Raam's Chapter Summary

Part II- Chapter V

• As Winston expected, Syme ceases to exist with his records completely vanished.
• As preparation for Hate Week continues the theme-song “Hate Song” is repeatedly played through the telescreens. The decorations including banners, streamers, paintings and a new poster of a typical Eurasian soldier posted around all of London.
• The Proles surprisingly despised the war as bombs were continuously killing vast amount of people.
• Winston constantly thinks about the room above Mr Charrington’s shop where he meets Julia many times in that one month and discusses with her their future plans together.
• Winston continues to tell Julia of his odd affection for O’Brien and the brotherhood, however she believes that the Brotherhood was created by the Party to give the people something to believe in. She neglects many of the primary ideas that Winston stands for against the party and argues that she only cares for the present time and not the future generations.

Quotes

• “Your only a rebel from the waist downwards”- referring to Julia that her sexual acts are the only acts that make her rebellious against the party.
• “Do you realise that the past, starting from yesterday, has been abolished?”- Emphasises the Party’s power to alter and erase parts of history to make it flawless and perfect.

Read more...

Nicky's Chapter Summary

The chapter starts off with Winston looking around the little room above Mr. Charrington’s shop, which he has rented for his affair with Julia. Although he knows that renting the room is a rash and dangerous move, his desire to meet Julia and to have time away from telescreens overwhelms him. Winston and Julia have been busy with the city’s preparations for Hate Week, and Winston has been frustrated by their inability to meet. Winston and Julia re-unite in the rented apartment. Julia brings real sugar, coffee, and tea that she had purchased on the Black Market. For the first time, the lovers feel secure and spend a blissful afternoon together. In this chapter we hear for the first time of Winstons fear of rats. Julia first spots it and when Winston sees it he reacts very violently, "Of all the horrors in the world-a rat!". Julia calms Winston's nerves and promises to plaster the hole where the rat had emerged. Later Julia looks through the room, and notices the paperweight. Winston tells her that the paperweight is a link to the past and when Julia leaves, Winston sits gazing into the crystal paperweight, imagining living inside it with Julia in an eternal stasis, "The paperweight was the room he was in, and the coral was Julia's life and his own, fixed in a sort of eternity at the heart of the crystal".

In the chapter we see julia and winston having a physical relations and this is not seen as good as the party ( breaking the rules) as haveing sexual affairs/realationships is frowned upon unless they have children ( to keep an eye out on the parents) as it involves energy and emotions which then would be sacrificed to the loyalty of the party.

Read more...

Hey, Asian in need of help!

I do not completely understand three literary devices used in 1948 that are significant (relevant to values and attitudes) within the text.

What does it mean relevant to values and attitudes? Read more...

Part Two - Chap. 6 and 7

Chapter VI - Summary

Winston has a dream where he meets O' Brien and discusses about something he had written and that Winston should go pick up a new edition dictionary from O' Brien's place. From this, Winston thinks there will be a secret message that O' Brien will pass him with the dictionary as a medium.

Quotes -- "It had happened at last." pg. 164
"They were standing in front of a telescreen." pg. 165

Chapter VII - Summary

Winston opens up to Julia about his hidden guilt -- the supposed murder of his mother and sister -- and shares his pov of the values of people. They both discuss what they think the party can and can not do -- they can get anything out of you, but they can't change what is in your heart.

Quote -- "The dream .... blew them to pieces." pg. 171

PS. Sorry... I've been busy lately with lots of things hence not a great job.
Read more...

Chapter 6 Summary

- Winston writes about his memory with a prole prostitute in his diary
- He says that the prostitute was ugly and repulsive but carries on anyway displaying his desire for a pleasant sexual experience, “When I saw her in the light she was quite an old woman, fifty years old at least. But I went ahead and did it just the same.”
- Winston talks about how the Party’s “undeclared purpose” to “remove all pleasure from the sexual act”
- He also mentions his wife, Katharine. They separated when they realised that they would not have children, as the Party enforced that sex was only meant for reproduction and not pleasure.

Quotes:
- "Sexual intercourse was to be looked on as a slightly disgusting minor operation, like having an enema." – Simile is use to show how the Party has managed to condition people into sexual acts lacking love and pleasure, and making it a ‘duty’ whereby the aim is not only just to reproduce but rather to produce new members for the Party.

- "Your worst enemy, he reflected, was your nervous system. At any moment the tension inside you was liable to translate itself into some visible symptom." – highlights the severity of the Party’s ‘enforcements’ (?) and depicts the strict environment the Party has developed.

