Chapter 8

Winston Smith takes a walk around at the neighborhood of the proles. By the time he gets there, he experiences a bomb, nicknamed a “steamer” by the proles. Winston decides to go in the pub, here he finds people drinking gin and talking about the lottery. The lottery was managed by the Ministry of plenty, and there was a small chance that a prole could win it. In the pub he finds an old man, who had lived before the revolution. Winston was trying to know more about how life was before the revolution but the man never said any interesting facts about the past. After the bungle plan of getting information from the old man, Winston entered to the antique shop where he once bought his diary. In the shop he bought a convoluted glass that was less than a 100 years old. The convoluted glass was going to be used as a paperweight. The owner of the antique shop was a man who had lived before the revolution, his name was Charrington, a 64 year old window. Charrington taught a nursery rhyme to Winston, “Oranges and lemons say the bells of St Clement’s, You owe me three farthings, say the bells of St Martin’s!” . After getting out of the shop, he finds himself with the dark- haired girl from the fiction department. He believes that she him is following him and envisaged hitting her in the head with a cobblestone. He also remembers what O’Brien had said to him in a dream “ We shall meet in the places where there is no darkness” and starts envisioning what it would be if the thought police took him away. 

The nursery rhyme, “ you owe me three farthings, say the bells of St Martin’s” comes form the poem oranges and lemons. In the real world, this is a nursery rhyme and a singing game which are are about churches near the city of London. 

Poem

Oranges and lemons,

Say the bells of St. Clement's.You owe me five farthings,Say the bells of St. Martin's.When will you pay me?Say the bells of Old Bailey.When I grow rich,Say the bells of Shoreditch.When will that be?Say the bells of Stepney.I do not know,Says the great bell of Bow.Here comes a candle to light you to bed,And here comes a chopper to chop off your head![1]

The games works this way, there are two people on both sides holding hands in a form of an arch,  the players will pass through, if the arch drops and the children are caught in the middle: they are out, and will have to make another arch. We do not know the meaning of the nursery rhyme but there is one theory that its about child sacrifices. I believed its a rhyme about people been killed for their crimes, we can find it in the last line, “And here comes a chopper to chop off your head!”. The interesting fact that Winston mentions is that he has never heard the sound of bells. If he has never heard the sound of bells it must mean that there are no churches since it might be prohibited. In the addition, there must be some reason why the party does not allow people to worship a God or Gods. We still don't know why Winston always writes to O’Brien in his diary and even dreams about what he says. What O’Brien might meant by  “ We shall meet in the places where there is no darkness” it must mean that the only way they can get to know each other is after the party is overthrown because that's when peace and light will shine through. It wont be possible to do it now because the telescreen is always watching them. In the next chapter I believe that the Thought Police will start tracking Winston because he is too curious of the past, which is seen as a threat by the party.

Chapter 7

‘Proles and animals are free‘ is the party's slogan of this chapter. In chapter seven we are introduced to the lifestyle of the proles, how life was before the revolution, and the the leaders involved in the revolution. Before the revolution London was a filthy city ,where the poor people did not have a roof to live or food to eat. During this time in history we find ourselves with customs such as:  kissing the pope's toe, and the use of pillory for humiliation and punishment, sometimes the device was be used for killing. By the phrase ‘Proles and animals are free‘ we are introduced to how the proles were perceived by the party. We can see that the proles were as less important as the animals, the proles were the subordinate class. This is so discriminating and humiliating, and a perfect example of how cruel and indifferent the party was.

The proles were the working class, thought to be innocuous and not peril by the party, but Winston knew that if one day the proles become conscious they will rebel against the party and maybe even. Now lets take a look at the life phases of the proles before the revolution.  At the age of 12 the proles started working, they married at the age of 20, and died at the age of 60. The proles were controlled by powerful men called the capitalists, they  were the owners of the lands in where the proles lived. The capitalists had the proles in their hands, they let the workers starved, flogged them, and fed them by bread crusts and water. The capitalists were also allowed to be in internal relationships with the women that worked in his land. You could identify the capitalists  by the clothes they wore, a frock coat which was a long black coat, and a stovepipe which is a queer shiny hat. They were treated with reverence and honor. We can compare this lifestyle as the lives of the peasants in the feudal system. The peasant will be the proles and the lords would be the capitalists. This system was discriminatory because people did not have a the freedom to be what they wanted to be and who they wanted to be, such as having access to an education to have a better future other than a worker of the capitalists.

