classified according to various criteria into successive levels or layers
But it was also clear that an all-round increase in wealth threatened the
destruction--indeed, in some sense was the destruction--of a hierarchical
society.
It had always been assumed that if the capitalist class
were expropriated, Socialism must follow: and unquestionably the
capitalists had been expropriated.
The queue edged forward till Winston was almost at the counter, then was
held up for two minutes because someone in front was complaining that he
had not received his tablet of saccharine.
There then rose schools of thinkers who
interpreted history as a cyclical process and claimed to show that
inequality was the unalterable law of human life.
rotating mechanism in the form of a universally mounted spinning wheel that offers resistance to turns in any direction
Even after enormous
upheavals and seemingly irrevocable changes, the same pattern has always
reasserted itself, just as a gyroscope will always return to equilibrium,
however far it is pushed one way or the other.
There she had remained for
a year, helping to produce booklets in sealed packets with titles like
'Spanking Stories' or 'One Night in a Girls' School', to be bought
furtively by proletarian youths who were under the impression that they
were buying
If he had known where she lived, and at what time she left work,
he could have contrived to meet her somewhere on her way home; but to try
to follow her home was not safe, because it would mean loitering about
outside the Ministry, which was bound
derived from experiment and observation rather than theory
This failed to happen, partly
because of the impoverishment caused by a long series of wars and
revolutions, partly because scientific and technical progress depended on
the empirical habit of thought, which could not survive in a strictly
regiment
move or sway in a rising and falling or wavelike pattern
The
frontiers between the three super-states are in some places arbitrary, and
in others they fluctuate according to the fortunes of war, but in general
they follow geographical lines.
a line of people or vehicles waiting for something
The queue edged forward till Winston was almost at the counter, then was
held up for two minutes because someone in front was complaining that he
had not received his tablet of saccharine.
She spent an astonishing amount of time in attending lectures and
demonstrations, distributing literature for the junior Anti-Sex League,
preparing banners for Hate Week, making collections for the savings
campaign, and such-like activities.
make ready or suitable or equip in advance for a particular purpose or for some use, event, etc
She spent an astonishing amount of time in attending lectures and
demonstrations, distributing literature for the junior Anti-Sex League, preparing banners for Hate Week, making collections for the savings
campaign, and such-like activities.
productive work (especially physical work done for wages)
Nor did
one know what became of them, apart from the few who were hanged as
war-criminals: the others simply vanished, presumably into forced-labour
camps.
She had no memories of anything before the early sixties and the only
person she had ever known who talked frequently of the days before the Revolution was a grandfather who had disappeared when she was eight.
For hours at a
time she would sit almost immobile on the bed, nursing his young sister,
a tiny, ailing, very silent child of two or three, with a face made simian
by thinness.
curse or declare to be evil or anathema or threaten with divine punishment
The citizen of Oceania is not
allowed to know anything of the tenets of the other two philosophies, but
he is taught to execrate them as barbarous outrages upon morality and
common sense.
changed in form or character without becoming something else
Every record has been
destroyed or falsified, every book has been rewritten, every picture has
been repainted, every statue and street and building has been renamed,
every date has been altered.
The economy
of many countries was allowed to stagnate, land went out of cultivation,
capital equipment was not added to, great blocks of the population were
prevented from working and kept half alive by State charity.
Whenever he began to talk of the principles of Ingsoc, doublethink, the mutability of the past, and the denial of objective reality, and to use
Newspeak words, she became bored and confused and said that she never paid
any attention to that kind of
The whole
atmosphere of the huge block of flats, the richness and spaciousness of
everything, the unfamiliar smells of good food and good tobacco, the
silent and incredibly rapid lifts sliding up and down, the white-jacketed
servants hurrying to and fro--
He wondered vaguely how many others like her there
might be in the younger generation people who had grown up in the world of
the Revolution, knowing nothing else, accepting the Party as something unalterable, like the sky, not rebelling against it
a wilderness at the edge of a settled area of a country
The frontiers between the three super-states are in some places arbitrary, and
in others they fluctuate according to the fortunes of war, but in general
they follow geographical lines.
motion of hands or body to emphasize or help to express a thought or feeling
Almost as swiftly as he had imagined it, she had torn her clothes
off, and when she flung them aside it was with that same magnificent gesture by which a whole civilization seemed to be annihilated.
the concentration of attention or energy on something
Some are
concerned simply with planning the logistics of future wars; others devise
larger and larger rocket bombs, more and more powerful explosives, and more
and more impenetrable armour-plating; others search for new and deadlier
gases, or for soluble
Suddenly, as one sometimes does with a book of which one
knows that one will ultimately read and re-read every word, he opened it
at a different place and found himself at Chapter III. He went on reading:
being approximately average or within certain limits in e.g. intelligence and development
Winston, at normal times the kind of person who gravitates to the outer
edge of any kind of scrimmage, shoved, butted, squirmed his way forward
into the heart of the crowd.
Even after enormous
upheavals and seemingly irrevocable changes, the same pattern has always
reasserted itself, just as a gyroscope will always return to equilibrium,
however far it is pushed one way or the other.
