Morgan+Notes+-+Beginning+of+the+novel+and+class+discussions


 * Newspeak **
 * 1) Control—fundamental aspect of Newspeak lies in control and manipulation
 * 2) The simplification and dulling down of language of people is reflected in Newspeak (see living quarters, jobs, food, drink, colours, etc.)
 * 3) The genius of manipulation—if you control language, you control thought (Winston starts achieving a sense of freedom when he //thinks// he has the freedom to write/use language)
 * 4) Shows Inner Party’s progress, power and corruption, historical strategies, etc.
 * 5) Shows power, total manipulation, and total control of the Party and the extent to which they can corrupt the mind
 * 6) Reflects dullness of dystopian society—shows abolition of creativity and individuality that makes us human

Beginning of novel
 * repetition of the adjective “vile”
 * 3rd person narrator who will focus on Winston
 * Number 13, unlucky connotations?
 * Imagery, smell of //“boiled cabbage and old rag mats”//
 * Very institutional
 * ** Cabbage is a motif **
 * Represents poverty because it’s cheap
 * Parsons house smells of cabbage, hallway smells of cabbage, etc.
 * Winston is aged with his weakness and his ulcer, etc. –reflects his mental state as well
 * Can monitor how Winston’s mental state changes as he rebels against the party
 * Who is the narrator? Narrative voice comes through sometimes and it’s not Winston’s terminology
 * Every once and a while a distinctive narrative voice distinctive from Winston comes through
 * Ex. “fruity” contrasts with grey atmosphere
 * First colour aside from dull is blue, and its “harsh”
 * Start to get introduced to the physical vs. emotional control à the emotional and thought control is more important; //“only the thought police mattered”//
 * Constantly being watched reminds people to fear the Party, it establishes fear and works it so that it is in their mind and they can never escape it even without the reminders
 * // “There was of course no way of knowing whether you were being watched at any given moment… You had to live—did live, from habit that became instinct—in the assumption that every sound you made was overheard, and, except in darkness, every movement scrutinized.” //
 * Hypocrisy/dichotomy/contradiction in the party’s slogans—//“War is peace; Freedom is slavery; Ignorance is strength”//—and everything the party does can support double think, that you can make someone believe anything, also perhaps shows total control in that they can get away with this
 * Central irony there to the names of the ministries
 * Narrative voice comes through in the satirical and cynical manner
 * Narrative voice represents what Winston would think if he could articulate those thoughts, but he can’t
 * Winston’s narrative voice comes through with describing Miniluv
 * Naming of anything is quite ironic
 * “Victory Gin” tastes disgusting //“a sickly, oily smell, as a Chinese rice-spirit”//
 * Why so much attention to detail to the telescreen, etc.?
 * Shows how difficult it is to evade Big Brother
 * Draws attention to the injustice of it all
 * //“It was a peculiarly beautiful book. Its smooth creamy paper, a little yellowed by age, was of a kind that had not been manufactured for at least forty years past…”// complete opposite of every other description
 * symbol of old world, beautiful, creative, clean
 * represents history
 * warning to the audience with the contrast between the society and this book what could happen in the future and how to stop the world we know from being totally lost
 * like the paperweight, symbolizes freedom à paperweight smashes when Winston’s captured
 * is the book really that beautiful? Or is what it represents and its potential in how it helps Winston rebel that’s beautiful?
 * Sense of optimism that gives the novel hope and a positive aspect


 * Themes **
 * Dystopia/utopia
 * Dangers of totalitarianism
 * Technology/Modernization
 * Manipulation
 * Repression
 * Power
 * Philosophical viewpoints
 * Warfare and violence
 * Mechanism of control
 * Natural and unnatural
 * EVERYTHING links back to the party, regardless of what he does (even if he’s doing something natural, and rebelling, he is doing it for the party)
 * Irony: the unnatural is the natural because of the corruption extent of the Party
 * When Winston finally feels natural and belonging, it is because he gives in and is controlled
 * Natural represents the freedom of the people, away from the party (literally and in the mind)
 * Without nature we lose the human aspect of us
 * Always meets Julia in nature
 * Does he ironically meet her in a park at the end? Yes but everything is dead—killed
 * Unnatural is where the party has corrupted them, despite the party working perfectly
 * **alienates reader**
 * Unnatural relationship with Party-organized families
 * Unnatural relationships with “friends”
 * Unnatural language, does not organically develop, it’s too linear and mechanised like the society
 * even the most mundane functions/interactions of the party are unnatural and forced
 * Shows that the party corrupts people so entirely because even if they try to make friends, they can’t because it’s so unnatural
 * Control
 * Physical
 * Gender control
 * Control of creatiivty
 * History (memories)
 * à Psychological/mind control
 * With language (Newspeak)
 * *censure
 * Loyalties (shifting loyalties, breaking them, etc.)

