Winston works in the department of
records. His job is to correct and/or rewrite old written records of
things to fit what the party goes by in the present, all contrary
information is destroyed. He is one of many that do the same thing,
and one of many that possibly are doing the same thing at the same
time.
”But
actually, he thought as he re-adjusted the Ministry of Plenty's
figures, it was not even forgery. It was merely the substitution of
one piece of nonsense for another. Most of the material that you were
dealing with had no connection with anything in the real world, not
even the kind of connection that is contained in a direct lie.
Statistics were just as much a fantasy in their original version as
in their rectified version. ”
At lunch he has a talk with his
”comrade” about newspeak, and it goes into detail about that. In
the end the purpose of newspeak is to make thought-crime impossible,
by narrowing the language and thus narrowing thought, so how can you
commit thought-crime if you can't think.
”It's
a beautiful thing, the destruction of words. Of course the great
wastage is in the verbs and adjectives, but there are hundreds of
nouns that can be got rid of as well. It isn't only the synonyms;
there are also the antonyms. After all, what justification is there
for a word which is simply the opposite of some other word? A word
contains its opposite in itself. Take "good", for instance.
If you have a word like "good", what need is there for a
word like "bad"? "Ungood" will do just as well —
better, because it's an exact opposite, which the other is not. Or
again, if you want a stronger version of "good", what sense
is there in having a whole string of vague useless words like
"excellent" and "splendid" and all the rest of
them? "Plusgood" covers the meaning, or "doubleplusgood"
if you want something stronger still. Of course we use those forms
already. but in the final version of Newspeak there'll be nothing
else. In the end the whole notion of goodness and badness will be
covered by only six words — in reality, only one word. Don't you
see the beauty of that, Winston? ”
Orthodoxy
is unconsciousness.
After
work Winston is pondering over things and writing in his diary. In
his thoughts he describes how the party wants to get rid of eroticism
and enjoyment from sex. He used to have a wife, and Winston had
nicknamed her in his own head as ”The human soundtrack” because
she had nothing in her head but party slogans. He would've tolerated
living with her if it wasn't for the sex. Sex was something she
wanted them to have for the purpose of having a baby, as their ”duty”
for the party. After some time of trying to get pregnant without
success, they gave up and soon after separated. His wife was
something he rarely thought of.
”As
soon as he touched her she seemed to wince and stiffen. To embrace
her was like embracing a jointed wooden image. And what was strange
was that even when she was clasping him against her he had the
feeling that she was simultaneously pushing him away with all her
strength. The rigidity of her muscles managed to convey that
impression. She would lie there with shut eyes, neither resisting nor
co-operating, but submitting.”
”The
sexual act, successfully performed, was rebellion. Desire was
thoughtcrime.
”
Further
on, still thinking and writing in his diary, Winston concludes that
if there is hope, it lies in the proles. The proles are around 85% of
the population, they are considered by the party to be useful only
for working and breeding. The proles are not subject to as much
policing and over-watch as the inner and outer party, but they still
have undercover operatives among them spreading rumors and
disinformation. The proletariat are kept in continuous poverty.
Winston believes that if the proletarian masses become conscious they
could destroy the party.
”Until
they become conscious they will never rebel, and until after they
have rebelled they cannot become conscious.
”
He
keeps thinking about reality, truth and the party’s constant
alteration of it. He remembers that a few years ago he came across a
piece of newspaper article that was definitive proof of alteration of
history by the party, but there was nothing he could do but to
destroy it, in fear making himself a target.
”How
could you tell how much of it was lies? It might be true that the
average human being was better off now than he had been before the
Revolution. The only evidence to the contrary was the mute protest in
your own bones, the instinctive feeling that the conditions you lived
in were intolerable and that at some other time they must have been
different.
”
”The
past not only changed, but changed continuously. What most afflicted
him with the sense of nightmare was that he had never clearly
understood why the huge imposture was undertaken. The immediate
advantages of falsifying the past were obvious, but the ultimate
motive was mysterious.
”
He
also wondered like many times before he had, that maybe he was a
lunatic. In the end he came to a conclusion that the solid world
exists and that it's rational.
”Freedom
is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is
granted, all else follows.
”
One
day, on an impulse, Winston goes for a walk around London. There's no
laws against walking in areas where the proletarian live or talking
to them, but having no official business there warrants attention
from the powers that be if caught by a patrol. After witnessing a
rocket-bomb striking rather close, Winston notices a old man going
into a pub. Winston estimated that he looked to be around 80-years
old, and he got a impulse to go into the pub after him to ask some
questions and so he did. Winston tried asking the old man about times
before the revolution, but got no straight answers for the old man's
mind was not all there. Winston got out of the pub and continued
walking aimlessly, and soon found himself at the shop where he had
bought the diary he had been writing in. He goes in and is greeted by
the shop owner, he ends up buying a old and beautiful glass
paperweight for the reason that it was so different and reminiscent
of the past. He made plans to return there someday, but not too soon
to arouse suspicion. On the way home he runs into the black haired
woman, whom he had been paranoid about and thought she possibly was
out to expose him as a thought-criminal. They walk by each other and
Winston's brain kicks into gear thinking of what it all entails. He
gets the thought to run after her and murder her with the paperweight
he bought, or going to the community center to get a partial alibi.
But in the end he just went home. At home he couldn't get the thought
of being exposed and taken by the thought police out of his head.
“It
would not matter if they killed you at once. To be killed was what
you expected. But before death (nobody spoke of such things, yet
everybody knew of them) there was the routine of confession that had
to be gone through: the grovelling on the floor and screaming for
mercy, the crack of broken bones, the smashed teeth, and bloody clots
of hair. Why did you have to endure it, since the end was always the
same? Why was it not possible to cut a few days or weeks out of your
life? Nobody ever escaped detection, and nobody ever failed to
confess. When once you had succumbed to thoughtcrime it was certain
that by a given date you would be dead. Why then did that horror,
which altered nothing, have to lie embedded in future time?
“
Assignment:
Reading
went well this week, unlike last week I had a paper and pen to write
down words I wasn't too sure of the moment I came across them. The
book is mainly narrative, with some dialogue here and there. And the
language used is rich, especially in description, and feel very
“wide”. Reading is enjoyable, if not a bit heavy at times.
Gesticulate
= göra åtbörder, gestikulera.
Ineffectual
= utan effekt, ineffektiv.
Anthology
= antologi.
Proletarian
= proletär.
Incurred
= ådra sig, utsätta sig.
Derisive
= hånfull, gäckande, löjligt, futtig.
Protuberant
= framskjutande, utskjutande, utstående.
Pannikin
= kopp, mug.
Larynx
= Struphuvud.
Aloofness
= reserverad hållning, högdragenhet.
Venerate
= ära, vörda.
Solemnity
= högtidlighet, högtidlig ceremoni.
Edify
= bygga upp, verka uppbyggande på.
Proliferate
= föröka sig genom celldelning.
Tacitly
= tyst, stillatigande, I sitt stilla sinne.
Varicose
= uppsvullen.
Camaraderie
= kamratskap, kamratanda.
Palpable
= påtaglig, handgriplig, tydlig, uppenbar.
Anodyne
= smärtstillande, dövande.
Steeple
= [spetsigt] kyrktorn, tornspira