She could describe the whole process of composing a novel,
from the general directive issued by the Planning Committee down to the
final touching-up by the Rewrite Squad.
There had been no difficulties about the journey, and
the girl was so evidently experienced that he was less frightened than he
would normally have been.
The queue edged forward till Winston was almost at the counter, then was
held up for two minutes because someone in front was complaining that he
had not received his tablet of saccharine.
During this time rockets loaded with atomic
bombs can be assembled at all the strategic spots; finally they will all
be fired simultaneously, with effects so devastating as to make retaliation
impossible.
His whole mind and body seemed to be afflicted with an unbearable
sensitivity, a sort of transparency, which made every movement, every
sound, every contact, every word that he had to speak or listen to, an
agony.
'You are prepared to cheat, to forge, to blackmail, to corrupt the minds
of children, to distribute habit-forming drugs, to encourage prostitution,
to disseminate venereal diseases--to do anything which is likely to cause
demoralization and weaken
Nevertheless, the few luxuries that he does enjoy
his large, well-appointed flat, the better texture of his clothes, the
better quality of his food and drink and tobacco, his two or three
servants, his private motor-car or helicopter--set him in a differe
a particular course of action intended to achieve a result
She could describe the whole process of composing a novel,
from the general directive issued by the Planning Committee down to the
final touching-up by the Rewrite Squad.
Almost as swiftly as he had imagined it, she had torn her clothes
off, and when she flung them aside it was with that same magnificent
gesture by which a whole civilization seemed to be annihilated.
Nevertheless it had been very difficult not to betray a momentary surprise, for in the two or three seconds while he was
helping her up the girl had slipped something into his hand.
As they drifted
down the crowded pavements, not quite abreast and never looking at one
another, they carried on a curious, intermittent conversation which flicked
on and off like the beams of a lighthouse, suddenly nipped into silence
by the approa
On a scarlet-draped platform an orator of the Inner Party, a small
lean man with disproportionately long arms and a large bald skull over
which a few lank locks straggled, was haranguing the crowd.
From the moment when the machine first made its appearance it
was clear to all thinking people that the need for human drudgery, and
therefore to a great extent for human inequality, had disappeared.
With Julia he felt no difficulty in
talking about such things: Katharine, in any case, had long ceased to be
a painful memory and became merely a distasteful one.
The smell was
already filling the room, a rich hot smell which seemed like an emanation
from his early childhood, but which one did occasionally meet with even
now, blowing down a passage-way before a door slammed, or diffusing itself
mysteriously in a cr
There she had remained for
a year, helping to produce booklets in sealed packets with titles like
'Spanking Stories' or 'One Night in a Girls' School', to be bought
furtively by proletarian youths who were under the impression that they
were buying
She suddenly twisted herself over in the bed, seized a shoe from the floor,
and sent it hurtling into the corner with a boyish jerk of her arm, exactly
as he had seen her fling the dictionary at Goldstein, that morning during
the Two Minutes Hate.
And in thinking this he remembered, without apparent relevance, how a few
weeks ago he had seen a severed hand lying on the pavement and had kicked
it into the gutter as though it had been a cabbage-stalk.
The new movements which appeared in the middle years of the
century, Ingsoc in Oceania, Neo-Bolshevism in Eurasia, Death-Worship, as
it is commonly called, in Eastasia, had the conscious aim of perpetuating
UNfreedom and INequality.
Whenever he began to talk of the principles of Ingsoc, doublethink, the
mutability of the past, and the denial of objective reality, and to use
Newspeak words, she became bored and confused and said that she never paid
any attention to that kind of
He led a ghostlike existence between the
tiny, dark shop, and an even tinier back kitchen where he prepared his
meals and which contained, among other things, an unbelievably ancient
gramophone with an enormous horn.
the quality of being general or widespread or having general applicability
Instead he looked into the middle distance and spoke in generalities, with so delicate an air as to give the impression that he
had become partly invisible.
manage in a makeshift way; do with whatever is at hand
He was everywhere at once,
pushing, pulling, sawing, hammering, improvising, jollying everyone along
with comradely exhortations and giving out from every fold of his body what
seemed an inexhaustible supply of acrid-smelling sweat.
a show or display; the act of presenting something to sight or view
She spent an astonishing amount of time in attending lectures and demonstrations, distributing literature for the junior Anti-Sex League,
preparing banners for Hate Week, making collections for the savings
campaign, and such-like activities.
Even after enormous upheavals and seemingly irrevocable changes, the same pattern has always
reasserted itself, just as a gyroscope will always return to equilibrium,
however far it is pushed one way or the other.
It was not merely that the sex
instinct created a world of its own which was outside the Party's control
and which therefore had to be destroyed if possible.
the systematic use of spies to get military or political secrets
Certain backward areas have advanced, and various
devices, always in some way connected with warfare and police espionage,
have been developed, but experiment and invention have largely stopped,
and the ravages of the atomic war of the nineteen-fif
a representation of a person (especially in the form of sculpture)
Processions, meetings,
military parades, lectures, waxworks, displays, film shows, telescreen
programmes all had to be organized; stands had to be erected, effigies
built, slogans coined, songs written, rumours circulated, photographs
faked.
the state of being fertile; capable of producing offspring
Eurasia is protected by its vast land spaces, Oceania
by the width of the Atlantic and the Pacific, Eastasia by the fecundity
and industriousness of its inhabitants.