Concerns:
- Winston’s repressed sexuality is one of the main reasons to rebel against the Party
- Sex can be portrayed as the ultimate act of individualism and symbolism of physical/emotional pleasure. As the Party turns sex into a ‘duty’, it symbolises them removing individuality from the society. Read more...

Helen's Chapter Summary.

Winston is still in the Ministry of Truth, but the torture has lessened, and his physical condition is improving. He discovers that the Party had been watching him very closely for seven years and that they even have soundtracks and photographs of him and Julia. He realizes the futility of his decision to set himself up against the Party.
During one of his dreams, he wakes up shouting Julia's name and realizes that he will have to start the torture process all over. After a moment, O'Brien comes in and orders him to Room 101, where the third stage of Winston's lessons will take place.

“For the first time he perceived that if you want to keep a secret you must also hide it from yourself”
“stupidity was a necessary as intelligence, and as difficult to attain”
Concerns: In a society where you can’t even trust your basic instincts to govern yourself

“How many years had he added to his servitude by that moment of weakness?”
Concerns: totalitarian government, goes as far as to control your emotions. One slip and you are severely punished. The notion is supposed to be frightening








PS: THANK YOU MIKEY FOR POSTING ALL THIS STUFF FOR YOU CAUSE YOU LAZY PEOPLE CANNOT CREATE YOUR OWN ACCOUNT!!. Read more...

Jono's Chapter Summary

Chapter VII Summary

After three consecutive chapters describing the work life of the ‘lesser’ Party members, he shifts his focus towards the ‘proles’ of the novel: the poor working class of Oceania.

What happens basically? (No techniques here, just simplifying plot for people)

During Chapter 7, Winston contemplates in his diary as to whether or not the proles have the ability to ‘release’ Oceania from the Party’s dictatorship. He strongly believes that under the correct leadership, they will be able to do overthrow the Party, mainly because of the fact that they make up 85% of Oceania’s population. Winston also believes that as capable as the proles are of overthrowing the Party, they lack the willpower and intelligence to do so, and that they are even too ignorant to know why they are being so oppressed by the Thought Police.

Winston then pulls out a children’s ‘history’ book, which is essentially a form of propaganda against Capitalism: the primary ideology against Totalitarian values. It describes how pre-Party London was a ‘dark, dirty and miserable’ place where children worked twelve-hour days and were treated like slaves of the money-loving Capitalists. It also claims that if anybody disobeyed them, they would be imprisoned, starved or made jobless. Winston questions the validity of this book, seeing that it was written by the Party.

After reading part of the book, Winston recalls a disturbing memory that exposed the lies of the Party. The story is of three men who were charged by the Party of being traitors to Oceania with various crimes such as passing on intelligence and murder. These three rebels then were forced to ‘confess’ to their crimes, and were then released. News of their treachery was then spread throughout Oceania. However at the time that these men were supposedly committing their crimes in Eurasia, they were in fact in New York. This was confirmed by a ‘Times’ newspaper clipping that Winston accidentally came across, showing an image of all three rebels in New York from ten years earlier on the same period of time that they were supposed to have ‘committed their crimes’ in Eurasia.

Winston questions his own lunacy, deciding to himself whether he is the only person who sees the ideology of the Party to be a sham. He then suddenly remembers O’Brien and how he is potentially a logical thinker like Winston himself.

The novel ends with Winston writing in the novel as if he were writing to O’Brien, briefly describing that freedom is the right to say that 2+2=4, contrary to popular belief that 2+2=5.

Significant lines and why (S&W):

1. “Until they become conscious, they will never rebel, and until they rebel, they will never become conscious” -Page 74

S&W: This line refers to the proles who have the power, but not the will or intelligence to overthrow the Party. It describes a ‘chicken and egg’ type of problem where there will be no ‘spark’ for the revolt against the Party. Essentially, it describes how if such a force as the prole cannot overcome the Party, nothing can. The themes, ‘loss of individuality’ and ‘psychological manipulation’ is addressed in this quote.



2. “I understand HOW: I do not understand WHY” -Page 83

S&W: This line acts as a contrast to all the values of the Party. So far within the novel, it appears that Oceanians are spoon-fed information without any form of reasoning, and the fact that Winston can muster up the intelligence to query this sets him apart from society. This pertains to the theme of ‘alienation’ and ‘manipulation of history’.



3. “Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else follows” -Page 84

S&W: This quote underlines how ‘unstable’ the values of the Party are. It essentially illuminates that if the smallest shred of doubt, such as the confirmation that 2+2=4, is planted into the minds of people, it will have a snowballing effect against the Party, ultimately overthrowing them. The themes, ‘reasoning’ and ‘psychological manipulation’ are addressed in this quote. Read more...