1984

“WAR IS PEACE. FREEDOM IS SLAVERY. IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH.”

The three slogans of the Party highlight the constant contradictions in the post-revolution world. The Ministry of Peace keeps Oceania in constant war, which creates purpose for production and gives the populace a common enemy. Freedom from the Party is essentially death, “the greatest of all failures” (333). Ignorance allows for blissful acceptance of Party doctrine, which strengthens the Party but not individuals.

“And yet the very next instant he was at one with the people about him, and all that was said of Goldstein seemed to him to be true.”

Propaganda has the power to manipulate Winston’s emotions. Winston dislikes the Party and the Two Minutes Hate, yet he cannot help becoming enraptured when surrounded by the intense hatred of others. In this brief moment, he considers the possibility of the Party’s propaganda being true.

“We shall meet in the place where there is no darkness.”

Seven years before the novel opens, Winston dreams that he hears O’Brien’s voice saying this to him in the dark. After Winston’s arrest, O’Brien reveals that he’s been watching Winston for those seven years. The place with no darkness turns out to be the Ministry of Love, where O’Brien oversees Winston’s torture in Part 3.

“Nothing was your own except the few cubic centimeters inside your skull.”

Constant surveillance means there is no privacy in this society. While modern readers are familiar with the notion that no life is entirely private, this was a futuristic and frightening concept for readers in Orwell’s time. Winston and Julia can never escape from telescreens, microphones, and spies, and constantly self-monitoring and controlling everything down to facial expressions is exhausting. In the end, the Party does infiltrate the space within Winston’s skull as well as his heart, demonstrating that even the mind and heart are not safe from propaganda and power.

“He did not exist: He had never existed.”

Under Party rule, people and historical events can be altered and even removed from existence. Individuals who cross the Party are discredited and removed from society. Emmanuel Goldstein’s character and image are retained and used to stir a collective hatred, but individuals who disobey or challenge the Party are simply removed from history to maintain total Party control.

“Newspeak is Ingsoc and Ingsoc is Newspeak.”

Syme concisely and articulately explains the relationship between Oceania and its official language. Newspeak is representative of Ingsoc, or English Socialism, in both speech and thought, and it aims to strip away all unnecessary words from language. As Ingsoc grows in political power, Newspeak grows in its influence over shaping the thoughts of individuals.

“The most deadly danger of all was talking in your sleep. There was no way of guarding against that, so far as he could see.”

Constant surveillance makes even sleep a potentially dangerous activity. In this society, letting down appearances for even a moment can result in suspicion. Winston has trained himself to control his facial expressions and self-monitor his actions, but he cannot control himself when he’s asleep, making him vulnerable to arrest should he ever say something in his sleep. In Part 3, Winston does cry Julia’s name in his sleep, and that’s what initiates his final torture session.

“The unforgivable crime was promiscuity between Party members.”

Before meeting Julia, Winston already understands that the Party prohibits sex as a way of controlling individuals. His own brief marriage confirms for Winston that the Party aims to remove all pleasure from sex, although he doesn’t understand the foundational motivation behind doing so. Julia later connects energy and emotion to the Party’s manipulation of sex. As Julia understands it, sex is an act of political rebellion because it turns individual attention to pleasure rather than Party-inspired hatred.

“Until they become conscious they will never rebel, and until after they have rebelled they cannot become conscious.”

Winston places his hope for a large-scale rebellion with the proletariat class. The proles make up 85% of the population, so they are the class with force in numbers. However, the Party’s mechanisms systematically keep the proles poor, uneducated, and disinterested in global affairs. Until the proletariat class becomes aware of the inequalities and cruelties inflicted upon them, they’ll continue to have no reason or means to rebel against the Party.

“It struck him that the truly characteristic thing about modern life was not its cruelty and insecurity, but simply its bareness, its dinginess, its listlessness.”

The Party constantly touts its successes in raising the quality of life for its people, but details bring the accuracy of these claims into question. The Ministry of Plenty constantly rations goods, and a black market exists for basic goods, such as real coffee and razor blades. The Party portrays itself as a provider and protector, but it keeps the populace intentionally deprived and in danger of constant war.

“Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else follows.”

This math equation appears frequently as a symbol of the Party’s mind control. If the Party says two and two make five, then five is the correct answer to the math equation, and anyone challenging that answer is against the Party. The freedom to correctly answer a math question would mean having the freedom to defy Big Brother.

“Oranges and lemons, say the bells of St Clement’s!”

This childhood rhyme is repeated throughout the novel, with different characters filling in various pieces to create the whole song. Mr. Charrington begins and ends the rhyme, symbolizing his role in beginning Winston’s downfall and eventually concluding his role with Winston’s arrest. Julia recognizes the rhyme from her grandfather, giving her a distant connection to the poem and the past it represents. O’Brien completes the rhyme by filling in the final missing line, foreshadowing his role as the final executor of Winston’s downfall.

“Always yell with the crowd, that’s what I say. It’s the only way to be safe.”

Julia is characterized by apparent contradictions: She is a member of the Junior Anti-Sex League, yet she began her promiscuous relationships at age 16. She desires to rebel against the Party, but she isn’t interested in understanding Party ideology beyond what she needs to know to stay safe. Julia goes slightly out of her way to contribute more than necessary to the Party, but she does so to cover her rebellious sexual exploits.