With one hand in her pocket and a piece of bread and jam in the other,
Julia wandered about the room, glancing indifferently at the bookcase,
pointing out the best way of repairing the gateleg table, plumping herself
down in the ragged arm-chair to see if
He would ask his mother naggingly,
over and over again, why there was not more food, he would shout and storm
at her (he even remembered the tones of his voice, which was beginning to
break prematurely and sometimes boomed in a peculiar way), or he would
a region marked off for administrative or other purposes
All of the disputed territories contain valuable minerals, and some of
them yield important vegetable products such as rubber which in colder
climates it is necessary to synthesize by comparatively expensive methods.
In practice the needs
of the population are always underestimated, with the result that there is
a chronic shortage of half the necessities of life; but this is looked on
as an advantage.
It
struck him that when one lived with a woman this particular disappointment
must be a normal, recurring event; and a deep tenderness, such as he had
not felt for her before, suddenly took hold of him.
made neutral in some respect; deprived of distinctive characteristics
In his capacity
as an administrator, it is often necessary for a member of the Inner Party
to know that this or that item of war news is untruthful, and he may often
be aware that the entire war is spurious and is either not happening or
is being waged fo
group of genetically related organisms constituting a single step in the line of descent
He wondered vaguely how many others like her there
might be in the younger generation people who had grown up in the world of
the Revolution, knowing nothing else, accepting the Party as something
unalterable, like the sky, not rebelling against it
Newspapers and history
books were, of course, always coloured and biased, but falsification of
the kind that is practised today would have been impossible.
capable of being perceived; especially capable of being handled or touched or felt
There were times when the fact of
impending death seemed as palpable as the bed they lay on, and they would
cling together with a sort of despairing sensuality, like a damned soul
grasping at his last morsel of pleasure when the clock is within fiv
of or relating to technique or proficiency in a practical skill
This failed to happen, partly
because of the impoverishment caused by a long series of wars and
revolutions, partly because scientific and technical progress depended on
the empirical habit of thought, which could not survive in a strictly
regiment
a surface generated by rotating a parallel line around a fixed line
Each time that Winston broke off for one of his spells of
sleep he tried to leave his desk clear of work, and each time that he
crawled back sticky-eyed and aching, it was to find that another shower
of paper cylinders had covered the desk like a s
Actually, all the possible ways of communicating with her had occurred to
him within five minutes of reading the note; but now, with time to think,
he went over them one by one, as though laying out a row of instruments
on a table.
The irritating thing was that in the racket
of voices Winston could hardly hear what Parsons was saying, and was
constantly having to ask for some fatuous remark to be repeated.
something serving to conceal plans; a fictitious reason that is concocted in order to conceal the real reason
If she had worked in the Records Department it might have
been comparatively simple, but he had only a very dim idea whereabouts in
the building the Fiction Department lay, and he had no pretext for going
there.
a stable situation in which forces cancel one another
Even after enormous
upheavals and seemingly irrevocable changes, the same pattern has always
reasserted itself, just as a gyroscope will always return to equilibrium,
however far it is pushed one way or the other.
She had even (an infallible mark of good reputation) been picked out to work in Pornosec,
the sub-section of the Fiction Department which turned out cheap
pornography for distribution among the proles.
The fighting, when there is any, takes place on the vague
frontiers whose whereabouts the average man can only guess at, or round
the Floating Fortresses which guard strategic spots on the sea lanes.
a statistic characterizing human populations (or segments of human populations broken down by age or sex or income etc.)
Each of the three powers which now divide the world is in
fact unconquerable, and could only become conquerable through slow demographic changes which a government with wide powers can easily avert.
It was no use, it changed nothing, it did not produce more
chocolate, it did not avert the child's death or her own; but it seemed
natural to her to do it.
If he had known where she lived, and at what time she left work,
he could have contrived to meet her somewhere on her way home; but to try
to follow her home was not safe, because it would mean loitering about
outside the Ministry, which was bound
not admitting of penetration or passage into or through
Soon he was within arm's length of the girl,
but the way was blocked by an enormous prole and an almost equally enormous
woman, presumably his wife, who seemed to form an impenetrable wall of
flesh.
There were times when the fact of
impending death seemed as palpable as the bed they lay on, and they would
cling together with a sort of despairing sensuality, like a damned soul
grasping at his last morsel of pleasure when the clock is within fiv
Eastasia,
smaller than the others and with a less definite western frontier,
comprises China and the countries to the south of it, the Japanese islands
and a large but fluctuating portion of Manchuria, Mongolia, and Tibet.
Exactly as his mother
had sat on the dingy white-quilted bed, with the child clinging to her, so
she had sat in the sunken ship, far underneath him, and drowning deeper
every minute, but still looking up at him through the darkening water.
