1. SUMMARIES & CHAPTER QUESTIONS 1984 Book III: Ch’s 1 & 2

2. Chapter 1 - Summary Winston sits in a bright, bare cell in which the lights are always on—he has at last arrived at the place where there is no darkness. Four telescreens monitor him. He has been transferred here from a holding cell in which a huge prole woman who shares the last name Smith wonders if she is Winston’s mother. In his solitary cell, Winston envisions his captors beating him, and worries about sheer physical pain.

3. Chapter 1 - Summary Ampleforth, a poet whose crime was leaving the word “God” in a Rudyard Kipling translation, is tossed into the cell. He is soon dragged away to the dreaded Room 101, a place of mysterious and unspeakable horror. Winston shares his cell with a variety of fellow prisoners, including his pompous neighbor Parsons, who was turned in by his own daughter for committing thoughtcrime.

4. Chapter 1 - Summary His dreams of the Brotherhood are wrecked when O’Brien, his hoped-for link to the rebellion, enters his cell. Winston cries out, “They’ve got you too!” To which O’Brien replies, “They got me long ago,” and identifies himself as an operative of the Ministry of Love. O’Brien asserts that Winston has known O’Brien was an operative all along, and Winston admits that this is true. (Winston’s belief that he would ultimately be caught no matter what he did enabled him to convince himself to trust O’Brien.) A guard smashes Winston’s elbow, and Winston thinks that no one can become a hero in the face of physical pain because it is too much to endure.

5. Chapter 1 – Chapter Questions 1.) Where is Winston? Ministry of Love, but not certain – high ceilings, white room without windows 2.) Has he had anything to eat? No; Possibly 36 hours since he’d eaten 3.) Has he been anyplace else since his arrest? Yes; prison, holding cell with common criminals 4.) Who first comes into his cell? A fat, drunk, 60 yr. old woman; she says she “could be his mom”

6. Chapter 1 – Chapter Questions 5.) Why is Ampleforth there? He didn’t erase “God” from a Kipling poem – he thinks 6.) What interesting comments does Ampleforth make about English poetry? The whole history of English poetry has been determined by the fact that the English language lacks rhymes 7.) Where is Ampleforth sent? Room 101

7. Chapter 1 – Chapter Questions 8.) Who next comes into the room? Parsons 9.) Why is he there? Thoughtcrime – He said “Down with Big Brother” in his sleep; his own daughter turned him in 10.) Who comes in next? More prisoners come and go; a prisoner who is being starved to death; Winston calls him the “skull-faced man” 11.) What does the prisoner, the chinless man, attempt to give him? A piece of bread

8. Chapter 1 – Chapter Questions 12.) What punishment is given to the chinless man? A stout guard punches the chinless man in the mouth 13.) What order comes for the skull-faced man? Room 101 14.) