Literary Luminary Part 3 Chapters 1-3

Literary Luminary:

"The door opened. With a small gesture the officer indicated the skull-faced man. 'Room 101,' said the officer." page 195

In this passage, Orwell uses a metaphor to describe the man's face that's getting banished to room 101. Later in this section, the man says he'll tell them anything they want as long as he doesn't get taken to room 101 because he has 3 kids at home. When they still don't hesitate, he said he would rather them just kill him or starve him or hang him. When that doesn't work, he said he would rather watch them slit his wife and his kid's throats in front of him rather than him go there. Orwell uses suspense and mystery to keep the reader wanting to know what room 101 is.

"...but his body was being wrenched out of shape, the joints were being slowly torn apart." pg 202

In this passage, O'Brien is revealed as a secret operative that turned him and has Winston hooked up to a machine that is shooting an excruciating pain throughout his entire body. This section uses vivid imagery that makes the reader cringe and feel badly for Winston. Winston knew that he was going to be turned in eventually because of his diary, but he had no idea it was going to be as treacherous as it was and eventually learns that what he thought he knew wasn't right at all. He is confused as to what room 101 is and whether O'Brien is trying to help him or not. O'Brien tells him he's going to make him better, but he still doesn't know what he means.

1984 Illustrator Part 2 Chapters 5-10

Illustrator:

2/9/11:

"A new poster had suddenly appeared all over London. It had no caption, and represented simply the monstrous figure of a Eurasian soldier, three or four meters high, striding forward with expressionless Mongolian face and enormous boots, a submachine gun from his hiip. From whataever angle you looked at the poster, the muzzle of the gun, magnified by the foreshortening, seemed to be pointed straight at you." pg 123

I found the imagery from the book very vivid in this passage, and very unsettling. Oceania seems to be at war with a different frequently, and they put up posters like this to scare the population and to make that country look bad. Personally, I would be extremely scared if I saw a poster like this in my town and it would make living there scary. It's also strange how everyone treats it normally and don't seem to be startled like it's a normal thing.

Discussion Director Part 2 Chapters 5-10

Discussion Director:
2/9/11

1. Do you think that since both Winston and Julia work for the party, that makes it less likely that they will be caught or punished for being together?

2. Is O'Brien and the brotherhood going to be the downfall of the party? Will Winston successfully get them to work with him to get the proles to realize that they're oppressed so heavily?

3. Is Julia as willing to put her life in jeopardy to bring down the party as Winston is? Is she going to hold Winston back from his goal of bringing down Big Brother?

4. Did Winston convince Julia to help him bring down the party when he scolded her for only being rebellious through sex? Did his scolding in turn hurt their relationship, or did it help Julia become more loyal?

5. Is Winston and Julia's inability to leave the apartment above the shop going to lead the authorities to them and ultimately lead to their demise? Are their priorities clouded by sex?

Summarizer Chapter 7

Winston writes in his diary that any hope for revolution against the Party must come from the proles. He believes that the Party cannot be destroyed from within, and that even the Brotherhood, a legendary revolutionary group, lacks the wherewithal to defeat the mighty Thought Police. The proles, on the other hand make up eighty-five percent of the population of Oceania, and could easily muster the strength and manpower to overcome the Police. However, the proles lead brutish, ignorant, animalistic lives, and lack both the energy and interest to revolt; most of them do not even understand that the Party is oppressing them.
Winston looks through a children’s history book to get a feeling for what has really happened in the world. The Party claims to have built ideal cities, but London, where Winston lives, is a wreck: the electricity seldom works, buildings decay, and people live in poverty and fear. Lacking a reliable official record, Winston does not know what to think about the past. The Party’s claims that it has increased the literacy rate, reduced the infant mortality rate, and given everyone better food and shelter could all be fantasy. Winston suspects that these claims are untrue, but he has no way to know for sure, since history has been written entirely by the Party.
Winston remembers an occasion when he caught the Party in a lie. In the mid-1960s, a cultural backlash caused the original leaders of the Revolution to be arrested. One day, Winston saw a few of these deposed leaders sitting at the Chestnut Tree Café, a gathering place for out-of-favor Party members. A song played—“Under the spreading chestnut tree / I sold you and you sold me”—and one of the Party members, Rutherford, began to weep. Winston never forgot the incident, and one day came upon a photograph that proved that the Party members had been in New York at the time that they were allegedly committing treason in Eurasia. Terrified, Winston destroyed the photograph, but it remains embedded in his memory as a concrete example of Party dishonesty.
Winston thinks of his writing in his diary as a kind of letter to O’Brien. Though Winston knows almost nothing about O’Brien beyond his name, he is sure that he detects a strain of independence and rebellion in him, a consciousness of oppression similar to Winston’s own. Thinking about the Party’s control of every record of the truth, Winston realizes that the Party requires its members to deny the evidence of their eyes and ears. He believes that true freedom lies in the ability to interpret reality as one perceives it, to be able to say “2 + 2 = 4.”

Literary Luminary Chapters 1-2

"His eyes refocused on the page. He discovered that while he sat helplessly musing he had also been writing , as though be automatic action. And it was no longer the same cramped awkward handwriting as before. His pen had slid voluptuously over the smooth paper, printing in large neat capitals-

DOWN WITH BIG BROTHER
DOWN WITH BIG BROTHER
DOWN WITH BIG BROTHER
DOWN WITH BIG BROTHER
DOWN WITH BIG BROTHER

over and over again, filling half a page."

I choose this passage, because I thought this was a great example of foreshadowing. Showing that Winston clearly has a deep hatred for the government and that he will most likely turn against them.

Discussion Director, Chapters 1-2

Discussion Director

#1. Why do you think the Party chose to name each of their ministries, the Ministry of Love, the Ministry of Plenty, and the Ministry of Peace, as opposite to their actual purposes? Do you think this is another form of brainwashing used to make the citizens of Oceania believe what the Party wants them to believe, much like the constant streaming of propaganda from the telescreens?

#2. What do you think is the meaning of the Party slogan War is Peace, Freedom is Slavery, Ignorance is Strength? Do you think this is a appropriate slogan for a oppressive government such as that of Oceania?

#3. What are your opinions of the Parson's children? Do you think they are a representation of a new generation of young citizens in Oceania? If so, has the Party succeeded in sculpting the people's minds to believe what they want them to believe?

#4. At the end of Chapter 2, Winston writes in his journal that his Thought Crime surely makes him a dead man. Do you think this is a rational fear? Or is the concept of Thought Crime more just a scare tactic used to make people restrain themselves from thinking negative thoughts of the Party for fear of a retribution that may never come?

Illustrator Part 2 Chapters 1-4

Illustrator:

Quote: "On it was written, in a large unformed handwriting: I love you." (pg. 90)

Image:

In the beginning of part 2, Winston is at work and at the top of his stack of papers, there is a note saying "I love you" from an anonymous person. He is thinking about it all day and it gives him something worth living for. He eventually learns that it's the dark haired girl who's been watching him. He later finds out her name is Julia, and is reluctant to share his urge for rebellion because he is still unsure of her true loyalty to him. Once they have their first sexual encounter, he is willing to share almost everything with her and soon finds out she likes to rebel as well, but he's still unsure if she would be willing to be a part of him getting the proles to rebel.