1984 full text
STUDY QUESTIONS - 1984
1. Briefly summarize the plot of the novel.
2. Name and characterize the major characters. What kind of society does Winston live in?
3. What means does the Party use to control its citizens? What atmosphere does reign in the state?
4. What is Winston’s and Julia's attitude towards Big Brother? Do they differ in their opinions? On what basis is their rebellion grounded?
5. What is the tone of the novel?
6. Comment on the ending of the novel.
7. Why did Orwell include an appendix (principles of the newspeak) at the end of the novel?
8. Interpret the title of the novel.
9. What may be the main theme of the work?
10. Try to connect the novel with our own experience with totalitarian system.
Suggested reading: Jo Langer "Convictions: Memories of a life shared with a good communist (published in Slovak as Žo Langerová: Vtedy v Bratislave)
Poems created by students using Newspeak:
Our father of IngSoc,
we praise you all the day.
Your doubleplusgood eyes
protect us on our way.
The Gin of Victory
circling in our veins,
we love and need You
above all the saints.
In the famous photograph from 21st of February 1948, described also in Milan Kundera's The Book of Laughter and Forgetting, Vladimir Clementis stands next to Klement Gottwald. When Vladimír Clementis was charged in 1950, he was erased from the photograph (along with the photographer Karel Hájek) by the state propaganda (think of the parallel with Orwell's 1984).
Music: Sexcrime - Eurythmics
Lyrics:
Can I take this for granted
With your eyes over me?
In this place
This wintery home
I know there's always someone in
Sexcrime
Sexcrime
Nineteen eighty four
And so I face the wall
Turn my back against it all
How I wish I'd been unborn
Wish I was unliving here
Sexcrime
Sexcrime
Nineteen eighty four
I'll pull the bricks down
One by one
Leave a big hole in the wall
Just where you are looking in
