Party members. However, they are less free because they do not have the ability to think for themselves.
• The responsibility of the individual in society: They have the responsibility to uphold the properties of doublethink and newspeak. Their only responsibility is to do what they are told by the Party, and to be loyal. They are supposed to totally surrender their mind, individuality, and identity to the Party.
• Dehumanization as a method of control: Once you take away a person’s humanity, they are just animals. Animals can’t think for themselves, are easier to control, and easier to kill because they are viewed as inferior. They make everybody the same and give them a pack mentality, removing all connections between people. They take away emotions and the other things that make us inherently human.
• Isolation: The Party removes all connections between people, emotional anyway. They are expected to be connected to the Party and only to the Party. Sex is not against the law, just frowned upon, but is overlooked as long is there is no emotional connection.
• Social class disparity: The Proles have to work 14-hour days at manual labor. The Party members don’t, but they have to swear complete allegiance and are watched more fervently than the Proles. The Party members are the upper class. The Inner Party has even more privileges than the Outer Party. The Proles are not educated in order that they can’t organize an uprising. This disparity is used to keep the system in control and keep the people separate in order to exert more power over them.
• The abuse of power: People are always being watched, all the time, everywhere by the telescreens. The three major states are constantly at war with one another to keep a system of checks and balances and to control the general populace. If you break a rule, you are taken to the Ministry of Love and tortured until you admit to things you didn’t even do, and are killed once you are completely rehabilitated. They bomb their own countries in order to keep the people afraid. They focus their hatred on one enemy at a time to unify the people for the goals of the Party.
4. Define dystopia and apply it to the novel: A dystopia is a place where everything is inherently bad, and is typically totalitarian. The Party claim to have a utopia built on power, but it can’t be a utopia if it is built on social classes and controlling the masses. They are actually striving for a dystopia, because they will not repeat the “mistakes” of past governments. They want power purely for power, and they are no afraid to admit it. This book clearly portrays a dystopia because of the disparity between social classes, the isolation of people from one another, the complete and total control exerted by the government, and the conditions in which people are forced to live.
7. Examine the following symbols:
Big brother: Big Brother does not exist as a person, he is an ideal, representative of everything the Party stands for. He is the figurehead and face of the Party, so the people have something to direct their love, loyalty, and devotion toward.
The party slogans: Freedom is slavery, war is peace, and ignorance is strength. Freedom is slavery: the Party believes that to be an individual is to be a slave because the individual always dies, while the machine lives on. War is peace: they use war as a way to keep their country peaceful and under control because it focuses the hatred outside of themselves, on a common enemy. Ignorance is strength: If you don’t know much, then you don’t know just how much you don’t know. If you are ignorant, you won’t be aware of how helpless you are.
The four ministries: Ministries of peace, love, truth, and plenty. The names are all ironic, because they are the opposite of what they do. Ministry of peace is concerned with war. The ministry of love is concerned with law and order, and they torture people who break the laws. The ministry of truth deals with the media and propaganda, and changing the past. The ministry of plenty is concerned with rationing food which doesn’t need to be rationed. The backwards names are a symbol of the society itself being backwards, and represent doublethink.
The paperweight: it represented Winston and Julia’s relationship, and then it breaks. It is their own little world that they have created (outside the Party’s control), which is infiltrated when the paperweight is broken. It also represents the isolation of people, because Winston relates his world to a paperweight that is surrounded by glass and can’t be touched by the outside.
The golden country: it represents utopia, a place that is the opposite from the society that the Party has created. It is Winston’s escape from the world.
Emmanuel Goldstein: he, like Big Brother, does not exist. He is the common enemy created by the Party to embody everything that is “bad”. The masses are supposed to hate him, and most do, but he is still a beacon of hope to others.