The recurrent economic crises of past times were totally unnecessary and are
not now permitted to happen, but other and equally large dislocations
can and do happen without having political results, because there is no
way in which discontent can b
alongside each other, facing in the same direction
They had left the clearing and were wandering again
through the chequered shade, with their arms round each other's waists
whenever it was wide enough to walk two abreast.
reach a destination; arrive by movement or progress
Immediately after lunch there arrived a
delicate, difficult piece of work which would take several hours and
necessitated putting everything else aside.
Winston, still carrying the brief-case containing the
book, which had remained between his feet while he worked and under his
body while he slept, went home, shaved himself, and almost fell asleep in
his bath, although the water was barely more than te
act of depriving someone of food or money or rights
What was more
important was that sexual privation induced hysteria, which was desirable
because it could be transformed into war-fever and leader-worship.
She
did not understand that there was no such thing as happiness, that the
only victory lay in the far future, long after you were dead, that from
the moment of declaring war on the Party it was better to think of yourself
as a corpse.
anything (such as a document or a phonograph record or a photograph) providing permanent evidence of or information about past events
If she had worked in the Records Department it might have
been comparatively simple, but he had only a very dim idea whereabouts in
the building the Fiction Department lay, and he had no pretext for going
there.
It was like struggling with some crushing physical task,
something which one had the right to refuse and which one was nevertheless
neurotically anxious to accomplish.
a distinct part that can be specified separately in a group of things that could be enumerated on a list
Winston, in addition to his regular work, spent long periods every day in
going through back files of 'The Times' and altering and embellishing news items which were to be quoted in speeches.
thoroughly clean and free of or destructive to disease-causing organisms
In the early twentieth century, the vision of
a future society unbelievably rich, leisured, orderly, and efficient--a
glittering antiseptic world of glass and steel and snow-white concrete--was
part of the consciousness of nearly every literate per
Suddenly, as one sometimes does with a book of which one
knows that one will ultimately read and re-read every word, he opened it
at a different place and found himself at Chapter III. He went on reading:
If Oceania were
to conquer the areas that used once to be known as France and Germany, it
would be necessary either to exterminate the inhabitants, a task of great
physical difficulty, or to assimilate a population of about a hundred
million people
If Oceania were
to conquer the areas that used once to be known as France and Germany, it
would be necessary either to exterminate the inhabitants, a task of great
physical difficulty, or to assimilate a population of about a hundred
million people
to move or cause to move in a sinuous, spiral, or circular course
He might have
flinched altogether from speaking if at this moment he had not seen
Ampleforth, the hairy-eared poet, wandering limply round the room with
a tray, looking for a place to sit down.
a practical method or art applied to some particular task
In his capacity
as an administrator, it is often necessary for a member of the Inner Party
to know that this or that item of war news is untruthful, and he may often
be aware that the entire war is spurious and is either not happening or
is being waged fo
She could describe the whole process of composing a novel,
from the general directive issued by the Planning Committee down to the
final touching-up by the Rewrite Squad.
come up with (an idea, plan, explanation, theory, or principle) after a mental effort
The tales about Goldstein and his
underground army, she said, were simply a lot of rubbish which the Party
had invented for its own purposes and which you had to pretend to believe
in.
He was everywhere at once,
pushing, pulling, sawing, hammering, improvising, jollying everyone along
with comradely exhortations and giving out from every fold of his body what
seemed an inexhaustible supply of acrid-smelling sweat.
He told her of the strange intimacy that
existed, or seemed to exist, between himself and O'Brien, and of the
impulse he sometimes felt, simply to walk into O'Brien's presence, announce
that he was the enemy of the Party, and demand his help.
It consisted in falsifying a
series of production reports of two years ago, in such a way as to cast discredit on a prominent member of the Inner Party, who was now under a
cloud.
In
the centres of civilization war means no more than a continuous shortage
of consumption goods, and the occasional crash of a rocket bomb which may
cause a few scores of deaths.
a form of government in which the ruler is an absolute dictator (not restricted by a constitution or laws or opposition etc.)
In the
past the Middle had made revolutions under the banner of equality, and
then had established a fresh tyranny as soon as the old one was overthrown.
servile flattery; exaggerated and hypocritical praise
Even the humblest Party member is
expected to be competent, industrious, and even intelligent within narrow
limits, but it is also necessary that he should be a credulous and ignorant
fanatic whose prevailing moods are fear, hatred, adulation, and
being effective without wasting time or effort or expense
In the early twentieth century, the vision of
a future society unbelievably rich, leisured, orderly, and efficient--a
glittering antiseptic world of glass and steel and snow-white concrete--was
part of the consciousness of nearly every literate per
make (someone) agree, understand, or realize the truth or validity of something
Slowly, in
mild afternoon sunshine, he walked up a dingy street in the direction
of Mr Charrington's shop, keeping one eye open for the patrols, but
irrationally convinced that this afternoon there was no danger of anyone
interfering with him.
Nevertheless it had been very difficult not to
betray a momentary surprise, for in the two or three seconds while he was
helping her up the girl had slipped something into his hand.
