1984 Study Guide Questions - PDF

## Short Answer Study Guide Questions With Answers 1984 ### One: I, II, III 1. Who is the main character? Briefly describe the main character. The main character is Winston Smith. He is about thirty-nine years old. 2. What is the setting of the novel? Give the country and the city. The novel is...

## Short Answer Study Guide Questions With Answers 1984 ### One: I, II, III 1. Who is the main character? Briefly describe the main character. The main character is Winston Smith. He is about thirty-nine years old. 2. What is the setting of the novel? Give the country and the city. The novel is set in and around London, which is the main city of Airstrip One, a province of the country of Oceania. 3. What are the three slogans of the Party? Write them the way they are shown in the novel. - WAR IS PEACE - FREEDOM IS SLAVERY - IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH 4. What does the caption on the posters say? BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING YOU. 5. Name each of the Ministries explain and its function. Also include the Newspeak name for each ministry. - **The Ministry of Truth**, or Minitrue, is concerned with news, entertainment, education, and the fine arts. - **The Ministry of Peace**, or Minipax, is concerned with war. - **The Ministry of Love**, or Miniluv, maintains law and order. - **The Ministry of Plenty**, or Miniplenty is responsible for economic affairs. 6. What date does the main character record? April 4th, 1984 7. Describe the two people the main character sees just before the Two Minutes Hate. Tell what he thinks of each of these people. - He sees a girl of about age 27 who works in the Fiction Department. She looks like the ideal young Party member. Winston feels uneasy and hostile whenever he sees her. - The other character is a man named O'Brien. He is a member of the Inner Party and does some kind of very important work, although Winston does not know exactly what it is. Winston is attracted to O'Brien. He thinks O'Brien is someone he could talk to. 8. Explain the importance of Emmanuel Goldstein. Also describe the way his image looks. Emmanuel Goldstein is the Enemy of the People. He had been a leading member of the Party but then turned traitor. All crimes against the Party are attributed to his teaching. His image is shown on the telescreen and on posters to create hatred among Party members. He looks Jewish with fuzzy white hair and a goatee beard. His nose is long and thin. He wears glasses. He supposedly commands an army of conspirators called The Brotherhood. 9. Explain the importance of Big Brother. Also describe the way his image looks. Big Brother is the leader of the Party. He has black hair, a black mustache, and looks calm and powerful. 10. What crime does the main character commit? How does he do this? What is the punishment? Smith commits Thoughtcrime when he opens the diary and when he writes "DOWN WITH BIG BROTHER" in it. The punishment is vaporization. 11. What is the telescreen and how is it used? The telescreen is a large screen that sends and receives images and sounds at the same time. Telescreens are in all workplaces and homes. The Thought Police regularly monitor them. 12. Describe thoughtcrime and give an example. Thoughtcrime is thinking anything against the Party. Orwell describes it as "the essential crime that contained all others in itself." Thoughtcrime could not be concealed forever. Eventually the Thought Police would get whoever committed thoughtcrime. Winston committed an act of thoughtcrime when he wrote in his diary. ### One: IV, V, VI 1. What happens to the rewritten news articles after Winston puts them into the pneumatic tube? Why is this significant? An edition of the Times is reprinted to include the revisions. Then the original edition is destroyed. In this way, the past is always kept up to date with the present. All predictions made by the Party are always correct. 2. Winston thinks that what he is does is not forgery. What does he think it is? Winston thinks it is the substitution of one piece of nonsense for another. The material has no connection with the real world. 3. What is Winston's greatest pleasure in his life, and why is it so? His greatest pleasure is his work. He thinks he is good at the type of rewriting that he has to do. 4. Describe the aim of Newspeak and how it works. The main aim of Newspeak is to narrow the range of thought. Newspeak is the only language that destroys words instead of adding new ones. The vocabulary continually gets smaller. When the Eleventh Edition of the Newspeak Dictionary is finished, every needed concept will be expressed by exactly one word. All meanings will be rigidly defined. It will become impossible to commit Thoughtcrime. 5. What is Syme's observation about Winston's appreciation of Newspeak? Syme says that Winston does not really appreciate Newspeak, even though his written articles are good enough. Syme thinks Winston still thinks in and prefers Oldspeak. 6. Winston is at lunch when the message on the telescreen relates the good news about increases in production, including that the chocolate ration has been raised to twenty grams a week. What is Winston thinking as he hears this message? Winston remembers that the previous day the chocolate ration had been decreased to twenty grams. He wonders how all the people manage to believe the lie. He wonders if he is the only person with a memory. Winston wonders if life has always been the way it is now, and why he feels that some things are intolerable. He thinks he must have an ancestral memory that things had once been different. 7. What is facecrime? Give an example. Facecrime is having the wrong look on one's face. One's features are always to be under control. To show surprise or disbelief when a war victory is announced is a facecrime. 8. Who is looking at Winston during lunch? How does this affect him? The girl with the dark hair is looking at him. Winston is afraid that she is a spy, if not a member of the Thought Police. 9. What is the aim of the Party with regard to male-female relationships and sex? The Party wants to prevent men and women from forming relationships and loyalties that it might not be able to control. It wants to remove all pleasure from the sexual act. 10. What is the Party's policy on marriage, divorce, and children? The Party approves all marriages. If the couple seem physically attracted to one another, the Party does not allow the marriage to take place. The only reason for sexual intercourse is to create a child. Divorce is not allowed. Separation is encouraged if there are no children. ### One: VII, VIII 1. Where does Winston think hope lies? Why? He thinks hope lies in the proles. Since the proles make up eighty-five percent of the population of Oceania, they could come together to destroy the Party. He does not think the Party can be overthrown from within. 2. What is the Party belief about the proles? The Party sees the proles as natural inferiors who must be kept in subjection. They should not have strong political feelings. They do not need to be indoctrinated in Party ideology. They only need enough patriotism to make them accept whatever the Party offers. 3. Describe the one time that Winston held real evidence of an act of falsification. Once when he was in the Chestnut Tree Café, Winston saw three men who had been arrested, confessed, and reinstated in the Party. A little while later they were arrested. They confessed again and were killed. About five years later Winston found a newspaper article with photo of the men at a Party function. The date of the article was the same as the date the men said they were in Eurasia betraying the Party. Winston realized the confessions had to be false. He destroyed the newspaper article. 4. What bothers Winston the most, along with the sense of nightmare? He is bothered because he does not clearly understand why the falsifications take place. He wonders if he is a lunatic. 5. What bothers Winston more than the thought that he might be a lunatic? The thought that he might be wrong bothers him more. 6. What is the heresy of heresies? Why is that terrifying to Winston? The heresy of heresies is common sense. It is terrifying to Winston that the Party might be right in its ideas. 7. For whom does Winston realize he is writing his diary? Why? He is writing for O'Brien because he thinks O'Brien is on his side. 8. What is the final, most essential command of the Party? The Party tells people to reject the evidence of their eyes and ears. 9. What does Winston write in his diary? He writes: Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else follows. 10. Describe what happens when Winston goes to the antique shop, and who he sees when he comes out. He buys an old paperweight that has a piece of coral in it. Then Mr. Charrington shows him the room above the shop. Winston realizes there is no telescreen. Mr. Charrington tells Winston the part of an old nursery rhyme. When he leaves the shop he sees the girl from the Fiction Department. He thinks she is following him.