@http://www.shmoop.com/1984/themes.html
 * **all the themes link into how society functions and controls (utopia/dystopia in a way)
 * Nothing is really personal to Winston
 * Shows his life being consumed by the party
 * Also because he is a vessel for these themes to be presented to the reader


 * Symbols **
 * Paperweight
 * Crystal pure
 * Weighted—worth something
 * Representative of freedom (smashes when they’re kidnapped)
 * Has something from outside, something that used to be alive, inside
 * However, it’s trapped inside, it’s dead now, so perhaps this is a double meaning that symbolizes the imminent capture of Winston and Julia
 * Paperweight, diary à all of these are minor symbols, very weak and shallow symbols for rebellion
 * Stands out amidst the dull, drab and uniform world as something significant
 * Newspeak
 * Complete control by the party
 * Destruction/eradication of the past
 * Telescreens
 * Visible manifestation that there is no escape from the Party
 * Amazing technology advancement/application as something bad and overstepping itself
 * A place where there is no darkness
 * Winston always imagines meeting O’Brien in a place with no darkness, ironic that this does happen, in a prison cell where the lights never turn off
 * Light and darkness
 * Light would usually be associated with truth à where Winston’s truth of rebellion is revealed, where the Party finds out everything
 * Winston works in the dark and writes in the shade in order to hide from the party
 * Safety in lies and secrets, Danger in truth à another dichotomy
 * PRIVACY à privacy lost with the party, basic human right and essential for society, allows creative thought, etc. that is abolished with the Party
 * Big Brother
 * The eyes are always following you
 * No escape from the party
 * omnipresent
 * Winston
 * Represents thought/mental rebellion, he just wants to be free in his mind
 * Julia is more physical; Shows depth of how thought is more important (manipulation of the mind and thought crime are more serious and in depth) because Julia is more shallow than Winston
 * O’Brien
 * Wolf in sheep’s clothing
 * Julia
 * Physical rebellion
 * Mr Parsons
 * “model” citizen
 * Distinctly sad and ignorant character
 * Pity him
 * Even when he’s arrested, he’s happy with it
 * Prole woman
 * Fertility, naturalness
 * Like a paperweight amongst this dull and uniform society
 * Doesn’t know how to speak, just sings the song the Party teaches
 * Shows how misguided Winston is in believing the Proletariat could ever rise up
 * Proletariat
 * Hope for the future
 * Winston is horribly misguided because the Proles are idiots, they have absolutely no capacity to rise up
 * Critiques the proletariat and shows how that system could never work
 * Shows their idiocy
 * Criticism o the proletariat becoming less thoughtful, less intelligent and less of a part of a true ideological change
 * Inescapability of system


 * Written style **
 * **CAREFUL with writing style, don’t group it with “this is always simple” and “this is always active”, pick up on trends but there are many intricacies, don’t be completely black and white
 * Simplistic and concise structure
 * Reflects attitude of the Party, how the society has been stripped down to bare minimum
 * No language
 * No comfort
 * No creation
 * Reflects simplistic writing of Winston
 * Calm tone used to describe horrific images
 * Illustrates control of party of society and how they accept the horrific realities of their lives
 * Alienates the reader
 * Same thing happens with just any inappropriate tone, for example the almost sexually crazed tone that accompanies the two minutes of hate
 * Helps the reader to understand, but also very much alienates them
 * tonal change
 * when he falls in love/meets Julia
 * when he’s arrested
 * two minute hate
 * writing in his diary
 * *all of these things are when he’s rebelling à HOWEVER two minute hate doesn’t fit here, but it’s whenever he feels an emotion, and the two minute hate is this, but its constructed by the party
 * Allows party to control them so easily, as carnal relations are banned, you need to have this release so people don’t rebel and go insane, it provides an outlet
 * They associate this outlet with the Party, this release makes them loyal to the party and keeps them from rebelling
 * sole usage of active tense
 * shows disregard for the past and how the party can eliminate it and render it disposable
 * simplistic vocabulary
 * party wanted their message accessible to the public therefore they simplify the language
 * Orwell wanted to convey his message to a similarly broad range of people
 * Passive voice is usually used to avoid blaming someone, does active voice mean that everyone is accused?


 * Narrative style **
 * 3rd person from Winston’s point of view
 * Sometimes Winston’s voice comes in
 * Narrative voice represents Winston’s thoughts were he able to express them
 * Book within a book à Brotherhood
 * Chronological
 * Three parts
 * How does the tone change within each part?