Before the revolution children were sold on factories and capitalists having around 30 servants in their houses.  After the revolution was not so different as before the revolution since even now,  women worked on mines. The party always painted a perfect image of the way big brother was governing, but the truth was that everyone knew it was not like that but they had no choice than to believe it.  The party said that thanks to the revolution the proles were free. The party did not taught the proles their ideologies, they were only persuade to have a primitive patriotism, just in case the party needed to add longer hours of work and shorter wages, this way they will accept without no rejection. Part of the doublethink principle is that the proles should be considered to be natural inferiors, and kept in subjection like animals. I believe the party was discriminating them and lowering their self-esteem, so the proles could not have confidence in themselves and never succeed . This way the proles would never question their lifestyle and accept the partys desire. I wonder why the proles has not rebel against the party and the populations of the proles that way they can rebel against the party with more support.

    The proles were allowed to commit promiscuity, they were allowed to divorce, and they were allowed to have a religion as long as they had a reasonable reason. This was a fair law for the proles since they can at least have a their own options in their relationships.

Winston says that in the telescreen he hears how the revolution has brought jubilance to the citizens: , the mortality rate of infants is lower, there is more food, and that everyone has a better lifestyle. But no one knew if it was true since history was always changing to the benefit of the party. We now have evidence of how the party lies and lies all the time.

Before the revolution we had leaders like big brother, Goldstein, Aaronson, Jones, and Rutherford but most of them were wiped out before the sixties because they were mostly accused of being traitors and counter revolutionaries. Some of the leaders disappeared, some executed after they confessed their crime. Big brother was a leader that survived since he was not accused of any crime. Other leaders like Jones, Aaronson and Rutherford were accused, arrested and charged of treason to the Party, the strange fact was that Winston had seen the three men at a café when they were rearrested for conspiracies with Eurasia and then were executed.

Later on in the chapter Winston finds a photograph of the three men attending a prominent Party function on the same date they were said to have been launching conspiracies on Eurasian soil. This strange fatc shows how the party makes up and change history according to their benefit. Winston says that the party has such an amaizing energy to persuade the citizens that they even make you believe that 2 plus two is 5 and not 4. At the end of the chapter we have two prominent and worth emphasizing phrases that causes you to ponder.

“ I understand HOW: I do not understand WHY “, this slogan is telling  us that he knows how to falsify a document since he works in the department of truth but doesn't understand why the government is making them do this. I assume that the government is doing this so, the citizens never know the truth! and there we can understand why its called the ministry of truth. Their main purpose is to eliminate doubts, erase true history that can cause rebeliation, contradictions to their ideologies. The second phrase is “ Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else follows.“ in this phrase we can understand that since the party makes them believe that two plus two is five this means that Winston is conscious that he is not living a free country, he knows he is been controlled by the party and has no other choice to accepted.

Chapter 6

 

In chapter 6, we can get to know more about Winston’s personal life in terms of his relationships with his wife katherine, the prole prostitutes and how the party controlled citizens relationships.

Winston’s wife is called Katherine, she is a tall woman who Winston describes as an epitome of a “vulgar and empty minded” since all she had in her mind was a collection of slogans. They had been apart since the time she disappeared which was around 9 or 10 years ago. As we can see from her personality Winston was not truthfully in love with her, he was only interested in the intimate relationships. Here we can see that Winston was not a good man because he was using Katherine for intimate relationships, he did not truly love her. The reason why they parted ways was because she wanted to have a child but after so many tries they were not able to do so.

