11 January

Study the final exam review sheet. Note anything you need help with, and we can go over it tomorrow.


1984 Review Sheet

1. Which governments helped to serve as Orwell’s inspiration in this novel?

2. Who watches Winston from the telescreen? Why?

3. In what country does Winston live? What troubles him about this?

4. What do the slogans of the party mean?

5. What would happen if Winston were found in possession of a notebook? Why? What does Winston realize about Thoughtcrime? Why does he continue anyway?

6. Relate Winston’s’ entry about the movie. What do you learn about his society from this story?

7. Who is Emmanuel Goldstein?

8. How does Winston normally carry himself when he is aware of being watched? How does he behave during the Two Minutes of Hate? Why?

9. What does Winston mean by his observation, “nothing was your own expect the few cubic centimeters inside your skull” (27)?

10. What does Winston notice happens with a lack of “external records” (32)?

11. Has Oceana always had the same enemies and allies? Why do they want people to think this?

12. Why do you think the garbage chutes are nicknamed “memory holes”?

13. Why is Winston’s job essentially forgery?

14. What is an “unperson”? How many did Winston know? (Or, who is important among them?)

15. What is the significance of Winston’s observation, “Comrade Ogilvy, who had never existed in the present, now existed in the past, and when once the act of forgery was forgotten, he would exist just as authentically, and upon the same evidence, as Charlemagne or Julius Caesar” (48)?

16. What is the goal of the new edition of the Newspeak dictionary? Why does Syme think that Thoughtcrime will eventually be impossible?
17. Syme says the “revolution will be complete when the language is perfect” (52). What part of society is left out of this system of “reality control”?

18. What percentage of the population consists of proles? What do you think about that? Why was it that the proles could bring about change more easily than the Brotherhood?

19. What is the significance of Winston’s observation, “Not merely the validity of experience, but the very existence of external reality was tacitly denied by their philosophy… If both the past and external world exist only in the mind, and the mind itself is controllable—what then? (80)

20. Why were the proles arguing violently about the Lottery? What does Winston know about the Lottery that the proles don’t?

21. What does Winston try to learn from the elderly prole? Why can’t he discover anything of value? Why do you think this is?

22. Why does Winston buy the paperweight?

23. What about Julia’s speech makes Winston mildly uneasy? (122)

24. Why does the “hint of corruption” of the inner party fill Winston with a “wild hope”? (125)

25. Why does Winston think that love can “tear the Party to pieces” (126)?

26. Describe the preparation of the proles for Hate Week.


27. Describe Winston and Julia’s daydreams. (151)


28. What conclusion do they come to about getting caught? (167)


29. Why won’t the three powers invade enemy territory? (196)


30. Explain why, in the past, war as a way to keep “in touch with physical reality” (197-198)


31. What does “War is Peace” really mean? (199)


32. What changed in the nineteenth century in terms of historical understanding and advances in technology? (203)


33. What does Goldstein imply by the statement, “the problem, that is to say, is educational (207)?


34. Why is there little chance of the proles rebelling? (210)


35. Why is the “mutability of the past the central tenet of Ingsoc” (213)? How does doublethink come into play?


36. Why does Winston think the Party will fail? (269) How does O’ Brien try to defeat his argument? (270) (2 ways)


37. How does O’Brien answer the question “why”? What does he mean by, “Power is not a means, it is an end” (263)?


38. What does O’Brien mean when he says “power is power over human beings. Power over matter-external reality as you call it-is not important” (264)? Give a modern example.


39. Explain what O’Brien is implying when he explains, “The earth is as old as we are…Nothing exists except through human consciousness” (265).


40. What is Orwell’s picture of the future? (267)