NINETEEN EIGHTY FOUR

1. NINETEEN EIGHTY FOUR George Orwell

2. STRUCTURE • The novel is divided into three parts with one appendix. For the most part it is structured in a linear fashion and chronologically from Winston’s rebellious act of flouting party rules by beginning a diary. Exceptions to linear structure are when Winston is dreaming or remembering events from the past (eg. Winston dreams of his mother on pages 167-68)

3. PART 1 A Disintegrating Man in a Disintegrating Society • We are presented with the status quo in 1984 Totalitarian London. We learn about the role of government in this society, Winston’s home, his neighbours, his job at the Ministry of Truth, his work associates, his constantly monitored daily routine.As readers we are struck by the ugliness of the war torn setting. Dust and cold are central motifs: “…Winston…slipped quickly through the glass doors of Victory Mansions, though not quickly enough to prevent a swirl of gritty dust from entering along with him” (p.3). • Of central importance is the representation of Winston as ill: “The next moment he was doubled up by a violent coughing fit…His veins had swelled with the effort of the cough, and the varicose ulcer had started itching” (p.34).The prevailing societal dysfunction inhabits him physically and mentally. His diary entries are full of pathos in that we see that even in his rebellion he can only mouth newspeak: “Thoughtcrime does not entail death: thoughtcrime IS death” (p.30). The process of annihilation of his spirit has begun.

4. Part 1 continued… • Notice how Orwell uses foreshadowing here. His memory only exists as a defect at this point. The linearity of plot is broken by memory so that structure reflects theme. Pathetically Winston perceives memory as representing hope. Parallels can be drawn between Orwell’s representation of Winston Smith as ill and Schlink’s representation of Michael Berg as sick. Think about the metaphoric impact of each representation.

5. PART 2Winston’s Rehabilitation - with Love comes Hope • Part two of the novel is starkly juxtaposed against the first part. Where we are as readers are positioned to expect calamity from part one, Orwell engages us with the elicit love affair between Winston and Julia. Beauty in setting is introduced for the first time: “Winston picked his way up the lane through dappled light and shade, stepping out into pools of gold wherever the boughs parted…the ground was misty with bluebells…The air seemed to kiss one’s skin.” (p.123) • Sensual pleasures are introduced: “…he knew by the smell that it was very unusual chocolate. It was dark and shiny, and was wrapped in silver paper.” (p.127) In this part of the novel, Winston submits to his urge to pursue memory: “The first whiff of its scent had stirred up some memory which he could not pin down, but which was powerful and troubling.” (p.128) Orwell makes a connection between memory and dreams. Winston dreams of his mother and of the “Golden Country” (p.129) In this part of the novel, Winston and Julia appropriate a past existence in the room above MrCharrington’s shop. The nursery rhyme Oranges and Lemons and the paperweight are motifs of the past Winston searches for.

7. Part 2 continued… • Winston’s pursuit of memory led him to the prole pub in part one, a fruitless exercise: “ The old man’s memory was nothing but a rubbish-heap of details.” (p. 95). In part two, Winston experiences a physical rehabilitation: “Winston had dropped his habit of drinking gin at all hours…He had grown fatter, his varicose ulcer had subsided…” (p.157) This is accompanied by some reintegration of his spirit. His memories re-form around his dreams of his mother: “Winston had woken up with his eyes full of tears…In the dream he had remembered his last glimpse of his mother…”(p. 167). • In the midst of conveying that there may be hope for Winston, Orwell reminds us through foreshadowing of the eventual calamity he makes a point of embedding early in the novel. Whilst the room above MrCharrington’s shop holds promise of an idyllic refuge, it is riddled with rats and bed bugs. Both are obvious symbols of Charrington’s role as spy in the novel. Importantly, Winston makes contact with O’Brien in part 2, signalling his doom. Syme disappears in Part 2 (pg 154), Jones Aaronson and Rutherford still haunt Winston (pg 161). How does Orwell use foreshadowing with Winston’s memory of seeing Jones Aaronson and Rutherford in the Chestnut Tree Café (page 79) and his exchange with the old man in the prole pub (page 93-96)?

9. Part 3 Winston’s Reintegration • The purpose of Orwell’s structural deviations from chronology to record Winston’s dreams of his mother in order to illustrate Winston as a defective party member becomes clear early in part three of the novel. In part two, when Winston wakes from his dream in tears he experiences a flash of realisation: “’Do you know,’ he said, ‘that until this moment I believed I had murdered my mother?’” (pg.167) Winston remembers his mother as self-denying and himself as rapacious in the competition for food during the war. His offence against his family is aligned with Parsons in the Ministry in Love who has landed there at the hands of his children. Orwell manages to subvert reader’s hopes for Winston by reinforcing the inevitability of his damnation. • In part 3 O’Brien sets about reintegrating Winston and ridding him of his defective memory: “I shall save you, I shall make you perfect.” (pg. 256) Orwell satirizes the extraordinary cruelty he witnessed in the Spanish Civil War and heard about in Stalin’s Russia in this part of the novel

10. Part 3 continued • Winston’s defective spirit is eventually crushed when he is confronted by his own physical ruin. Ironically, Winston’s submission to the disease rehabilitates him in the eyes of the party: “A bowed, grey-coloured, skeleton-like thing was coming towards him…At a guess he would have said that it was the body of a man of sixty, suffering from some malignant disease.” (p. 284) • Winston’s dreams have been smashed like the paperweight. He has experienced his own private hell in his confrontation with the rats. At the end of the novel he has become party perfect, a broken down alcoholic in the Chestnut Tree Café, hanging on party propaganda, finding Julia repugnant and secure in the knowledge the two plus two equals five.