         In the continuation of the chapter Winston was bemuse whether to go with the prostitute or to resist it but in the end, he was defeated by the seductive scent and went along with the prostitute. Only the proles were allowed to be prostitutes, and use scent. The party was against prostitution, the punishment was 5 years of forced labour camp but if you were not caught nothing happened. One prostitute could cost a bottle of gin, in fact the party forbidden the proles to drink gin, I believe that is the reason why the prostitutes sold themselves for a bottle of gin because that was the only way they could get gin since they we not allowed to buy it. We can see that this is also happening in our society and it has always happened, prostitution has been a way to escape from poverty and a form of getting an income. The proles were the working class, the forgotten population, the not prominent, the ones that the government underestimated. The treatment of the party towards the proles is not unexpected since what is happening with the proles is the same as what is happening now in the 21st century where towns and villages are forgotten by the government, money is not invested in poor areas, leading the majority of  the  population left uneducated and without job opportunities. The most discriminating fact I read in the novel was knowing that the party allowed “submerged and despised” women such as the proles to get prostituted but not the members of the party. In addition,  it was egregious to do debauchery with members of the party since it was seen as a abominable promiscuity.

        The party is selfish but wants reverence from their citizens, how is this possible? The party only accepted marriages if they were going to beget children for the service of the party.The only way the citizens were allow to have children was if it was through artificial insemination, ARTSEM ( word in newspeak for artificial insemination) . Its not a free place to live in, it is odious and eerie to say that a child will born in service of the party, its as if every child's destiny was already written, they were born to serve like slaves and had no other options in life. In addition, they only allow artificial insemination because the party believed that intimate relationships were morally wrong and seen as a disgusting act. This is completely wrong, since intimate relationships are part of nature, and every child if its possible should be born the natural way, or by the decision of the parents and not by the party. This shows that the party had a great influence on their citizens life, where the leader had superior power over everyone.

       At the end of the chapter we find out that the prostitute Winston was with  was nothing more than a old woman with red lips and full of “paint” in her face which we can consider she was wearing a handful of makeup. He says that he wanted to shout “filthy words” since it wasn't something he was expecting. This is a satire ending since we would imagine the prostitute to be a beautiful  woman but in the end it was all the opposite.

Chapter 5

      Winston in this chapter goes to a canteen where he eats lunch next to his comrade Syme. Syme is a philologist who is working on adjectives of the eleventh edition of the Newspeak dictionary . His beliefs are pure orthodox, keen of his job because he finds it beautiful to cut out the language into less words to communicate with. The purpose of the eleventh edition of the Newspeak dictinary is to slowly eliminate and obsolete the oldspeak words by 2050, this way no subsidiary words will exist any longer. For example, if we want to say the antonymous of "good" we will say "ungood" instead of "bad". The government wants to create a culture where people will no longer need to think, in other words orthodox, "no thinking, no need to think".
Behind Winton's table there was man who spoke stridently in a way that he didn't quiet understand but he knew it was all about how great Big brother and the political party was. Syme explained to Winston that the man was talking in "duckspeak" This word had two meanings, if you used " duckspeak" to your opponent it meant abuse and if you spoke "duckspeak" with someone you agree with it meant praising.

        Parson was a tubby man, who lived in Victory mansion as Winston does. Parson's daughter gave a man to the patrols because he was wearing subtle shoes, from that judgement they came into the conclusion that the man was a foreigner and he must be killed.  All the sudden, there was a telescreen announcement from the ministry of plenty, everyone was thanking big brother for raising the chocolate ration to twenty grammes a week and only yesterday it was announced that the chocolate ration will be reduced to twenty grammar. People in this society its like they live in reverie since, they had believed everything they heard in the news. Winston was careful of his face expression, since if you had a incredulous face while a victory was mentioned it was considered to be a FACECRIME. A loud bell rung and everyone went back to work. 

Chapter 4

Winston works in the ministry of truth, his job is to rectify the documents that are subjected as “errors, misprints, and misquotations”.  The truth is that Winston's job is to actually do forgery. His job is to make the party look good in front of the citizens. Some of his work tools are: speakwrite which is a device that records what you say, a memory hole where Winston throws the older documents which are purged and destroyed forever. Once Winston rectifies the document, he clips the speakwrite corrections to the appropriate copy of ‘The Times’ and pushed them in to the pneumatic tube. Not only were newspapers rectify but also books, pamphlets, posters, leaflets, films, sound-tracks, cartoon, photographs, to every kind of literature or documentation which might conceivably hold any political or ideology significance.