Helicopters are more used than they were formerly, bombing
planes have been largely superseded by self-propelled projectiles, and the
fragile movable battleship has given way to the almost unsinkable Floating
Fortress; but otherwise there has been
come into the possession of something concrete or abstract
Not to let one's feelings appear
in one's face was a habit that had acquired the status of an instinct,
and in any case they had been standing straight in front of a telescreen
when the thing happened.
The ruling groups
were always infected to some extent by liberal ideas, and were content to
leave loose ends everywhere, to regard only the overt act and to be
uninterested in what their subjects were thinking.
having the capacity for thought and reason especially to a high degree
He did not
suppose, from what he could remember of her, that she had been an unusual
woman, still less an intelligent one; and yet she had possessed a kind of
nobility, a kind of purity, simply because the standards that she obeyed
were private one
It is to be achieved either by gradually acquiring more
and more territory and so building up an overwhelming preponderance of
power, or by the discovery of some new and unanswerable weapon.
On a scarlet-draped platform an orator of the Inner Party, a small
lean man with disproportionately long arms and a large bald skull over
which a few lank locks straggled, was haranguing the crowd.
Not to let one's feelings appear
in one's face was a habit that had acquired the status of an instinct,
and in any case they had been standing straight in front of a telescreen
when the thing happened.
THEM, it appeared, meant the Party, and above all the Inner Party, about
whom she talked with an open jeering hatred which made Winston feel uneasy,
although he knew that they were safe here if they could be safe anywhere.
The theory was that men, whose sex
instincts were less controllable than those of women, were in greater
danger of being corrupted by the filth they handled.
bending the head or body or knee as a sign of reverence or submission or shame or greeting
It spread out its wings, fitted them carefully into place
again, ducked its head for a moment, as though making a sort of obeisance
to the sun, and then began to pour forth a torrent of song.
If she had worked in the Records Department it might have
been comparatively simple, but he had only a very dim idea whereabouts in
the building the Fiction Department lay, and he had no pretext for going
there.
Immediately after lunch there arrived a
delicate, difficult piece of work which would take several hours and necessitated putting everything else aside.
someone who manages a government agency or department
In his capacity
as an administrator, it is often necessary for a member of the Inner Party
to know that this or that item of war news is untruthful, and he may often
be aware that the entire war is spurious and is either not happening or
is being w
The scientist of today is either a mixture of psychologist and inquisitor,
studying with real ordinary minuteness the meaning of facial expressions,
gestures, and tones of voice, and testing the truth-producing effects of
drugs, shock therapy, hypn
the state of having little or no money and few or no material possessions
For if leisure and security were
enjoyed by all alike, the great mass of human beings who are normally
stupefied by poverty would become literate and would learn to think for
themselves; and when once they had done this, they would sooner or later
Winston's working week was sixty hours, Julia's was even longer, and
their free days varied according to the pressure of work and did not
often coincide.
In the labyrinthine Ministry the windowless,
air-conditioned rooms kept their normal temperature, but outside the
pavements scorched one's feet and the stench of the Tubes at the rush hours
was a horror.
having a smooth, gleaming surface reflecting light
What was even
better than the taste of the coffee was the silky texture given to it by
the sugar, a thing Winston had almost forgotten after years of saccharine.
the remains of something that has been destroyed or broken up
He remembered better the rackety, uneasy circumstances of
the time: the periodical panics about air-raids and the sheltering in Tube
stations, the piles of rubble everywhere, the unintelligible proclamations
posted at street corners, the gangs of y
based on or subject to individual discretion or preference or sometimes impulse or caprice
The
frontiers between the three super-states are in some places arbitrary, and
in others they fluctuate according to the fortunes of war, but in general
they follow geographical lines.
(of a substance) capable of being dissolved in some solvent (usually water)
Some are
concerned simply with planning the logistics of future wars; others devise
larger and larger rocket bombs, more and more powerful explosives, and more
and more impenetrable armour-plating; others search for new and deadlier
gases, or for solub
The inhabitants of these areas, reduced more or less openly to the status
of slaves, pass continually from conqueror to conqueror, and are expended
like so much coal or oil in the race to turn out more armaments, to capture
more territory, to contr
Nor did
one know what became of them, apart from the few who were hanged as
war-criminals: the others simply vanished, presumably into forced-labour
camps.
come out better in a competition, race, or conflict
He wandered round
the base of the enormous fluted column, at the top of which Big Brother's
statue gazed southward towards the skies where he had vanquished the
Eurasian aeroplanes (the Eastasian aeroplanes, it had been, a few years
ago) in the Bat
despite anything to the contrary (usually following a concession)
Nevertheless it had been very difficult not to
betray a momentary surprise, for in the two or three seconds while he was
helping her up the girl had slipped something into his hand.
He had grown fatter, his varicose ulcer had subsided,
leaving only a brown stain on the skin above his ankle, his fits of
coughing in the early morning had stopped.
