Week 3 — 1984, Part 1, Chapters 1-5

[Susan]

In these first five chapters, we are introduced to the world of 1984 and Winston Smith, who is the reader’s guide to the world of Oceania and Newspeak, where “peace” is “war” and “love” is “hate.” What are your initial impressions of Winston and the society he lives in?

I had forgotten the celebrations of brutality, including the film Winston sees in the cinema of Eurasian refugees being killed by the opposing army. What do you think is the purpose of the film, the “two minute hates,” the public hangings, etc?

Did anything surprise you in these chapters?

[Susan]

I was surprised to realize that based on his birthdate, Winston Smith was probably named after Winston Churchill. He does not seem a Churchillian figure, at least so far.

[David]

Because we just read Animal Farm. . .

The Parsons children in 1984 bring to mind the puppies in Animal Farm. They are both are taken young and trained to serve the regime. Orwell shows how totalitarian control thrives by shaping the young into agents of repression, turning innocence into obedience, and family into surveillance.

Emmanuel Goldstein functions like Snowball in Animal Farm—both are scapegoats blamed for all failures after being cast out by authoritarian rulers. Just as Snowball represented Trotsky, Goldstein likely echoes him too, showing how regimes vilify former insiders to consolidate power and direct public hatred toward a symbolic enemy.

A very disturbing sentence.
She worked in the Fiction Department [of the Ministry of Truth]

Most disturbing sentence, so far.
Day by day and almost minute by minute the past was brought up to date.

Telescreens have a lot of the same functionality, and purpose? as Cell Phones which have the added feature of GPS and the ability to track your location and every move you make. Sure they say you can turn that off, but

There was of course no way of knowing whether you were being watched at any given moment. . .It was even conceivable that they watched everybody all the time.

Memory holes; and I will never look at a trash receptacle the same again.

[Michael]

David wrote: "Telescreens have a lot of the same functionality, and purpose? as Cell Phones..."

It is so disturbing when my phone listens to me unexpectedly. I remember one time I started seeing ads for a product that I had been talking about earlier in the day.

And yes, "memory holes" is great.

[Michael]

Certain parts of a film currently in theaters called The Amateur remind me a lot of 1984. The main character works in a basement office for the CIA. The hypervigilance of everything done in that building and the digital surveillance of the external world is very 1984 Orwellian. He also uncovers some rewriting of history (this happens fairly early in the movie so this is not much of a spoiler). From there, the stories diverge, with The Amateur being a Hollywood movie that features the typical heroism we've all come to expect from the genre.

The movie itself is good, not great - probably just okay. You might watch it if you enjoy the genre, or if you want to sit in a dark theater for a few hours to escape the world.

I also recently watched Metropolis (1927) in a local theater in my city. It, too, has some interesting comparisons, but the movie is longish and the contrasts would rely on us being further along in our reading of 1984, so I won't say more.

[David]

Susanna wrote: "It's scary how easily history can be electronically altered now."

Yes, electronic memory holes! Climate change and extreme weather won't exist soon.

Swathes of scientific data deletions are sweeping across US government websites – with decades of health, climate change and extreme weather research at risk. Now, scientists are racing to save their work before it's lost.
https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20...

[David]

I am very confused about the term INGSOC, and I suspect that confusion is intentional.

We first encounter it when Winston sees a torn poster beneath a larger one of Big Brother:

“Down at street level another poster, torn at one corner, flapped fitfully in the wind, alternately covering and uncovering the single word INGSOC.”

Why is a Big Brother poster placed over an INGSOC poster? What does this layering suggest?

Later, Winston reflects:

“He did not believe he had ever heard the word Ingsoc before 1960, but it was possible that in its Oldspeak form—'English Socialism,' that is to say—it had been current earlier.”

And Syme, while explaining Newspeak, declares:

“Newspeak is INGSOC and INSOC is Newspeak.”