Tillotson is dark chinned man who might have the same job as Winston but he is not very sure of this since no one in the ministry of truth talks about their job. Winston suspects that they might have the same job since he also has a speakwrite.

The proletariat or the working class had a different newspaper, they had literature, music, drama, sport, crime, astrology, sensational five- cent novelettes, sex with ooze,

cheap pornography and only the proletarians could take a look at. The members of the party could not look at this kind of newspapers.

In this chapter we also see that Winston who was in charge of writing about Mr. Withers or the comrade for receiving the Order of Conspicuous Merit was canceled. Winston received a message where the information he sent was incorrect since no one with that name existed. Winston imagined that maybe the party killed him. People who were “evaporated” were first arrested and then killed, sometimes they were arrested and send free for 1 or 2 years and then executed. Mr. Withers was now “UNPERSON” a person who does not exist and never existed. Now Winston’s job was to create someone who does not exist. Winston has to write a type of speech that Big brother might say in a way of thanking a man who has always been loyal to the party. Winston invented the man Comrade Ogilvy. This mas will be remembered as a hero to the society of Oceania due to his loyal service. This were the kind of jobs were Winston had to use his imagination and the principles of Ingsoc: newspeak, doublethink, and mutability of the past.

Chapter 3

Winston Smith was trying to understand his inscrutable memories he had about his family. All he remembered is that the last time he saw his family was when he was 11 or 10 years old. He believed that his mother, father and his sister all disappeared in the great purges of the 50’s. He knew that his family died sinking down in the green water of about a hundred fathoms. Winston went back to a dream, he found himself in a pasture where a woman flung her clothes disdainfully aside but it did not caught Winston’s attention.

It was seven fifteen time to wake up because “the physical jerks” were about to begin. His trainee appeared in the telescreen, she was a scrawny woman, and very enthusiastic about the exercise they were about to do. Winston had a grimy look in his face, which was good for this occasion. He went back and recalled  that when he was a child: the maps, and countries were all different. For example, airship one was called Britain or England.

During Winston's life time he was consciousness that Oceania had always been in war even though he was not sure of who was the enemy, since there were no written record, and no spoken word and nothing was ever mentioned. The only war he knows about was the one happening at that moment, the war of Oceania that had Eastasia as alliance against Eurasia. Only four years ago he had as knowledge that Oceania was at war with Eastasia and in alliance with Eurasia. The party says that Oceania has never been in alliance with Eurasia, but Winston knows that that knowledge he has must be annihilated.  He knew that if everyone was deceived by the falsehood told by the party then all the records will be written in the party’s most beneficial perspective making a lie become a true fact, since it will be passed down through generations. Another lie told by the party is that big brother was a leader since the 30’s and even though Winston had difficulty remembering what actually happen, he knew that big brother appeared at around the 60’s but the party says that big brother appeared around the 30’s.

The trainee from the telescreen caught Winston’s attention because even though Winston’s body was doing exercise, he soul was actually not there. He kept pondering about his imperceptible memories.

Party’s slogan

“Who controls the past,’ ran the Party slogan, ‘controls the future: 
who controls the present controls the past.”

Chapter 2

        Winston was grateful that the police patrol was not the one who was knocking on the door. It was  his neighbor'a wife who lived on the same floor. Victory mansion is a very old building built in 1930. This building had lots of improvement to do and it always needed to be repair. The lady's name was Mrs. Parson, wife of Tom Parsons. Winston call her Mrs. even though it was preferred to call someone comrade, that was the usual way to call people but this time was an exception.  Mrs. Parson asked him to fix her sink because she could not do it herself since her husband was not at home. When Winston got there he started fixing it. While we was at home Mrs. Parson's children appeared. There was a boy who was around 9 years old and a girl who was around 7 years old. They were accusing Winston of being an Eurasia n spy, and Winston came to the conclusion that they were saying this things because they wanted to see the hanging. The hanging is a place were Eurasian prisoners, guilty of war crimes were hanged in the park which was taking place on that evening. The boy hit Winston in the neck with a catapult and his mother immediately took him to the room.  The telescreen started to make a military voice telling a description of the new armaments of the new Floating Fortress which had been anchored between Iceland and the Foroe Islands. 