James, Aaronson, Rutherford: they represent the abuse of power. They prove that the Party controls every aspect of life, even the lives of those who have really done nothing wrong. The Party can do anything they want to you because, when they accuse you of something, the masses will usually believe them. They will torture you until you believe them too.
Chestnut Tree Café: this café is a place where everybody who has been “rehabilitated” goes to drink away their thoughts and memories. They go there to live their non-lives as shells of people who are just ghosts of their former beings. They go there to await death. It also represents room 101 and the torture they endured there.
Doublethink: the ability to know that two opposite things are true, and believe only one of them. This also represents the abuse of power because the Party can change the past and the people no choice but to believe it.
Newspeak Dictionary: Newspeak represents the abuse of power and dehumanization and isolation because the Party takes away your ability to express your thoughts and ideas through taking away your vocabulary. If you cannot talk to another person, you cannot connect with them.
Winston’s diary: Winston writes in his diary because he needs an escape from the society in which he has been forced to live. He needs a way to express his feelings against Big Brother and the Party because nobody is allowed to express themselves in this world. This relates back to the themes of isolation and the meaning of freedom. He is not even supposed to be writing in a diary and, as a result, he feels guilty and has to be secretive about it, even though he is just writing down his personal thoughts.
Junkshop: this represents most of the themes. It represents the meaning of freedom because Julia and Winston feel as though they are free there, even though they really aren’t. It represents the responsibility of the individual in society because Mr. Charrington is actually thought police, even though Winston thinks that he is one person who Winston can trust. It represents isolation because Julia and Winston have to sequester themselves off in a random corner room just to be together. It represents social class disparity because of the interactions Winston has with the Prole woman while there. Also because Julia first applies makeup there, which is something that only Prole women do. She also buys food on the black market, food that only the inner party has. It represents abuse of power because Charrington is secretly thought police, and he abuses Winston’s trust.
Songs: this definitely represents social class disparity and isolation. It represents social class disparity because the Proles sing sad songs and songs with lyrics that they don’t really know what they are about. They apply their own meaning to them because they have had hard lives. It also represents isolation in that nobody actually creates music anymore. It is all created on a machine and done so in a way that does not sound like real music. Even then, the songs of the Prole woman and of the thrush bird show that there can still be emotion, beauty, and hope in the world. At the Chestnut Tree Café, the song that plays serves to remind people of what they endured in the Ministry of Love, and makes them realize that they are totally and completely alone.
Proles: THESE represent all of the themes. Meaning of freedom: the Proles could be considered freer than Party members because they are allowed to do basically whatever they want. They could also be considered less free because they don’t really have thoughts of their own, or the ability to think for themselves. Responsibility of the individual in society: the Prole’s responsibility in society is to work and produce more Prole babies. They are expected to be loyal to a fault and not question anything. Dehumanization as a method of control: the Proles are seen as less than people. They are pawns to be used for the Party’s gains, and nothing else. Isolation: the Proles are isolated from the rest of society and from the government. The only people that the Proles aren’t isolated from is each other. Social class disparity: this one should be obvious. The Proles are the under class, who don’t get and education, rarely have enough to eat, and live in poverty. Abuse of power: the Proles are kept unintelligent in order to be controlled more easily. They don’t even know that they could rebel if they wanted to.
10. Describe the setting. It is 1984, we think. The world is in a state of duress and it is a dystopian society. It is a world run by three major superstates, who rule with an iron fist and are interested in nothing but power. Everything is dirty and everything is rationed even though it doesn’t have to be. Winston’s story takes place in Oceania, which used to be England (and a larger chunk of Europe). There are telescreens and posters of Big Brother everywhere, always watching you. There is no privacy anywhere.