So here are some of my questions:

1. Does INGSOC mean the Party itself, or merely its language and doctrine?
2. Was English Socialism, potentially once a meaningful political movement, hijacked and redefined by the Party?
3. Has INGSOC, as a political ideology, been superseded by the image of Big Brother?
4. Is this layering symbolic of how ideology gives way to myth, and how truth is overwritten by personality cult?
5. Is Orwell showing us a regime that no longer rules by ideas, but instead rules by symbols, rituals, and a face that may not even exist.

[Zadignose]

I'm often curious to see how people will react to this book. I'm rereading to keep up with the discussion. It was a very impactful book for me because I read it at quite a young age.

A thought I've had is, yes, 1984 is often approached as part prediction, part social observation, something quite insightful into the nature of authoritarianism, the brutality of forced conformity, loss of privacy, etc., but... something I rarely hear discussed is what this book is about specifically, rather than generally, meaning how is it about Winston Smith. And I've often felt that it is a book, not just about dystopia, but about guilt, shame, humiliation, weakness, suppression, inner conflict, anxiety, etc. We can blame all he goes through on the outrageous social circumstances he finds himself in, but on what level is this about his flaws, real or perceived?

We quickly get that his feelings of desire for the "dark haired woman" are expressed, not just as a rejection of her, or a fear of her, but at the heart of it, it is his id's desire to rape and murder her. I don't think this is just an artifact of two minutes of hate, I think it's what Winston hates and fears to realize is truly inside him.

When he first mentions the poster half-concealing the word INGSOC, it says "He felt as though he were wandering in the forests of the sea bottom, lost in a monstrous world where he himself was the monster."

His feeling about his family, so far recalled in the form of a recurring dream, is one of survivor guilt. He has only survived because they died. On some gut level he feels his survival is the cause of the deaths of his family members.

And in his outer-party role in the records department, we see that, as much as he despises everything about the lies and hypocrisy, and the destruction of truth and history, he is a part of the machine that does the destroying. Guilt, guilt, guilt!

Maybe this is just a weird obsession of mine, but I see it all as an exploration of how oppression and hopelessness break the individual--turn the individual against himself or herself--and though it is set in a dystopia, this perspective on the human condition doesn't have to be limited to that setting. It's a bleak treatise on self-oppression through the superego--a superego that is a product of life in society. Perhaps this should be a paired read with Freud's Society and Its Discontents?

[Zadignose]

And, on an unrelated note, so far Shakespeare has been mentioned twice, including as Winston's first spoken word upon waking from his fantasy-dream about the dark-haired woman's potent and transgressive nakedness.

Why?

[Zadignose]

@David re: INGSOC and BB: I think you're onto something there. From an impersonal social movement to the need for a personal god in the form of a supreme leader.

[Zadignose]

Another note! I've associated 1984's perspective on language with the "strong Sapir-Whorf hypothesis" (not actually fully endorsed by Sapir or Whorf, and largely rejected by today's linguists--see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linguis...). The idea is that limits of a language can limit its speaker's ability to think outside the bounds of that language.

But now, at least so far, I see this more as Syme's perspective. He's a fanatic. His embrace of this hypothesis is frightening but not necessarily convincing to Winston (as of now), and not necessarily something Orwell expects us to accept. It's a challenge to us, sure, but if it doesn't convince, that doesn't invalidate the novel as a whole.

Another thing I like is the tension between idealism and realism. The most idealistic demands that citizens be celibate, they be perfect specimens of health and beauty, that they see themselves living in a progressively better and better paradise, all have to fly in the face of human failings, physical frailty, crumbling plaster, filth, and acceptable bending and breaking of rules--within reason!--that entail fear and guilt but may not be met with immediate smiting. (Hey, wait... is this whole thing a Christian or Catholic parable?)

But, since thought-crime is the only real crime, the stupidest and most mindless are virtually incapable of crime and immune to consequence. (Hey, wait... is that why our own world is plummeting into idiocracy?)

[David]

Zadignose wrote: "and though it is set in a dystopia, this perspective on the human condition doesn't have to be limited to that setting."