         Winston felt bad for Mrs. Parson because nowadays all parents were scare of the children's ferocity  nature. Mr.s parson's children were obsessed with the songs, processions, uniformity, the slogans of the party, big brother,  and they even  worshiped all the party did. It was normal for all kids to be like this since all you see in the telescreen. was war and more about the party and its culture. Such as one he saw while he was sitting in Mrs. Parson's house, the telsecreen was issuing "Attention! Your attention, please! A newsflash has this moment arrived from the Malabar front. Our forces in South India have won a glorious victory. I am authorized to say that the action we are now reporting may well bring the war within measurable distance of its end. Here is the newsflash—. This was just more bad news and a gory description of the annihilation of the Eurasian army. It was all getting worst as if it was not worst enough to have a rocket bomb exploded about twenty to thirty of them a week falling in London. Before Winston went to work he sat and wrote his diary and ponder for the second time, who will read his diary. 

Chapter 1

The novel 1984 takes place around the life of Winston Smith who is a 39 year old man with varicose ulcer above his right ankle. Winston Smith lives in victory mansion, a very gritty place.  In each floor Winston finds himself with posters that says “Big brother is watching you.”Winston lives in a society where people don’t have freedom and citizens are always been watched by the police patrol who snoop in people's window. Not only is the police patrol watching the citizens but there are also telescreen in their room. Winston Smith usually turns his back on the telescreen, so, they can't see everything he does and every sound he makes, its all scrutinized by the telscreen. Winston smith lives in Oceania which is the 3rd most populous city, more specifically in London, chief of Airstrip one (islands of Britain and part of Oceania, once known as Britain).

The government of Oceania is divided into four branches. Winston Smith works in the ministry of truth which is responsible for fine arts, news, entertainment, and education. Near the building of ministry of truth you can find the other government offices. The ministry of peace is concerned with war. The third one is the ministry of love which is responsible for maintain law, order and only the official  business can go in because its all surround by guards. The ministry of plenty, is responsible for economic affairs. The official language of Oceania is newspeak and the ministry of truth is minitrue, the ministry of peace is minipax , the ministry of love is miniluv and the last one is miniplenty or ministry of plenty.

Winston Smith went to an ordinary shops ( dealing with free market) even though they are not allowed but the law in this place is not as strict as the others. In the  free market you can find shoelaces and razor blades, but he came here to buy a archaic diary. This is not illegal since there are no laws but if they find you doing something illegal they might give you death sentence or forced you to do labor camp for 25 years. After buying the diary and going home, he had to get ready for the two minute hate. In the two minute hate he found himself with with two familiar people who he has never talked to. A girl who works in the fiction department, she has a freckles, thick hair, and is around 27 years old. Winston hated her because in general he hates pretty and young girls,  especially if they wore a sash  representing junior anti- sex league. In addition, he hated her because  those young and pretty ones  are " swallowers of slogans and amateur spies" .He also found himself with O'Brien, a member of the inner party. He was a burly man, had thick neck, and was humorous.

During the two minute hate the  face of Emmanuel Goldstein appeared,  the enemy of the people. The leader of the party who no one  knows whether he actually exists is " Big Brother". but Emmanuel Goldstein is a also a leader of the party, his teaching are based on treacheries, acts of sabotage, and heresies. At the end of the two minute hate a girl screamed " swine" ! and everyone responded frenzy even Winston himself was doing so. The two minutes hate is a contagious feeling that gives the desire to kill, torture etc. After this scandalous moment, Winston went back to his room. He opened the diary and wrote in an automatic action " down with big brother" filling half a page. What he just did was a crime, and usually people who went against the party will be arrested at night, removed from the registers, their existence is denied and forgotten.

At the end of the chapter,, as soon as Winston Smith heard knocking on his door, he knew that it might be the police to take him and disappear him since he wrote " DOWN WITH BIG BROTHER"  which was considered an illegal act.

Party's slogan

"WAR IS PEACE

FREEDOM IS SLAVERY

IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH"