Breaking Down 1984
Instructions: Read and annotate the excerpt by highlighting text and leaving comments off to the
side. Then, answer the questions using your annotations. Remember, it is always a good idea to
provide a quote from the excerpt to support your answer.
1984 Excerpt
Down in the street the wind flapped the torn poster to and fro, and the word INGSOC
fitfully appeared and van- ished. Ingsoc. The sacred principles of Ingsoc. Newspeak,
doublethink, the mutability of the past. He felt as though he were wandering in the
forests of the sea bottom, lost in a monstrous world where he himself was the monster.
He was alone. The past was dead, the future was unimaginable.
What certainty had he that a single human creature now living was on his side? And
what way of knowing that the dominion of the Party would not endure FOR EVER?
Like an answer, the three slogans on the white face of the Minis- try of Truth came back
to him:
WAR IS PEACE
FREEDOM IS SLAVERY
IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH
He took a twenty-five cent piece out of his pocket. There, too, in tiny clear lettering, the
same slogans were inscribed, and on the other face of the coin the head of Big Brother.
Even from the coin the eyes pursued you. On coins, on stamps, on the covers of books,
on banners, on posters, and on the wrappings of a cigarette packet—everywhere. Al-
ways the eyes watching you and the voice enveloping you.
Asleep or awake, working or eating, indoors or out of doors, in the bath or in bed—no
escape. Nothing was your own except the few cubic centimeters inside your skull.
The sun had shifted round, and the myriad windows of the Ministry of Truth, with the
light no longer shining on them, looked grim as the loopholes of a fortress. His heart
quailed before the enormous pyramidal shape. It was too strong, it could not be
stormed. A thousand rocket bombs would not batter it down. He wondered again for
whom he was writing the diary. For the future, for the past—for an age that might be
imaginary. And in front of him there lay not death but annihilation. The diary would
be reduced to ashes and himself to vapor. Only the Thought Police would read what he
had written, before they wiped it out of existence and out of memory. How could you
make appeal to the future when not a trace of you, not even an anonymous word
scribbled on a piece of paper, could physically survive?
The telescreen struck fourteen. He must leave in ten minutes. He had to be back at
work by fourteen-thirty.
Curiously, the chiming of the hour seemed to have put new heart into him. He was a
lonely ghost uttering a truth that nobody would ever hear. But so long as he uttered it,
in some obscure way the continuity was not broken. It was not by making yourself
heard but by staying sane that you carried on the human heritage. He went back to the
table, dipped his pen, and wrote:
To the future or to the past, to a time when thought is
free, when men are different from one another and do not live alone—to a time when
truth exists and what is done cannot be undone: From the age of uniformity, from the age
of solitude, from the age of Big Brother, from the age of doublethink—greetings!
He was already dead, he reflected. It seemed to him that it was only now, when he had
begun to be able to formulate his thoughts, that he had taken the decisive step. The
consequences of every act are included in the act itself. He wrote:
Thoughtcrime does not entail death: thoughtcrime IS death.
Now he had recognized himself as a dead man it became important to stay alive as long
as possible.
Analysis Questions
1. Highlight 1 or 2 patterns. Make a claim about the impact on the text or on the
reader based on those patterns.
-Underlined: A pattern of mentioning how Winston feels alone.
- purpley pink highlight: he keeps bringing up how he doesn’t know what time
he’s writing for.
Impact: I think these patterns impact the reader because they bring attention to how
much people have to figure out by themselves. Reading about how Winston feels alone
and like no one is there makes the reader feel empathetic. And the repetition of future
and past makes the reader think more deeply about what is going on. Thinking about
who Winston is writing for and because it’s not targeted to a specific group makes it
more important for everyone.
2. Identify the dominant or central motif/image of the passage
The dominant image is Winston being surrounded by a multitude of objects and
slogans from the big brother. There’s a lot going on around him but he feels
trapped inside his head. It creates the image of the clashing ideas;
isolation/loneliness and chaos.
“ On coins, on stamps, on the covers of books, on banners, on posters, and on the
wrappings of a cigarette packet—everywhere. Al- ways the eyes watching you and the
voice enveloping you…..Nothing was your own except the few cubic centimeters inside
your skull.”
3. Identify and state the effect of the point-of-view established in the passage.
Because the passage is written in past tense it makes the reader feel like they are
looking back on a memory, which then leads to questioning the outcome of the passage
and what is currently happening in the characters life.
4. Identify the most important line, word, or phrase in this passage – make a claim
about it.
“How could you make appeal to the future when not a trace of you, not even an
anonymous word scribbled on a piece of paper, could physically survive?”
I already commented on this sentence but I believe that it is the most important
in this passage. Winston keeps going back and forth questioning who his writing will
reach, if anyone at all. How do people make an impact if all evidence of their
achievements are erased? It’s like if a tree fell alone in a forest, would it ever make a
sound?
5. Identify the most important element of structure in this passage?
The most important element of structure would be the separation of paragraphs.
In essay’s we always try to have a certain number of sentences in each paragraph,
but when it’s in a novel they have more freedom. The way Orwell decided to
separate his paragraphs helps the organization of ideas. There’s one main idea
throughout the passage, and when we enter a new paragraph that is shorter it
adds an idea to the character arc of the scene. I also think that it helps the reader
separate ideas and it makes it flow.
6. What is the central claim of this passage?
With so much going on in the world, you never know what kind of an impact
you can make on others, but this doesn’t make your thoughts invalid.
7. Complete the sentence: I used to think… now I think… I wonder…
I used to think that the thoughts inside your head were helpful and reliable, now
I think that your thoughts can be misguided and influenced by the world around you, I
wonder what part of my thoughts are genuinely me and what part of them are from
other influences and distractions.