1984 Book Three

Book Three: Chapter One

1. 1. Winston does not know for sure where he is. He is in a cell, which has a toilet and a narrow bench lining the walls, with no windows. He thinks that he is probably in the Ministry of Love. He has not been tortured yet, not really. He is not given any food or anything to drink. He is tired and feels sick and alone. This is all used as a tool to break him down before the real torture begins.
2. 2. Ampleforth is there because he did not change the word God in a poem, but left it there because there were no rhymes. Parsons is there because his daughter denounced him for thoughtcrime because he was yelling things against Big Brother in his sleep. O' Brien is there because he is Thought Police.
3. 3. The starving man is sitting there all pathetic, so the chinless man feels guilty. He goes over and tries to give the starving man a crust of bread, but the telescreen stops him. Later, when the starving man is being taken away, he tries to persuade them to take the chinless man instead.
4. 4. He gets hysterical at the sound of these words. He begs and pleads and throws himself on the floor. He offers to do anything, say anything, and betray anyone as long as he does not have to go to Room 101.
5. 5. O'Brien, like Charrington, is Thought Police. They were both people that Winston thought he could trust, who eventually betrayed him in the end.

Book Three: Chapter Two

1. 1. Winston is tortured, both physically and psychologically. He is starved and beaten and humiliated. He is subject to any ill treatment they throw at him.
2. 2. He is attempting to teach him to fear and revere the party. He wants Winston to know that everything the party says or does is correct, no matter what Winston thinks. He wants to teach Winston that reality only exists in the human mind.
3. 3. He thinks that the party has total power. This is because they leave no martyrs. They make people completely surrender to the way of thinking of the party before they kill them, so not even a rebellious thought exists.
4. 4. It makes him forget himself. It makes him so confused that he actually believes the lies O’Brien is feeding him, or is at least willing to.
5. 5. Winston wants to know what has been done with Julia, to which O’Brien replies that they tortured her and she gave up Winston immediately and without reserve. Winston asks many metaphysical questions about whether or not Big Brother exists, and O’Brien is very rigid on the point that BB exists and that it doesn’t matter in what sense, because BB will never die. Winston wants to know whether the Brotherhood exists, and he is informed that he will live out his entire life not knowing the answer to that question. Last, Winston wants to know what is in room 101. O’Brien tells him that he already knows, that everyone knows what is in room 101.

Book Three: Chapter Three

1. 1. There is learning, understanding, and acceptance. Winston is about to enter the understanding phase.
2. 2. O’Brien collaborated in writing the book, which means the party wrote it. Everything in there is true, but all of it is things that anyone who would read the book would already know.
3. 3. The Inner Party seeks power purely to have power, and for no other reason. The Soviet Communists and the Nazis sought power to help the people, or at least under that guise.
4. 4. If you are free, you really cannot know what is real and what is fake, because reality exists within the human mind and is created by the party. You have to merge yourself with the party because the individual always dies. Only through complete and utter submission to a larger being can you succeed.
5. 5. A person asserts their power over another person by making them suffer; through pain, humiliation, and torture.
6. 6. Oceania will differ from other utopias because it is, in fact, a dystopia. It is a world of fear, treachery, betrayal, pain, and suffering. It is a world where the government has absolute power and the individual ceases to exist. The Party will eradicate anything that is not useful to them.
7. 7. Winston thinks he is morally superior to people like O’Brien because he still has his humanity, and does not create suffering and cruelty in the world. O’Brien proves Winston wrong by playing back a tape of the night when Winston thought he was joining the Brotherhood. Here, Winston can hear himself agreeing to spread STDs, lie, steal, murder, throw vitriol in the face of children, and any other number of awful things.
8. 8. Winston’s own physical appearance breaks him down mentally. It makes him realize that the men around him (and the Party as a whole) have complete power over him and that he is utterly helpless to resist.
9. 9. Winston can say that he has not betrayed Julia.
10. 10. Winston loves O’Brien, despite the fact that he is the one orchestrating Winston’s torture. Winston feels as though O’Brien is a person who can be talked to.
11. 11. Winston wants to know how long he has until he is shot.

Book Three: Chapter Four

1. 1. Winston is now in a nicer cell. It has a pillow and mattress on the bed, and a chalkboard. He has a tin basin to wash in fairly regularly. He has gotten new clothes and is allowed to eat regularly as well. He uses his newfound time to sleep, at first. Then he starts to exercise physically until he gets stronger. Finally, he uses the chalkboard to write down things that he knows to be true: such as that freedom is slavery and 2+2=5. This shows his obedience because he is writing down principals that the Inner Party teaches. He also shows obedience by trying to train his mind to not have thoughts that go against the Party.
2. 2. In waking from a dream, Winston shouts for Julia and calls her his love. This shows that he has not completely come under the thinking of the Party and the fact that he still has a human connection with another person.
3. 3. Winston still does not like or trust Big Brother, but he is smart enough to know that he must keep this secret locked up inside himself.

Book Three: Chapter Five

1. 1. Winston is exposed to rats, his biggest fear. Rats are something that Winston just does not have the mental tools to cope with. O’Brien speaks about all the horrors of rats and threatens to strap a cage shaped like a head with two rats inside to Winston’s face. Winston is so terrified of this that he has no choice but to betray Julia, meaning that he is completely cured in the eyes of the Party.

Book Three: Chapter Six

1. 1. The setting is the Chestnut Tree Café, on a sunny day. It is the hour of fifteen and tinny music is coming from the telescreen. Winston is alone at the corner table downing Victory Gin, with only a waiter venturing over every so often to refill his cup.
2. 2. Winston is now a sinecure, which means he has an incredibly easy job. He is highly paid to work on some sub-sub-sub committee (he does not even know what it does), but really he does no work.
3. 3. He followed her for a while before they sat down together. They said plainly that they betrayed each other because they had no other choice, and that their feelings for each other are changed forever. He follows her partway to the tube station, then they never see each other again.
4. 4. He does not really think anymore. He would rather drown himself in Victory Gin than think about anything too deep. He has given himself over nearly 100% to the Party.
5. 5. Winston is giving himself up completely to the ideals of the Party, until there is not one shred of humanity, identity, or rebellion left inside of him. He is giving up.

1984 Book Two, Chapters 8-9

Book Two, Chapter 8
1. Contrast the living quarters and style of the Inner Party members with those of the Outer Party members and proles. The Inner Party members live in luxury compared to the Outer Party, and they live in downright paradise compared to the Proles. While the Outer Party is stuck with Victory Gin (and the Proles drink whatever they can get their hands on), the Inner Party has wine, and doubtless other fine liquors. The Inner Party has servants who basically do everything for them, while the Outer Party has no such thing, and the Proles do manual labor for more than twelve hours per day. While the Outer Party is rationed food (meager rations, at that), and the Proles rarely have enough to eat, the Inner Party has real bread, coffee, tea, sugar, chocolate, and other things (even real cigarettes!). Perhaps the most important distinction, though, is that the Inner Party has the ability to turn off their telescreens. True, it is not safe that they should turn them off for long, but they do have the luxury of privacy every so often, while no such notion exists in the other classes.
2. How does O’Brien test Julia and Winston? He asks them what they are willing to do. He uses a series of questions (whether or not they would throw sulphuric acid in a child's face, whether or not they would betray their country to foreign powers, etc.). He does this, presumably, for the purpose of making sure that they are serious about the resistance.
3. What information does O’Brien give them about the Brotherhood? O'Brien tells them all about the Brotherhood, while really telling them absolutely nothing. He says that there isn't much to be known about the Brotherhood, and that it was designed that way so that the whole "organization" wouldn't collapse if one or two people were captured. He says there is no way to know who the members are (beyond a handful of other people) or, indeed, how many members there are. There is no hierarchy of the system, there is no person who knows much more than another. They do, however, have the ability to change a person beyond recognition.
4. How will O’Brien get The Book to Winston? Winston is to forget his brief case one day. As he is walking somewhere, an anonymous man will tell him that he dropped his brief case, at which time he will receive a case that looks like his, but with the book inside of it.

Book Two, Chapter 9
1. Why does Orwell include detailed passages from Goldstein’s Book in 1984? Ostensibly, it is to illustrate how concretely different the principals of the Brotherhood are from those of the Party, to highlight the lies that the Party has told the people and will continue to tell them. However, subtly, I think that it is to show that the ideas of the Party and those of the Brotherhood aren't actually that different. They are both radical organizations who expect complete loyalty, and unquestioning faith from their participants.
2. What three classes of people have always existed? Upper, middle, lower.
3. In What ways have these three classes changed? Their names have changed during different periods in time, yet the classes themselves have remained the same.
4. What is the purpose of war in the world of 1984? The purpose is to keep the people under control. The government stays constantly in war-time in order to justify mass hysteria, two minutes of hate every day, rationing, nationalistic tendencies, fanaticism, and dropping bombs on their own people.
5. What are the two aims of the Party? The two aims of the party are to conquer the whole surface of the earth and to extinguish once and for all the possibility of independent thought. There are therefore two greatest problems that the party is concerned to solve.
6. What are the two problems with which the Party is concerned? The two problems are taking over the few bits of land that aren't owned by one of the three superstates, and trying to ultimately and completely control its people.
7. Why do all three superpowers forbid their citizens from associating with foreigners? They are not allowed to meet because then citizens of each state would realize the supposed enemy are exactly like them, and that they are no better off than those who they are fighting. It goes along with dehumanization as a means of control. If we realize just how human, and how similar to ourselves, the "enemy" is, we will not support fighting with them.
8. The governments of the three superpowers are alike in essence even though their forms of government have different names. Identify these similarities and explain why they exist? All of the superstates can basically be self-contained because of their natural resources. All of the governments operate basically the same way: utter control of the people through war and the removal of all independence. The conditions of life in all three superstates are basically the same (especially the class division). These similarities exist because, if one state were ever to very too much from the mold, they would either be at an advantage or a disadvantage, allowing the pointless war waged by the other states to take them over.
9. What is the real "war" fought in each of the three governments? Your answer will explain the party slogan, "War is Peace." The three governments are equally matched, so they would never hope to conquer the other two. The real war is keeping the people working so that society runs smoothly and like the government wants it to. The "real war" is keeping an entire people enslaved to a false ideology. The goal of the war is to weaken independence and intelligence and ideas, and force people to live in a constant state of propaganda-induced fear.
10. What are the aims of the three groups?
11. What changes in the pattern occurred in the nineteenth century?
12. How did socialism change in the twentieth century?
13. Why are the rulers in the twentieth century better at maintaining power than earlier tyrants? Speed.
14. What are the four ways an elite group falls from power? An elite group falls from power by: being conquered from without, governing so inefficiently that the masses are stirred to revolt, allowing a strong and disconnected Middle Group to come into being, or losing its own self-confidence and willingness to govern.
15. How does the Inner Party make certain it will not fall from power? The Inner Party brainwashes others into supporting Big Brother, almost worshiping him. They ration food, have a vast majority of people working for the government in one way or another, and take away their privacy. With ultimate control comes ultimate power. By making the populace totally dependent on the Party, it is impossible that they would fall from power because, if they did, society would fall apart or implode.
16. How is a person’s class determined in the 1984 world? The class of a person is determined according to the class one is born into and by ability as defined by the Party. There can be some upward mobility (if you are extremely valuable) but that is rare.
17. What is doublethink and what is its purpose to the ruling class?

Doublethink is the ability (forced or not) to hold two opposite views as being true without acknowledging that you are doing so. For example, if you have a memory which everyone around you insists is false, you can hold both of these views to be true in your mind. Its purpose is to provide a method of defending a totalitarian system of government that might otherwise be objectionable. It is used to alter the past, and reject rationality to protect the infallibility of the ruling party, whether or not they are actually correct.

18. Why is the mutability of the past important to the ruling class? To exert complete control over a people, they must be able to trust you completely. It is easier to trust somebody who is right all the time than somebody who is consistently wrong or changing their opinions. The Party must look like it never makes mistakes.

1984 Book 2, Chapters 3-5

Book Two, Chapter 3

1. How and where do Julia and Winston meet? They meet in a dilapidated church tower. It was in the same month that they met in the clearing in the woods, but that was the only other time that month they could meet in private. Other than that, they had to meet in the streets as often as they could (every 3-4 days or so) and carry on a fragmentary conversation as they passed each other. This is the only way they can arrange their meetings, as they can't very well call on each other or pass notes.
2. What is Julia’s job? She works in the fiction department on the novel-writing machines.
3. What is her background? She is 26 years old and lives in a hostel with 30 other girls. She has no memory of things before the early sixties. However, she used to have a grandfather who would talk often of times before the revolution, and he was vaporized when she was eight years old. She was captain of the hockey team and good at gymnastics. She was a troop leader in the Spies and a branch secretary in the Youth League before joining the Junior Anti-Sex League.
4. What is her attitude toward the Party? She hates them. She thinks they are all pigs. She fosters a special animosity towards the inner party. She thinks the party is all secrets and lies, and doesn't trust them at all. However, that's as far as it goes. She doesn't bother to think about how she could fix it or what she could do. She doesn't even believe that the Brotherhood exists. She just has her opinions, and that's good enough for her. And there is nothing wrong with that, ALEXIS!
   
5. Describe the quote “ With Julia, everything came back to her own sexuality. As soon as this was touched upon in any way she was capable of great acuteness”. What does Winston think about Julia? He thinks that she only cares about sex. She doesn't care about much unless it affects her directly, and that is mainly sex. Her awareness doesn't travel much past her immediate situation. He doesn't believe that she is that bright, but can be intelligent when speaking about certain subjects. He feels that she is more practical than intelligent.
   
6. Why does the Party think the sexual impulse as well as the familial love is dangerous? They're both uncontrollable instincts. The Party would like to kill all emotions except loyalty and things like that. Those emotions that people are allowed to have must be controlled, as during the Two Minutes Hate. Sexual impulses and familial love also connect people to one another. That is the biggest sin in the eyes of the Party, because once people start connecting with one another, there is a greater chance of ideas being shared. Ideas are the Party's kryptonite.
   

Book Two, Chapter 4

1. How does Winston react to the singing Prole woman? He likes her. He thinks her singing is beautiful and innocent (even though he doesn't like the song), and a symbol of rebellion. It brings him back to a time when things were more free. I think he is attracted to the melancholy of it, the fact that the woman is singing words that she probably doesn't understand and seems happy to do so.
   
2. What pleasures of the senses are mentioned in this chapter? What is Orwell’s point in mentioning them? All five senses are touched upon in this chapter. Winston smells the real coffee, which brings him back to his childhood, when everybody could have coffee like that. He tastes and feels the sugar, which is so much better than the saccharine they have now. Again, it takes him back to a time before the revolution. Both the coffee and the sugar are highly nostalgic for Winston. He sees Julia with makeup on, which is something that Party women just don't do. It makes her more feminine, which brings up just another thing that the Party has taken away. To kill the sex instinct, they are even trying to make the genders more equal in appearance, so nobody is a man or a woman and everybody is just "Comrade". Winson hears the singing of the Prole woman, which (though he doesn't like the song) brings him back, again, to a simpler, more innocent time. All of these things are piling on top of one another to bring back Winston's memories and to make him question everything he knows about the society he currently lives in.
   
3. What is Winston’s reaction to rats? Julia’s reaction? Winston wigs out, and he covers his face and gets really tense. He sort of cowers and doesn't want to go near them or even think about them. He reaches this black wall of memory in his mind, which is nightmarish for him. Julia is indifferent, and doesn't mind the rats. They hold no significance for her.
   
4. Winston is interested in the church bells that once played in the city even though he is not religious. What do church bells mean to him? They are a symbol of childhood. They also represent connections between people, as most children learned this rhyme. Julia and Mr. Charrington both knew it, despite being raised in different places at drastically different times.
   
5. Winston sees the coral paperweight as a symbol of what? He sees the paperweight as the room he is in and the coral inside as his and Julia's life. He sees them separate from everybody else, because he has finally forged a connection with her, and that's forbidden. He likes the paperweight because it isn't really useful, and wasn't even in its own time.
   

Chapter 5

1. Who has vanished? How does Winston confirm this? Syme has vanished. Winston checks the list of the Chess Committee members, which Syme used to be on. Since his name is gone, Winston knows that Syme has become an unperson.
2. Describe the preparations for Hate Week. In what ways does the Inner Party excel in building spirit? They decorate everything with banners, posters, and other propaganda. They distribute pamphlets. They have meetings and lectures and processions. They show movies and telescreen programs with nothing but Party nonsense. Everything is propaganda, and it is proliferated at an alarming rate. It is spread into the public even faster than usual until it takes hold and everyone has worked up their hatred into a fever pitch. Then, we're ready for Hate Week.
3. Julia and Winston have some differences. Explain them. There is a big age gap between the two of them, which means that Winston has some vague memories of before the revolution, and Julia doesn't. Their ideas about the Party differ as well. Julia doesn't like them, but she only cares to the extent that it affects her. Winston thinks about the Brotherhood and rebellion and is constantly dreaming of ways that he can overthrow Big Brother. Julia is practical and Winston isn't, but Winston is more intelligent. He cares for reading and writing and getting away from telescreens, while Julia can't be bothered. Julia lives in the moment while Winston lives in the past and future.

Connect the chapters to two different themes and explain them.

1. Isolation and Social Class Disparity. Winston and Julia have to meet in places where they are sequestered off from everybody else. They don't get to have a public relationship. Even when they do get to speak in public, they must have a fragmented conversation as they pass in the streets. Once they've forrged this connection, Winston feels even more isolated because connections are such a rarity in this society. This is why he compares them to the paperweight, with Winston and Julia being the secluded coral inside and the glass around them being their room, their buffer from the world. The social class disparity comes in during the interaction with the singing Prole woman. Winston knows that if a Party member were to start singing to themselves, they would probably be carted off to the thought police. He realizes that singing (except patriotic songs) is an activity of times passed, and that only the naive Proles are allowed the luxury. This plays into his ideas that the Proles might actually be more free than the Party members. We also see the difference between classes when Julia puts on the makeup, which is something that Party women don't do. Winston automatically thinks of the Prole prostitute that he visited once.
   
2. The meaning of freedom. Well, the entire book pretty much discusses the meaning of freedom. However, Winston's lack thereof has been brought under the microscope when examining his relationship with Julia. They are rebelling by being together yet, if they have to hide it from everybody, is that really freedom? If they have to worry that, at any moment, the thought police could come barging in on their private santuary and take them away, is that really freedom? Again, in looking at the Prole woman, Winston feels that she is more free than he can ever be. This is because she can sing, she can put out laundry, and she seems to be happy doing it as well. True freedom is the ability to be happy despite your situation, and Winston sees that she is happy. Honest and pure joy is something that the Party has tried to rid its members of. This is why the Proles are more free than the Party members, because they don't live their lives under the watchful eye of Big Brother (for the most part). Even though they are poor and destitute, they are free.
   

1984 vs. Today's Reality

Ways in which our society is similar to the dystopia described in George Orwell's "1984":

1. There is no privacy. In "1984" it was telescreens that watched your every move, even the homeostatic signs that happened inside your body, and possibly monitored your thoughts as well. In our world, it is Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, blogging: all of the various technologies we have at our disposal, and which we use to broadcast our every thought and action to the world. Our present has become very similar to Orwell's fictional future; the only difference is that the people in that world had invasions of privacy forced on them and we seem to welcome them.
2. We are turned against a "common enemy". In both "1984" and in the our world, hatred has become a valuable tool against the proverbial adversary. This is used as a tool to band people together, making them easier to control since they are of one mind. It also makes them easier to turn the tide against whomever it is that the government wants us to hate. While in the book it is due to the Two Minutes of Hate, in our society the hatred of the enemy is due to things such as the "War on Terror". Both are propaganda.
3. Newspeak. Speaking of propaganda and the War on Terror, both the government in "1984" and our own are using a dumbed down vocabulary to control their people. It is easier to control somebody who isn't as smart as you. When we use phrases such as "War on Terror" and "politically correct", we get a certain picture in our minds of exactly what that means. This is exactly what the people who came up with these phrases intended to do with them. They use the words to take away our vocabulary, making us less intelligent and less able to express our ideas. It's pretty hard to rebel against a government when you can't even express what it is you want to rebel against and how you want to do it.
4. Abrupt changes in "enemies". Our country abruptly changes who we support and who we are fighting with, and it expects the people to follow. This is the same as the changes between Eastasia and Eurasia in "1984". Example: the U.S. used to completely back Mubarak. This was, of course, until he was portrayed as a dictator. Just like that we turned against him, or at least our government told us we should. If you need further proof, just look at the current situation in Libya.
5. The government is keeping secrets. I think it's obvious (or it should be) by now that our government does not tell us everything. Much like Big Brother and the Inner Party in "1984", the government in our world tries to keep its people in the dark about certain subjects. Due to things such as Wikileaks, we are finally learning more about our government.

1984 Book 2, Chapter 2

• Why is Winston ill at ease once he is alone with Julia? He couldn't quite work up the courage to approach her, or get closer to her. He was worried that they may not be safe from observation in the clearing.
  
• What does Julia bring with her that she has obtained on the black market? Chocolate, real chocolate.
  
• What are Julia’s ideas about the Party? She hates them, especially the inner party. It seems to be a violent hatred, because she can't keep from swearing when she talks about them. She thinks they are all pigs.
  
• What familiar sign does Winston find? It was an old, close-bitten pasture, with a footpath and molehills. He sees it and is shocked, because it is almost exactly as he viewed Golden Country in his mind.
  
• What is the significance of the thrush music? It is a symbol of rebellion. It is natural music, something that is an animal instinct and something that happens on its own. It is a stark contrast to the music in Winston's world, especially of the proles, because that is computer generated and unnatural.
  
• What does Winston mean when he says that he loves Julia all the more because she has had scores of sexual encounters? He says it because her having sex with a bunch of people is a rebellion against Big Brother, and against everything the party stands for. This is especially true because the men she has sex with are party members. It is corrupt, dirty, and viewed as wrong in this society. That's why Winston loves it so much.