Reading Questions 1984

Reading Questions 1984 Part One Chapter 1 1. Examine why Airstrip One operates on military time, as opposed to standard time, which Britain has historically used. 2. Discuss the message conveyed by the Big Brother posters hanging in apartment buildings. How would this message differ if the posters only hung in public places? 3. Examine the Party s three slogans: War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength. At this point in the novel, what do you think they mean? 4. Analyze why Winston is not certain of the exact date and how a lack of timekeeping reinforces the Party s manipulation of history. 5. Generalize what the film Winston watched says about the Party, how it controls the populace, and how it views its citizens. 6. Summarize Winston s feelings about O Brien. 7. Contrast Winston s opinion of O Brien with Winston s opinion of the dark-haired girl in his office. 8. Describe the Two Minutes Hate and its purpose. 9. Show what Winston thinks he sees in O Brien s expression. How accurate do you think Winston s assessment is and why? 10. Infer why Winston frightens himself when writing, Down with Big Brother, in his diary and how he could be guilty of thoughtcrime. Part One Chapter 2 1. Formulate what the Party s use of comrade says about its political tendencies and how this places 1984 in a historical context. 2. Assess the role of children in Airstrip One. How are children trained to support the Party? 3. Interpret the comment that O Brien says in Winston s dream and predict how it will reoccur in the novel. 4. Name and explain the three principles of INGSOC. 5. Explain Winston s comment, Thoughtcrime does not entail death: thoughtcrime IS death. Part One Chapters 3 & 4 1. Describe how the citizens start their day. 2. Describe Winston s dream about his mother. 3. Describe Winston s dream about the Golden Country. 4. What is Winston s primary task at work? 5. What is a memory hole? 6. What is doublethink and why is it necessary in order to survive under Big Brother s control? 7. Who is Ogilvy? Part One Chapter 5 1. Infer why the Party prefers citizens to refer to each other as comrade rather than friend. 2. Contrast Syme s opinion of public hangings to Winston s. 3. Demonstrate how Newspeak hopes to eradicate all thoughtcrime. 4. Infer how Ingsoc utilizes language as a form of propaganda. 5. Design a real-life situation in which Syme s comment that, Orthodoxy means not thinking not needing to think. Orthodoxy is unconsciousness, holds true. 6. Contrast Winston s assessment of Syme s speech in the cafeteria with the conversations overheard at the Chestnut Tree Café. 7. Evaluate how Parsons children s actions reflect their society s attitude toward differences. 8. Tell how citizens react to any government news about rations or production, and explain why it is an odd reaction. 9. Summarize why Winston believes that some citizens will be vaporized and others will not be. 10. Give an example of facecrime. Part One Chapter 6 1. Analyze Winston s belief that your worst enemy is your own nervous system. 2. Generalize differences between the Party women and the prole women. 3. Explain why the Party does not allow people who are physically attracted to each other to marry. 4. Describe Winston s relationship with his wife, Katharine. 5. Examine why Winston believes that a real love affair is an almost unthinkable event. 6. Explain Winston s belief that, The sexual act, successfully performed, was rebellion. Desire was thoughtcrime. Part One Chapter 7

1. Quote Winston s thoughts on why the proles do not rebel against Ingsoc. 2. Tell how the Party views and treats the proles. 3. Describe how the Party utilizes history as propaganda. 4. Examine Winston s reaction to the Party s take on history. 5. Show how the Party s control of the press allows it to manipulate history. 6. Explain Winston s feelings about being arrested by the Thought Police. 7. What do you believe would have occurred if Winston had shared the evidence exonerating Jones, Aaronson, and Rutherford, instead of destroying it? 8. Assess how the Party manipulates history. Why do you believe the Party does so? 9. What is the Party s essential command? 10. Interpret Winston s axiom, Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else follows. Part One Chapter 8 1. Define ownlife. 2. Discuss the irony of the proles situation and the Party s view of them. 3. Connect Winston s conversation with the older gentleman to the Party s view of the proles. 4. Infer why Winston checks for telescreens at the pub and in the room over Mr. Charrington s shop. 5. Compose a response to Winston s question, Do you feel that you have more freedom now than you had in those days? 6. Explain why the Party isolates citizens from each other. 7. Where does Winston return, and what does he purchase? 8. Describe the picture on the wall and how it is mounted in the room. 9. Examine how Winston and Mr. Charrington s knowledge of London s churches exemplifies the Party s approach to religion and history. 10. Judge how trustworthy Mr. Charrington is or is not. 11. Who does Winston see in the street, and what does he think she is doing? Part 2 Chapter 1 1. What does Julia do to get Winston s attention? 2. Describe what Winston first does with Julia s note. 3. Examine Winston s reaction to the message in Julia s note. 4. Analyze the irony regarding Winston s budding relationship with Julia and his newfound desire to live. 5. Compose a situation in which Julia and Winston could openly converse at work. 6. Assess why Winston has difficulty looking at Julia when he sits with her in the cafeteria. 7. What seems contradictory about Julia and Winston meeting in Victory Square? 8. Discuss how the parade of prisoners assists the Party s domination of its citizens. 9. Show how Julia takes the lead in her relationship with Winston. Part 2 Chapter 2 1. Explain whether you think Winston should or should not trust Julia. 2. Generalize why Julia likes Winston. 3. Evaluate Winston s tryst with Julia in regards to his dream of the Golden Country. 4. Describe Winston s initial thoughts about Julia. 5. Contrast Julia s public persona with her true feelings about the Party. 6. Examine what Julia means when she states, Always yell with the crowd, that s what I say. It s the only way to be safe. 7. Infer how the thrush s song draws Julia and Winston together. 8. Evaluate Winston s comment to Julia, The more men you ve had, the more I love you. 9. Contrast Winston s current feelings for Julia to people s interpersonal feelings before Ingsoc. Part 2 Chapter 3 1. Describe the irony in Julia going to a Junior Anti-Sex League meeting. 2. Summarize how Julia and Winston must act and converse when they are together in public. 3. Examine Julia s belief, If you kept the small rules you could break the big ones. Do you agree or disagree with this statement? Provide examples to support your answer. 4. Infer why the Party produces pornography. 5. How do you believe Julia and Winston s relationship would fare if they could marry? 6. Tell how Winston s wife, Katharine, responded to sex. 7. Evaluate Julia s belief, All this marching up and down and cheering and waving flags is simply sex gone sour. If you re happy inside yourself, why should you get excited about Big Brother and the Three-Year Plans and the Two Minutes Hate and all the rest of their bloody rot?