For distances of less than
100 kilometres it was not necessary to get your passport endorsed, but
sometimes there were patrols hanging about the railway stations, who
examined the papers of any Party member they found there and asked awkward
questi
He wandered round
the base of the enormous fluted column, at the top of which Big Brother's
statue gazed southward towards the skies where he had vanquished the
Eurasian aeroplanes (the Eastasian aeroplanes, it had been, a few years
ago) in the Bat
the action of perverting something (turning it to a wrong use)
Since each of the three
super-states is unconquerable, each is in effect a separate universe within
which almost any perversion of thought can be safely practised.
the action of taking out something (especially using effort or force)
There were further angry
demonstrations, Goldstein was burned in effigy, hundreds of copies of the
poster of the Eurasian soldier were torn down and added to the flames, and
a number of shops were looted in the turmoil; then a rumour flew round
that spies
In his capacity
as an administrator, it is often necessary for a member of the Inner Party
to know that this or that item of war news is untruthful, and he may often
be aware that the entire war is spurious and is either not happening or
is being w
having a bearing on or connection with the subject at issue
The scientist of today is either a mixture of psychologist and inquisitor,
studying with real ordinary minuteness the meaning of facial expressions,
gestures, and tones of voice, and testing the truth-producing effects of
drugs, shock therapy, hypnosis, a
He wondered vaguely whether in the abolished past it had
been a normal experience to lie in bed like this, in the cool of a summer
evening, a man and a woman with no clothes on, making love when they chose,
talking of what they chose, not feeling any comp
They could be made to accept the most flagrant violations
of reality, because they never fully grasped the enormity of what was
demanded of them, and were not sufficiently interested in public events to
notice what was happening.
But there was still that memory moving round the edges of
his consciousness, something strongly felt but not reducible to definite shape, like an object seen out of the corner of one's eye.
a line or route along which something travels or moves
A half-hour railway journey; turn left outside
the station; two kilometres along the road; a gate with the top bar
missing; a path across a field; a grass-grown lane; a track between bushes;
a dead tree with moss on it.
But they had been foreshadowed by the various systems, generally called totalitarian, which
had appeared earlier in the century, and the main outlines of the world
which would emerge from the prevailing chaos had long been obvious.
conspicuously and outrageously bad or reprehensible
They could be made to accept the most flagrant violations
of reality, because they never fully grasped the enormity of what was
demanded of them, and were not sufficiently interested in public events to
notice what was happening.
matter that remains after something has been removed
They simply swallowed everything, and what they swallowed did them no harm,
because it left no residue behind, just as a grain of corn will pass
undigested through the body of a bird.
The smell was
already filling the room, a rich hot smell which seemed like an emanation
from his early childhood, but which one did occasionally meet with even
now, blowing down a passage-way before a door slammed, or diffusing itself
mysteriously
Even the humblest Party member is
expected to be competent, industrious, and even intelligent within narrow
limits, but it is also necessary that he should be a credulous and ignorant
fanatic whose prevailing moods are fear, hatred, adulation, and
They sat talking for hours on the dusty,
twig-littered floor, one or other of them getting up from time to time to
cast a glance through the arrowslits and make sure that no one was coming.
a natural body of running water flowing on or under the earth
He had hoped to be alone for a little while during
the lunch hour, but as bad luck would have it the imbecile Parsons flopped
down beside him, the tang of his sweat almost defeating the tinny smell of
stew, and kept up a stream of talk about the pr
sharp curved horny process on the toe of a bird or some mammals or reptiles
A little
Rumpelstiltskin figure, contorted with hatred, he gripped the neck of the
microphone with one hand while the other, enormous at the end of a bony
arm, clawed the air menacingly above his head.
The fighting, when there is any, takes place on the vague
frontiers whose whereabouts the average man can only guess at, or round
the Floating Fortresses which guard strategic spots on the sea lanes.
For the first time in his life he did not
despise the proles or think of them merely as an inert force which would
one day spring to life and regenerate the world.
be a delegate or spokesperson for; represent somebody's interest or be a proxy or substitute for, as of politicians and office holders representing their constituents, or of a tenant representing other tenants in a housing dispute
He wandered round
the base of the enormous fluted column, at the top of which Big Brother's
statue gazed southward towards the skies where he had vanquished the
Eurasian aeroplanes (the Eastasian aeroplanes, it had been, a few years
ago) in the Battle of
It had no caption,
and represented simply the monstrous figure of a Eurasian soldier, three
or four metres high, striding forward with expressionless Mongolian face
and enormous boots, a submachine gun pointed from his hip.
On the contrary, war hysteria is continuous and universal in all countries,
and such acts as raping, looting, the slaughter of children, the reduction
of whole populations to slavery, and reprisals against prisoners which
extend even to boiling and
something that is an indulgence rather than a necessity
It was possible, no
doubt, to imagine a society in which WEALTH, in the sense of personal
possessions and luxuries, should be evenly distributed, while POWER
remained in the hands of a small privileged caste.
a concave shape whose distinguishing characteristic is that the concavity faces downward
It had all occurred inside the glass paperweight, but the surface of the
glass was the dome of the sky, and inside the dome everything was flooded
with clear soft light in which one could see into interminable distances.
the rational investigation of questions about existence and knowledge and ethics
In Oceania the prevailing philosophy is called
Ingsoc, in Eurasia it is called Neo-Bolshevism, and in Eastasia it is
called by a Chinese name usually translated as Death-Worship, but perhaps
better rendered as Obliteration of the Self.
temporal sense; intermediate between past and future; now existing or happening or in consideration
To hang on from day to day
and from week to week, spinning out a present that had no future, seemed
an unconquerable instinct, just as one's lungs will always draw the next
breath so long as there is air available.
a political orientation that favors social progress by reform and by changing laws rather than by revolution
From the point of view of our present rulers, therefore,
the only genuine dangers are the splitting-off of a new group of able,
under-employed, power-hungry people, and the growth of liberalism and
scepticism in their own ranks.
(Hinduism) a hereditary social class among Hindus; stratified according to ritual purity
It was possible, no
doubt, to imagine a society in which WEALTH, in the sense of personal
possessions and luxuries, should be evenly distributed, while POWER
remained in the hands of a small privileged caste.
Even after enormous
upheavals and seemingly irrevocable changes, the same pattern has always
reasserted itself, just as a gyroscope will always return to equilibrium,
however far it is pushed one way or the other.
make more attractive by adding ornament, colour, etc.
Winston, in addition to his regular work, spent long periods every day in
going through back files of 'The Times' and altering and embellishing news
items which were to be quoted in speeches.
Winston, in addition to his regular work, spent long periods every day in
going through back files of 'The Times' and altering and embellishing news
items which were to be quoted in speeches.
distorted and unnatural in shape or size; abnormal and hideous
The June sun was still high in the sky,
and in the sun-filled court below, a monstrous woman, solid as a Norman
pillar, with brawny red forearms and a sacking apron strapped about her
middle, was stumping to and fro between a washtub and a clothes
a weapon that is forcibly thrown or projected at a targets but is not self-propelled
Helicopters are more used than they were formerly, bombing
planes have been largely superseded by self-propelled projectiles, and the
fragile movable battleship has given way to the almost unsinkable Floating
Fortress; but otherwise there has been
The world of today is a bare, hungry, dilapidated place compared with the world that existed before 1914, and
still more so if compared with the imaginary future to which the people of
that period looked forward.
an elementary book summarizing the principles of a Christian religion; written as questions and answers
He began asking his questions in a low, expressionless voice, as
though this were a routine, a sort of catechism, most of whose answers
were known to him already.
Winston's working week was sixty hours, Julia's was even longer, and
their free days varied according to the pressure of work and did not
often coincide.
He wolfed another tasteless meal in the canteen, hurried
off to the Centre, took part in the solemn foolery of a 'discussion group',
played two games of table tennis, swallowed several glasses of gin, and
sat for half an hour through a lecture enti
In so far as he had time to remember
it, he was not troubled by the fact that every word he murmured into the
speakwrite, every stroke of his ink-pencil, was a deliberate lie.
On a scarlet-draped platform an orator of the Inner Party, a small
lean man with disproportionately long arms and a large bald skull over
which a few lank locks straggled, was haranguing the crowd.
a connected series of events or actions or developments
There were no telescreens, of course, but there
was always the danger of concealed microphones by which your voice might
be picked up and recognized; besides, it was not easy to make a journey
by yourself without attracting attention.
He wandered round
the base of the enormous fluted column, at the top of which Big Brother's statue gazed southward towards the skies where he had vanquished the
Eurasian aeroplanes (the Eastasian aeroplanes, it had been, a few years
ago) in the Bat
He might have flinched altogether from speaking if at this moment he had not seen
Ampleforth, the hairy-eared poet, wandering limply round the room with
a tray, looking for a place to sit down.
make dull or stupid or muddle with drunkenness or infatuation
For if leisure and security were
enjoyed by all alike, the great mass of human beings who are normally stupefied by poverty would become literate and would learn to think for
themselves; and when once they had done this, they would sooner or later
If he had known where she lived, and at what time she left work,
he could have contrived to meet her somewhere on her way home; but to try
to follow her home was not safe, because it would mean loitering about
outside the Ministry, which was bound
immune to attack; incapable of being tampered with
They could lay bare in the
utmost detail everything that you had done or said or thought; but the
inner heart, whose workings were mysterious even to yourself, remained impregnable.
the system of production and distribution and consumption
With the establishment of
self-contained economies, in which production and consumption are geared
to one another, the scramble for markets which was a main cause of
previous wars has come to an end, while the competition for raw materials
is no lo
a loud bombastic declamation expressed with strong emotion
On a scarlet-draped platform an orator of the Inner Party, a small
lean man with disproportionately long arms and a large bald skull over
which a few lank locks straggled, was haranguing the crowd.