“No emotion was pure, because everything was mixed up with fear and hatred.”

The Party’s propaganda aims to direct emotion as it benefits Party needs. Winston has lived under Party rule for the majority of his life, attending daily Two Minutes Hate sessions, contributing to Hate Week, and generally trying to stay in the Party’s favor. After nearly 40 years of this behavior, basic emotions like love and lust have been suppressed. When Winston begins his love affair with Julia, it takes some time for human emotions to resurface. This demonstrates the lasting effect of the Party’s mind control but also leaves hope that humanity can return to a more natural state.

“The clever thing was to break the rules and stay alive all the same.”

Winston attributes Julia’s outlook on rebellion as a characteristic of her younger generation. Winston is old enough to vaguely recall a time before the Party had complete control, whereas Julia grew up knowing nothing other than Party rule. Winston sees rebelling against the Party as a necessity for humanity to return to a better condition, but Julia sees rebellion more as an evasive game against an oppressive authority figure.

“In this room I’m going to be a woman, not a Party comrade.”

Julia sheds her Party image when she’s caught up in her love affairs. She’s no longer the prudish girl volunteering for the Junior Anti-Sex League, and her real personality comes out when she’s enjoying her sexuality. She surprises Winston when she brings makeup and perfume to the apartment above Charrington’s shop, and she eagerly looks forward to wearing a real dress instead of a Party frock. The apartment above Charrington’s shop is presented and treated as a safe place for Winston and Julia to express themselves, signifying their assumed break from the Party when they’re alone in the bedroom. This freedom is only assumed, and the Party has been watching their entire affair. Julia’s image of herself as an individual woman rather than a Party comrade exists only in the room above Charrington’s shop, and even then it’s tainted by Party observation.

“They can make you say anything—ANYTHING—but they can’t make you believe it. They can’t get inside you.”

Winston and Julia believe they’ll withstand the inevitable torture they’ll face for their affair. They know to expect physical pain and forced confessions, but they believe the Party can never manipulate their most personal thoughts. This conviction that the mind is exempt from outside control is proven wrong when Winston and Julia betray one another. The Party does eventually get inside both of them, proving that it has achieved complete mind control.

“You will always be in the dark.”

O’Brien’s speech carries double meanings. Here, he is assuring Winston that although he won’t always know everything that’s going on, he can trust that the Brotherhood is at work. However, the Party is constantly at work, even in this interaction between Winston and O’Brien. The assurance that he’ll always be in the dark also contradicts O’Brien’s promise that he’ll see Winston again in the place with no darkness, hinting that O’Brien’s words are not to be trusted.

“From the point of view of the Low, no historic change has ever meant much more than a change in the name of their masters.”

Chapter 9 provides a detailed history of the Party’s rise to power following a revolutionary period, and it connects Oceania’s history to real political movements of the 20th century. Throughout history, there have always been high, middle, and low classes in society. The high and middle classes constantly shift positions and overthrow one another, whereas the lowest class always remains in perpetual servitude and poverty. This serves to maintain a cyclical social and political structure that individuals cannot break from on their own, making a rebellion of the lowest and most populous class the greatest hope for permanently breaking the current cycle of oppression.

“In our society, those who have the best knowledge of what is happening are also those who are furthest from seeing the world as it is.”

The Party is all-seeing and all-knowing, but it only cares about what directly concerns its own grasp of power. The Party dictates daily routines and even history for its members, but it leaves the proletariat class to itself. Inner Party members like O’Brien are far removed from the filth and decay of the prole district, yet these elevated members are the very class making decisions that impact all others.

“We are the dead.”

This phrase becomes associated with the Brotherhood and anti-Party thought. Once a person commits a thoughtcrime, death is inevitable. When Winston first says this phrase to Julia at the start of their love affair, Julia responds with, “We’re not dead yet” (171), indicating her separation from Winston’s unorthodox political ideology. Just before they’re arrested, though, Winston repeats the phrase, and this time Julia concurs, implying that her downfall will match Winston’s.

“How small, thought Winston, how small it always was!”

When the paperweight is broken, Winston realizes for the first time the smallness of the piece of coral inside. The curve of the glass over the coral keeps its size distorted, and once it’s free from its glass dome, its miniscule size is exposed. The paperweight is a symbol, and in this instance the minuteness of the coral represents Winston’s insignificance in the greater scheme of the Party. Winston imagined a world in which the Party could be toppled, even if by the proles and not his own class, but his arrest brings to light the reality that his thoughts and efforts are futile against such a large power.

“In the old days he had hidden a heretical mind beneath an appearance of conformity. Now he had retreated a step further: in the mind he had surrendered, but he had hoped to keep the inner heart inviolate.”

Just as Winston’s actions become progressively riskier in Parts 1 and 2, his compliance and surrender also takes place in stages. He does not immediately give in to torture and profess Party loyalty, but O’Brien’s constant torture slowly breaks Winston down. Winston begins thinking that the mind cannot be touched and manipulated, then progressively retreats to hoping that at least his heart cannot be changed. The Party is victorious when Winston admits to loving Big Brother and means it.