8. Contrast Winston and Katharine s reactions to being lost during the community hike. 9. Examine Winston s comment, We are the dead. Part 2 Chapter 4 1. Describe the room above Mr. Charrington s shop. 2. Interpret the symbolism of the prole woman singing outside the window. 3. Demonstrate why Winston wants a private place for Julia and himself. 4. Analyze the crimes Julia and Winston are committing by renting and meeting in the room. 5. Formulate why Julia and Winston are so excited about the tea and coffee. 6. Assess why female Party members do not wear makeup, dresses, or heels. 7. What does Winston see that frightens him? 8. Describe why Winston likes the glass paperweight. 9. Examine Julia s reaction to the picture of St. Clement s Dane. Part 2 Chapter 5 1. Tell how Syme became an unperson. 2. Describe the preparations for Hate Week. 3. Examine why the Party hangs the posters of the Eurasian soldier. 4. Explain Winston s comment, Dirty or clean, the room was paradise. 5. Generalize why Winston feels a sense of impending death while finding sanctuary in the room. 6. Assess why Julia does not believe that widespread opposition to the government exists. 7. Contrast Julia and Winston s reactions to questioning the Party s teachings. 8. List two historical details that Winston questions, but Julia accepts. 9. Show what Winston means when he says, Nothing exists except an endless present in which the Party is always right. 10. Analyze how Julia accepts much of the Party s orthodoxy while rebelling against it. Part 2 Chapter 6 1. What does O Brien offer to Winston? 2. Describe how Winston is supposed to retrieve the item from O Brien. 3. Show why going to O Brien s home is important to Winston. 4. Analyze how O Brien flatters and tries to bond with Winston. 5. Generalize why Winston does not plan to immediately retrieve the item from O Brien. 6. Evaluate Winston s belief, The end was contained in the beginning. Part 2 Chapter 7 1. What rare emotional reaction does Winston display when he awakes? 2. Discuss how Winston had previously dealt with memories of separating from his mother. 3. Describe Oceania in Winston s childhood. 4. Examine Winston s childhood reaction to the shortage of food. Do you believe that he was acting selfishly or appropriately toward his mother and sister? 5. Compare the forced-labor camps and Reclamation Centers of Winston s youth to the Holocaust concentration camps of World War II. 6. Formulate how successful the Party was at ridding Winston of his feelings. How has this changed over the course of the novel? 7. Assess the irony in Winston s view of the proles. 8. From Julia and Winston s perspective, explain the difference between confession and betrayal. 9. What does Winston expect to keep to himself when he is in the Ministry of Love? Part 2 Chapter 8 1. Contrast O Brien s apartment building to Winston s. 2. What action of O Brien s shocks Winston and Julia? 3. Summarize the evidence that proves to Winston that O Brien is a political conspirator. 4. Show how O Brien makes Winston feel that he is part of a secret group without actually providing him with any concrete information. 5. Analyze what Julia and Winston agree to do in the name of the Brotherhood. How, if at all, could Julia and Winston help their society by performing these actions? 6. What do Winston and Julia agree not to do? 7. Evaluate to what degree Winston and Julia should trust O Brien. 8. Tell which two comments O Brien states, or restates from Winston, to appeal personally to him. 9. Summarize the secret information Winston shares with O Brien.

10. Identify O Brien s response regarding where he and Winston will meet again, as well as Winston s opinion of the response. Part 2 Chapter 9 1. Why does Winston have to work ninety hours in five days? 2. Summarize the crowd s reaction when the speaker remarks that Oceania is fighting against Eastasia. 3. Show why the war continues, even though there is no chance of a decisive victory on either side. 4. Analyze the government s ultimate reason for perpetuating the war. 5. Generalize the Party s two key aims and the two problems that it tries to solve. 6. Explain the Party s true meaning of the slogan, War is Peace. 7. Contrast Winston s reaction to The Theory and Practice of Oligarchical Collectivism with Julia s. 8. Tell how the Party can control its citizens more effectively than past rulers could. 9. Describe the concept of doublethink and provide an example of it. 10. Show how Winston is wrongly comforted by thinking, Sanity is not statistical. Part 2 Chapter 10 1. Infer what the prole woman s singing represents for Winston. 2. Generalize how Winston s opinion of proles has changed since the beginning of the novel. 3. Explain how Winston believes that the dictatorial governments will eventually be overthrown. 4. From where does the voice speak to Winston and Julia? How might Winston and Julia have found the telescreen? 5. Differentiate Mr. Charringon s current use of the poem about London s churches and the previous times when Winston had heard it. 6. Examine the symbolism of the thought police smashing the coral paperweight. 7. Analyze the role that Mr. Charrington plays in Winston and Julia s arrest. Part 3 Chapter 1 1. Describe Winston s surroundings in the Ministry of Love. 2. Discuss how and why political prisoners are treated differently from common criminals. 3. Contrast how Winston and O Brien perceived their meeting in the place with no darkness. 4. Examine why Ampleforth is imprisoned, and what his arrest conveys about the Oceanic legal system. 5. Explain why Parsons, Winston s neighbor, is arrested. 6. Formulate the difference between Winston and Parson s opinions of their government. 7. Evaluate what the starving man in the cell represents to Winston. 8. Predict what occurs in Room 101. 9. Describe Winston s first thought when O Brien comes into the cell. 10. Interpret O Brien s response to Winston, They got me a long time ago. Part 3 Chapter 2 1. Tell why Winston is not killed each time he is tortured. 2. Summarize the actual role that O Brien plays in Winston s torture. 3. Examine how Winston views O Brien s role in his torture. 4. Analyze how O Brien exhibits doublethink to Winston. 5. Generalize how O Brien reasons that the Party s memory is always correct. 6. Explain what O Brien means when he tells Winston, It is not easy to become sane. 7. Tell how O Brien portrays himself as a person who wants to help Winston. 8. Describe why the Party chooses to torture political prisoners rather than just kill them. 9. Examine the Party s meaning of We are the dead. 10. Analyze O Brien s responses to Winston s inquiries about Big Brother and the Brotherhood. Part 3 Chapter 3 1. List the three stages in Winston s reintegration. 2. Contrast Winston s previous knowledge of the book with what O Brien tells him about it. 3. Show how Winston s opinion of why the Party holds power differs from its actual reason for wanting power. 4. Analyze how the Party intends to gain power over its citizens. 5. Generalize where Orwell places the Party and its beliefs in the stream of history. 6. Decide how what you know of Winston s life fits into the seven years in which he was framed by O Brien. 7. What does Winston believe will ultimately defeat the Party? 8. Discuss how O Brien uses a previous conversation with Winston to demoralize him now. 9. Examine how O Brien shifts the blame for Winston s condition onto Winston. How accurate is O Brien s argument? 10. Explain why Winston feels he has not betrayed Julia.

Part 3 Chapter 4 1. Generalize why Winston is given regular meals, clothes, and dental work. 2. Judge why Winston dreams of O Brien in the Golden Country. 3. Tell how Winston works to regain his physical strength. 4. Decide which stage of reintegration Winston enters when he writes, Freedom is Slavery and Two and Two Make Five. 5. Provide real-life examples of doublethink. 6. Evaluate how Winston is now conforming to O Brien s description of progressing through the stages of reintegration. 7. Show how Winston digresses from fully accepting the Party s beliefs. 8. Analyze why O Brien insists that Winston loves Big Brother. Part 3 Chapter 5 1. Tell why it is symbolic for Room 101 to be located in the lowest part of the Ministry of Love. 2. Describe how O Brien knows that Winston is afraid of rats. 3. Show why O Brien believes that every person will break in Room 101. 4. Analyze how Winston reacts to the rats. 5. Assess Winston s response to the rats. 6. Do you think that everyone would break in Room 101? Formulate a situation in which a person would not break. 7. How does asking for Julia to be put in his place symbolize Winston completely accepting Big Brother? Part 3 Chapter 6 1. Identify facts that show that Winston has fully accepted Big Brother. 2. Summarize how Winston is still haunted by his experience in Room 101. 3. Examine why Winston holds a higher-paying job than he previously held. 4. Analyze how and why Winston and Julia s relationship has changed since they were released from the Ministry of Love. 5. Generalize the significance of the lyrics, Under the spreading chestnut tree, I sold you and you sold me. 6. Evaluate why the thought police no longer watch Winston. 7. Tell why Winston thinks the memory of playing a game with his mother is false. 8. Name the indispensable, healing change that occurs when Winston looks at the picture of Big Brother. 9. Discuss why Winston thinks of being shot after he finally loves Big Brother. 10. Examine the irony in the final statement, He had won the victory over himself. He loved Big Brother.