Focusing on Winston's guilt, shame, and self-oppression highlights the psychological dimensions Orwell embeds beneath the overt political critique. It is entirely correct to draw our attention to the line where Winston sees himself as the monster, this moment isn't only about self-loathing; it is about his awareness his own complicity in the system that is triggered these outbursts of uglier emotions that are in turn produced by Party conditioning; a viscous circle.

From my perspective, this also connects to his faltering capacity for doublethink. Orwell suggests that the perfect Party member can willingly believe contradictions without distress.

To know and not to know, to be conscious of complete truthfulness while telling carefully constructed lies, to hold simultaneously two opinions which canceled out, knowing them to be contradictory and believing in both of them, to use logic against logic, to repudiate morality while laying claim to it, to believe that democracy was impossible and that the Party was the guardian of democracy, to forget whatever it was necessary to forget, then to draw it back into memory again at the moment when it was needed, and then promptly to forget it again, and above all, to apply the same process to the process itself—that was the ultimate subtlety: consciously to induce unconsciousness, and then, once again, to become unconscious of the act of hypnosis you had just performed. Even to understand the word “doublethink” involved the use of doublethink.

But Winston increasingly shows signs that he cannot sustain this mental fragmentation. He is aware of it—he feels it. The cognitive dissonance that the Party suppresses in others is what still lives in him, making him both dangerous and doomed.

I agree this makes 1984 not just a critique of society but a brutal excavation of the self under siege. But I do wonder, did Orwell intend Winston’s flaws to undermine our sympathy for him, or to deepen it? In other words, is this exposure of his inner ugliness meant to reflect human weakness generally, or should we sympathize with his suffering, empathize with his psychological fragmentation, or go further still and forgive him as someone shaped and broken by the Party?

[David]

Zadignose wrote: "Winston's first spoken word upon waking from his fantasy-dream about the dark-haired woman's potent and transgressive nakedness. Why?"

First we are told,

What overwhelmed him in that instant was admiration for the gesture with which she had thrown her clothes aside. With its grace and carelessness it seemed to annihilate a whole culture, a whole system of thought, as though Big Brother and the Party and the Thought Police could all be swept into nothingness by a single splendid movement of the arm. That too was a gesture belonging to the ancient time. Winston woke up with the word “Shakespeare” on his lips.

We also know the goal of Newspeak from Syme:

“Don’t you see that the whole aim of Newspeak is to narrow the range of thought?".

To Winston the gesture of the dark haired women throwing her clothes off at once exposes and condemns the narrow range of Newspeak, as well as the Party in its entirety, by demanding the rich eloquence of not just an earlier time, but Shakespeare himself to describe.

[David]

Newspeak is the linguistic equivalent of pruning a library down to a single page of slogans—an epistemological austerity program. It is a philological guillotine, severing synonymy and metaphor with bureaucratic precision. It abhors nuance as treasonous, adjectives as decadent, and thesauri as instruments of counterrevolutionary excess. In short: it is the Party’s war on lexical liberty, conducted in the name of mental hygiene.

oops, sorry, I mean:

Oldthink wasteful. Newspeak cut Fancyword, doubleplusungood. Thesauri memory-holed. One word, meaning, truth.

[Emil]

Zadignose wrote: "And, on an unrelated note, so far Shakespeare has been mentioned twice, including as Winston's first spoken word upon waking from his fantasy-dream about the dark-haired woman's potent and transgre..."


Great question.

My short answer is a quote by Dumas: "After God, Shakespeare has created most."

Now for the long answer:

The most evident reason lies in Orwell's likely homage to Shakespeare. It is hard to imagine an influential piece of English literature where Shakespeare's presence is not felt in some form.

Regarding the dream, there is a direct correlation between the beauty of the natural landscape and the lyrical elegance of Shakespeare's language. Both epitomize the human creativity and individuality that the Party seeks to annihilate.

The following text is a monologue spoken by Oberon in A Midsummer Night's Dream (Act 2, Scene 1). I know this is a bit too long for a comment, but please bear with me—I just couldn’t bring myself to chop such a beautiful passage in half!

