-| Big Brother is watching you BIG BROTHER George Onwell Ninetoen Eighty-Four (1949) Part L Chapter This extract gives an insight into the life in London, the capital of Airstrip One in Oceania, a totalitarian state where men have last control oftheir inner being. The only person who tres 40 resist indoctrination is the protagonist of the book, Winston Smith, 9) 37 s Inside the flat a fruity’ voice was reading out a list of figures which had something IS WATCHI to do with the production of pig-iron:. The voice came from an oblong metal plaque like a dulled' mirror which formed part of the surface of the right-hand wall, Winston turned a switch and the voice sank somewhat, though the words were still distinguishable. The instrument (the telescreen, it was called) could be dimmed, but there was no way of shutting it off completely. He moved ‘over to the window: a smallish, frail figure, the meagreness’ of his body merely ‘emphasized by the blue overalls® which were the uniform of the Party. His hair ‘was very fair, his face naturally sanguine, his skin roughened by coarse” soap and blunt razor blades* and the cold of the winter that had just ended. cae Outside, even through the shut window-pane, the world looked cold, Down in the street little eddies® of wind were whirling dust and torn paper into spirals, and though the sun was shining and the sky a harsh blue, there seemed to be no colour in anything, except the posters that were plastered everywhere. The blackmoustachio'd” face gazed down from every commanding comer. ‘There was one on the house-front immediately opposite. BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING : ‘YOU, the caption said, while the dark eyes looked deep into Winston's own. Down at street level another poster, tom at one corner, flapped fitfully" in the wind, alternately covering and "uncovering the single word INGSOC. in the far distance a helicopter skimmed down’ between the roofs, hovered” for an instant like a bluebottle*, and darted away again with a curving flight. It was the police patrol", snooping” into people's windows. The patrols did not matter, however. | Only the Thought Police mattered. Behind Winston’s back the voice from the telescreen was still babbling away about pig-iron and the overfulfilment of the Ninth Three-Year Plan. The telescreen received and transmitted Cont simultaneously. Any sound that Winston made, above the level of a very low whisper, would oo — be picked up by it; moreover, so long as he remained within the field of vision which the metal slimmed dows ‘9 plaque commanded, he could be seen as well as heard. There was of course no way of knowing Rene. Vale whether you were being watched at any given moment. How often, or on what system, the 1 Bobotle. TP “Thought Police plugged in* on any individual wire was guesswork”. It was even conceivable tl : they watched everybody all the time, But at any rate they could plug in your wire whenever they i Sea wanted to, You had to live ~ did live, from habit that became instinct — in the assumption that" steeint &* tevery sound you made was overheard, and, except in darkness, every movement serutiniced 1 paged ‘Winston kept his back turned to the telescreen. It was safer; though, as he well knew, even ntane ucswotk a back can be revealing, A kilometre away the Ministry of Truth, his place of work, towered vact nesd white above the grimy” landscape. This, he thought with a sort of vague distaste ~ this was» wim Suto. aon. chief city of Airstrip One, itself the third most populous of the provinces of Oceania. He" tine impende 1a con * ato squeeze out some childhood memory that should tell him whether London had always somatup mi jen quite like this. Were there always these vistas of rotting" nineteenth-century houses, their (ae aa tee gies shored up with baulks of timber, their windows patched" with cardboard and their roofs 2 yahel arp with corrugated iron, their crazy garden walls sagging” in all directions? And the bombed sites.“ Me2M# Incivar ‘ere the plaster dust swirled in the air and the willow-herb straggled over the heaps of rubble; “nie Ju the places where the bombs had cleared a larger patch and there had sprung up sordid colonies of wooden dwellings® like chicken-houses? But it was no use, he could not remember: usiwucern ns rothing remained of his childhood except a series of bright-lit tableaux”, occurring against no a, gechins. soeamoms. tackground and mostly unintelligible. are «The Ministry of Truth - Minitrue, in Newspeak" was startlingly different from any other” BMcne™ de objetin sight. It was an enormous pyramidal structure of glittering white concrete, soaring» Newpeak sizams up”, terrace after terrace, 300 metres into the air. From where Winston stood it was just possible Geaaa toread, picked out on its white face in elegant lettering, the three slogans of the Party > geen com 1» searing op C= WAR IS PEACE omnia. . FREEDOM IS SLAVERY IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH COMPREHENSION | ANALYSIS 7 ANALYSE the three slogans of the 2. READ and gather information 4 DISCUSS the symbolic meaning of the Party. about the social and political ‘elements concerning Winston Smith's 1 What kind of words does Orwell ‘organisation of Oceania as. "egards: security and control, {1 His name Winston’: who may have he meaning People’s private lives; language; inspired Orwell in the choice of such Politics, a name? 2 Hic surname Smith’ how would you 8 _DISCUSS. What does Orwell attack 3 “ Explain the choice of such a common in the passage? What danger does parE DOWN the details the British surname? he warn the reader against? age gives you about the 3 His age and appearance: do they a Dtagonist. Consider: his names correspond to the traditional features sical appearan 7 > : nia appearance cates, ofthe'hero? : YOUR TURN d 44 His memores: can he remember nything about his past? 9 Discuss in pairs. What 2komar & does ‘having an identity’ om 5 ‘mean to you? Do you think it sr qguanysE the presence of Bg Sroter iimporantto preserve the Front of in the extract. memory of ? wie Through what device is Big Brother memory ofthe past? If 30, why ‘i conveyed? What does this method oe Codeevon. rernind you 0? eee 2. Big Brother is also the parody of a storcal Fgure Single out the detals IEE Terza Prova rs description and ty o guess : oh tele 10 Tyres. Write ten to twelve lines Bresenting the oaltarian soc 6 POINT OUT what features ofthe life in cacribed by George Orwell in ccigerike tere crane by ory Nineteen Eighty-Four, panicularly strke you. a CF bxam Reference pag. 6