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1984 - George Orwell (full summary)
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1984 Context and Critical Readings
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Resumen 1984 - Licenciatura en Educación Básica Primaria
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Boekverslag Engels 1984, ISBN: 9789029543255
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1984 - George OrwellIzzy Leisewitz
Characters:
- Winston Smith
- Big Brother (governor of Oceania, 45 years old)
- Emmanuel Goldstein (Big Brother’s enemy)
- Syme (co-worker, writing the new dictionary)
- Ampleforth (co-worker, changes poems)
- O’Brien (co-worker, Inner Party member)
- Tom Parsons (co-worker, Big Brother enthusiast, neighbor)
- Mrs Parsons (Mr Parsons’ wife)
- Parsons children (Mr Parsons’ children)
- Julia (dark-haired girl)
- Katherine (Winston’s wife)
- Mr Charrington
PART ONE - Thoughtcrime
Chapter 1 - Big Brother is Watching You
In this world, there is one political party (the Party) that watches
over and controls everyone and everything. The Party is led by Big
Brother, whose face is pasted everywhere with the slogan “Big
Brother is Watching You”. The Thought Police keeps everyone in
check. There are cameras and microphones in every room, so there
is no privacy. People must follow orders and fully support the Party.
Winston Smith is 39 years old and works at one of the four
government ministries. There is the Ministry of Truth (minitrue),
where Winston worked. It focused mainly on news and
entertainment. There was also the Ministry of Peace (minipax),
which handled war, the Ministry of Plenty (miniplenty), which
handled economy, and the Ministry of Love (Miniluv), which handled
law and order. He lives in a department complex called the Victory
Mansion, which is very old and in a very bad state. They often had
no electricity and you needed the Party’s approval to get anything
fixed, which took many years. Winston writes all his thoughts
against the Party in a diary. He knows it’s dangerous but feels like
his life has no meaning without it.
,A telescreen is a TV that also has a camera and microphone, so the
Party can watch you anytime. There is a telescreen in almost every
room.
In Oceania a new language is being developed, called Newspeak,
which strives to delete any unnecessary words and limit people’s
ability to express their thoughts or even think for themselves. The
Party slogans are “WAR IS PEACE, FREEDOM IS SLAVERY,
IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH”.
There is something called the Two Minutes Hate. Basically, the
telescreen shows the face of Emmanuel Goldstein and people
screaming at him. Its goal is to make everyone at home hate
Goldstein too. He was called the People’s Enemy. It was said that he
had betrayed Big Brother and everything bad was his fault,
especially since he wrote The Book. His supporters were called The
Brotherhood.
Within the people who were screaming at Goldstein in the
telescreen, Winston recognized two people. One of them was a
young, pretty black-haired girl. He had seen her in the minitrue’s
canteen, so he supposed she worked as a mechanic with the
story-writing machines. He hated her because she was scary. He
even thought maybe she worked for the Thought Police. The other
person was O’Brien, a member of the Inner Party who also worked
at the minitrue. He looked smart and trustworthy, and Winston
hoped that he hated Big Brother as well. Once, he had dreamt that
O’Brien told him “We shall meet in the place where there is no
dark.”
In his diary, Winston wrote “Freedom is the freedom to say that two
and two make four. If you have that, everything else follows.” He
didn’t know if he should continue writing or not. The result would be
the same. He was sure that one day the Thought Police would get
him. He did thoughtcrime.
It was always at night. People disappeared and, the next day, their
name would be erased, just like any proof that they ever existed.
They were vaporized. Thinking of that he wrote “Down with Big
Brother. Down with Big Brother. Down with Big Brother.” Someone
knocked on the door. For a second, he thought it was the Thought
Police coming to get him. He left his diary open.
, Chapter 2 - The Spies
Winston opened the door and saw Mrs Parsons looking at him. She
needed help to repair the sink and her husband, Mr Parsons, wasn’t
home. Tom Parsons was very fat, very sweaty, and very enthusiastic
about the Party. He worked every afternoon, organizing walks and
events. His two kids, a boy of 9 and a girl of 7, were also very
enthusiastic about the Party. They were mad since that afternoon,
some Eurasian prisoners would be hanged at the park, but they
wouldn’t be able to see it. It was seen as a form of entertainment
for kids. The boy pointed a toy gun at Winston and yelled at him as
if he was a Eurasian spy. The look of hate in the boy’s face made
Winston feel like it wasn’t really a game. Both kids started running
after Winston, screaming at him. As he was leaving the apartment,
he felt a terrible pain in the back of his neck. The boy had thrown a
sharp rock at him. Mrs Parsons looked terrified.
Chapter 3 - The Ministry of Truth
The speakwrite is the machine with which Winston does his job. It
transcribes anything you say. There were three memory holes in
Winston’s office. Through the smallest ones, Winston was sent
messages and instructions. Through the medium one, newspapers
were sent to him. The largest one was for waste paper; it was
burnt.
Today, Winston had received 4 messages through the smallest hole.
They were about making changes to the Times newspaper. For
example, Big Brother had said that South India was safe and the
Eurasians would attack North Africa. However, they attacked South
India, while North Africa was okay. Now, he had to rewrite it so
everyone would think that Big Brother knew of the attack before it
happened. Once he finished, he sent his changes with the
newspaper down the middle hole. A new edition would appear and
the original one would disappear. The message to Winston with the
changes would be burned down the largest hole. Every day
newspapers, magazines, photographs, films, books, and posters
were changed.
Another time, the Ministry of Plenty said that they’d make 145
million boots, but they only made 62 million. Winston changed “145
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