I know a bank where the wild thyme blows,

Where oxlips and the nodding violet grows,

Quite over-canopied with luscious woodbine,

With sweet musk-roses and with eglantine:

There sleeps Titania sometime of the night,

Lull’d in these flowers with dances and delight;

And there the snake throws her enamell’d skin,

Weed wide enough to wrap a fairy in:

And with the juice of this I’ll streak her eyes,

And make her full of hateful fantasies.

Take thou some of it, and seek through this grove:

A sweet Athenian lady is in love

With a disdainful youth: anoint his eyes;

But do it when the next thing he espies

May be the lady: thou shalt know the man

By the Athenian garments he hath on.

Effect it with some care, that he may prove

More fond on her than she upon her love:

And look thou meet me ere the first cock crow.


Now let's translate it to Newspeak:


"Knowplace bank doubleplusgood. Flowers doubleplusbloom. Titania sleep doubleplusgoodjoy. Hatejuice make doubleplusungoodthink. Seek lady unlove man. Juice his eyes, doublepluscare, make him lovepluslady. Meet me daystart."



P.S:

Shakespeare unallow attempt schools US. Fail attempt. Now passages unwrite or ungive passages

[David]

Emil wrote: "Meet me daystart."

Should that be daystart or nightend? 😁

Ha! My own response makes me wonder if Newspeak would use emojis.

[Emil]

David wrote: "Emil wrote: "Meet me daystart."

Should that be daystart or nightend? 😁

Ha! My own response makes me wonder if Newspeak would use emojis."

Thanks for the "thoughtfood", I’ve spent way too much time overthinking your question. Emojis, in a way, reduce vocabulary and simplify communication, making them potentially compatible with Newspeak.

Let me try to translate the emoji from your sentence into text: “Should that be daystart or nightend? Just a playful thought.”

The more I think about it, what’s chilling is how emojis align with the Party’s ideology. Designed to express emotions, they paradoxically feel devoid of any real sentiment—nothing more than standardized hollow symbols of feeling. Consider the acronym “lol” (laugh out loud) paired with its emoji. Once meant to convey genuine laughter, it’s now a robotic gesture, used so frequently that it’s been drained of its original meaning.

That said, emojis might pose a slight challenge for the Party due to their visual appeal. Instead, the Party could opt for something utilitarian like the Unicode Character ☺ (U+263A), which is minimalistic, functional, and stripped of any unnecessary charm.

[David]

I suppose Big Brother wouldn't allow all of the emojis but Since Oceania is constantly at war, these might be OK. 👊🇺🇸🔥💪🙏

[Thomas]

David wrote: "Zadignose wrote: "Winston's first spoken word upon waking from his fantasy-dream about the dark-haired woman's potent and transgressive nakedness. Why?"

First we are told,
What overwhelmed him i..."

This society is founded on thought control, so one of the few places where people can be psychologically free is in their dreams. The dark-haired woman is naked, but Winston barely notices. What he admires is the "grace and carelessness" with which she throws her clothes aside. It seems to him that this gesture of freedom "annhilates a whole culture, a whole system of thought" and with it Big Brother. This might be what Winston wants to emulate in his illicit diary writing, and maybe he's dreaming in a grandiose way that he too might be a Shakespeare.

[Janet]

Ha! very funny, I would use an emoji to respond but I only use them in Signal chats!

[La_mariane]

I'm joining this discussion very late, but I wanted to add a question to the above thread : does Big Brother even exist ? (A fun typo I just committed : Big Bother...)

I mean, sure, his face is everywhere, but it could be a mere figurehead. And his style is easy to emulate (we see it as part of Winston's job). Anybody who's very high in the Party could write those speaches. I don't doubt that someone is leading the Party, but is it really the man everybody knows as Big Brother?

And, as an additionnal note, I quite like Winston in those 5 first chapters (I haven't gone further in the book yet), but the one I felt truly sorry for is the neighbour. Her kids sound like a neverending nightmare. And her husband is proud of them... Those children are the illustrations of what happens when you teach cruelty, and you present empathy as a weakness.