This failed to happen, partly
because of the impoverishment caused by a long series of wars and
revolutions, partly because scientific and technical progress depended on
the empirical habit of thought, which could not survive in a strictly
regiment
the goal intended to be attained (and which is believed to be attainable)
Whenever he began to talk of the principles of Ingsoc, doublethink, the
mutability of the past, and the denial of objective reality, and to use
Newspeak words, she became bored and confused and said that she never paid
any attention to that kind of
an intermediate scale value regarded as normal or usual
The fighting, when there is any, takes place on the vague
frontiers whose whereabouts the average man can only guess at, or round
the Floating Fortresses which guard strategic spots on the sea lanes.
avoid or try to avoid fulfilling, answering, or performing (duties, questions, or issues)
He wondered vaguely how many others like her there
might be in the younger generation people who had grown up in the world of
the Revolution, knowing nothing else, accepting the Party as something
unalterable, like the sky, not rebelling against its autho
For how could the fear, the
hatred, and the lunatic credulity which the Party needed in its members be
kept at the right pitch, except by bottling down some powerful instinct
and using it as a driving force?
Actually, all the possible ways of communicating with her had occurred to
him within five minutes of reading the note; but now, with time to think,
he went over them one by one, as though laying out a row of instruments
on a table.
Not to let one's feelings appear
in one's face was a habit that had acquired the status of an instinct,
and in any case they had been standing straight in front of a telescreen
when the thing happened.
The irritating thing was that in the racket
of voices Winston could hardly hear what Parsons was saying, and was
constantly having to ask for some fatuous remark to be repeated.
It is a warfare of limited aims between
combatants who are unable to destroy one another, have no material cause
for fighting and are not divided by any genuine ideological difference.
the act of working out the form of something (as by making a sketch or outline or plan)
In philosophy, or
religion, or ethics, or politics, two and two might make five, but when
one was designing a gun or an aeroplane they had to make four.
become different in some particular way, without permanently losing one's or its former characteristics or essence
Winston's working week was sixty hours, Julia's was even longer, and
their free days varied according to the pressure of work and did not
often coincide.
As soon as they arrived they would sprinkle
everything with pepper bought on the black market, tear off their clothes,
and make love with sweating bodies, then fall asleep and wake to find that
the bugs had rallied and were massing for the counter-
Whichever
power controls equatorial Africa, or the countries of the Middle East, or
Southern India, or the Indonesian Archipelago, disposes also of the bodies
of scores or hundreds of millions of ill-paid and hard-working coolies.
As they drifted
down the crowded pavements, not quite abreast and never looking at one
another, they carried on a curious, intermittent conversation which flicked
on and off like the beams of a lighthouse, suddenly nipped into silence
by the approa
Winston, in addition to his regular work, spent long periods every day in
going through back files of 'The Times' and altering and embellishing news
items which were to be quoted in speeches.
It
struck him that when one lived with a woman this particular disappointment
must be a normal, recurring event; and a deep tenderness, such as he had
not felt for her before, suddenly took hold of him.
(of ideas, images, representations, expressions) characterized by perfect conformity to fact or truth ; strictly correct
Moreover, to be efficient it was
necessary to be able to learn from the past, which meant having a fairly accurate idea of what had happened in the past.
For if leisure and security were
enjoyed by all alike, the great mass of human beings who are normally
stupefied by poverty would become literate and would learn to think for
themselves; and when once they had done this, they would sooner or later
realize
Julia, however, seemed unable to mention
the Party, and especially the Inner Party, without using the kind of words
that you saw chalked up in dripping alley-ways.
something a little different from others of the same type
But in each variant of Socialism that appeared from about 1900 onwards the
aim of establishing liberty and equality was more and more openly
abandoned.
someone who exhibits great independence in thought and action
He wondered vaguely how many others like her there
might be in the younger generation people who had grown up in the world of
the Revolution, knowing nothing else, accepting the Party as something
unalterable, like the sky, not rebelling against it
As soon as they arrived they would sprinkle
everything with pepper bought on the black market, tear off their clothes,
and make love with sweating bodies, then fall asleep and wake to find that
the bugs had rallied and were massing for the counter-
If he had known where she lived, and at what time she left work,
he could have contrived to meet her somewhere on her way home; but to try
to follow her home was not safe, because it would mean loitering about
outside the Ministry, which was bound
a religious doctrine that is proclaimed as true without proof
The citizen of Oceania is not
allowed to know anything of the tenets of the other two philosophies, but
he is taught to execrate them as barbarous outrages upon morality and
common sense.
Not to let one's feelings appear
in one's face was a habit that had acquired the status of an instinct,
and in any case they had been standing straight in front of a telescreen
when the thing happened.
It had all occurred inside the glass paperweight, but the surface of the
glass was the dome of the sky, and inside the dome everything was flooded
with clear soft light in which one could see into interminable distances.
She even induced
Winston to mortgage yet another of his evenings by enrolling himself for
the part-time munition work which was done voluntarily by zealous Party
members.
When you looked at O'Brien's powerful shoulders and
his blunt-featured face, so ugly and yet so civilized, it was impossible
to believe that he could be defeated.
the quality of lacking diversity or variation (even to the point of boredom)
The possibility of enforcing not only complete
obedience to the will of the State, but complete uniformity of opinion
on all subjects, now existed for the first time.