 * Symbol of Women:**
 * Women tell something about Winston
 * Julia: naivety
 * Mother: something lost
 * Prole woman: misguided sense of faith
 * Wife: root of his anger towards women
 * **they all show a certain kind of naivety
 * Julia’s expected to join the brotherhood and she doesn’t
 * Proles are expected to rise up and they don’t
 * Mother shows the past should be able to be uncovered, the ancient traditional role of a mother will return, and it doesn’t (Mrs Parsons shows this)


 * interesting that we see development as a positive usually, but in 1984 it’s something negative
 * utopia progressing beyond that into a dystopia


 * Beginning of novel, continued:**


 * very spiteful of women, no experience, has no need for him
 * ironic that he will need Julia as she gets “inside him”
 * comes across as being ignorant and sexist
 * what do women symbolize?
 * Control over gender even? Defeminisation?
 * Associates Julia with the thought police, he’s so jumpy of women, so untrusting
 * “humorous, brutal face” oxymoron
 * Foreshadowing of O’Brien’s lying, ironic
 * O’Brien is intrinsically a two-faced character, you never understand his character, he’s ambiguous
 * All descriptions of O’Brien show him as shifty and contradictory, mysterious and with two sides, etc.
 * Trick and charming nature to him, shows him being tricksy
 * O’Brien has paradoxes, “curiously simplified”
 * Weird that Winston is narrating this and he’s drawn to O’Brien because O’Brien’s nature is so odd and suspicious, you’d think he’d be paranoid and immediately think he was a member of the Thought Police
 * Obviously with the narrator’s undertone because of the language and reference to 18th century figures who Winston could never know
 * Deeply drawn to O’Brien, he has “always known it” (that moment links to this page)
 * Subliminal attraction towards O’Brien, and O’Brien recognizes Winston’s attraction to him
 * Shows subliminal and imminent attraction to Big Brother that people cannot possibly fight
 * How would O’Brien be able to survive if his face gave away a sense of unorthodoxy?
 * Again Winston should not be drawn to him
 * Everything he’s drawn to (paperweight, Julia, etc.) things that hurt him
 * Winston is naïve and believed in things that weren’t true, etc.
 * We’re meant to see Winston as the common man, he’s a hero in some ways but he is the symbol of the common man
 * Does rebel, somewhat heroic, but ultimately he just proves ignorant
 * He is the outcast character, the reader placed into the story
 * This helps the reader to understand the society as a dystopia as their opinions are guided by him because they relate to him and more easily adapt his opinions
 * Winston’s story isn’t unique, Orwell wants us to view him as the same as many people in that position
 * Winston’s symbolic of how futile it is to rebel against the Inner Party
 * “Emmanuel Goldstein” is the enemy of the people—a Jewish name, reference to World War II and how the Nazis worked the same way and manipulated the minds of people
 * Nazis used scapegoats to manipulate their power
 * Like Snowball in animal farm
 * Ironic because we know what’s going on and how it’s not really like that, all lies, etc. //“As usual, the face of Emmanuel…some hiding place in Oceana itself”//
 * Very typical description of the Jews, Orwell’s criticism of the anti-Semitism
 * Symbol of hate is like the symbol of love, generic, typical face and character of Emmanuel but also Goldstein
 * Image of sheep, mindlessly following
 * Historical illusion to Nazi party, West’s fear of Asia at the time perhaps, etc.
 * Mention of the book foreshadows what will happen to Winston
 * //“Terrible book”// who says this?
 * Terrible reference to society’s view if it’s Winston
 * Foreshadowing of Winston’s terrible fate due to the book if it’s the narrator
 * Paragraphs are longer than usual during two-minute hate and much more passionate, emotional
 * TOTAL control—even the outpour of emotions, even when they’re faked
 * Describes ghost army as sheep, ironic that the people watching are sheep
 * Long, complex sentences with similes, description, emotive phrases, nouns, etc. in the syntax during the Hate
 * Syntax loses control, loses the clipped evenness, just like the Hate
 * Guides the reader into feeling it as well?
 * DOWN WITH BIG BROTHER – Is this the beginning of the end for Winston?
 * Winston’s epiphany that he has had these thoughts—he does not come up with them here, he’s always had them, but now he realises he does
 * Setting’s really important here—reflective of different ideas, themes
 * Boiled cabbage is a motif for this depressed and disgusting, grim smell
 * Natural vs. unnatural—children control parents, Mrs Parson is worried her children will rat her out like they did her husband
 * She always stops her sentences part way through, worried her kids will twist them?
 * Parsons are “paralysed with stupidity”, but the perfect citizens
 * Descriptions of the animalistic nature of the children show the savagery
 * Even the girl follows her brother, she’s a sheep
 * Tiger cubs, man-eaters = animal imagery


 * Sense of pathos in dream sequence
 * Helps us identify and emphasize with Winston
 * Smell is a sense that conveys negativity and decay with Winston
 * Deepest form of memory, shows how deep-rooted the disgust for the Party
 * His sister would watch him with “large, watchful eyes”—like Big Brother?
 * Dreams represent what?
 * Hopelessness—he knows what’s going to happen, he knows there is no escape, he knows he is doomed, he knows that he can only reach this relief in his dreams, he won’t ever be happy or free


 * Do you think it benefits governments to have war?
 * Unites people against a common enemy
 * Patriotism
 * Makes them have to depend on the Party for security, rules them in fear
 * Exhausts them of emotional frustration
 * Peace spurns creation, they need people to be angry so they do not start trying to fill their time with creative thought, invention and something new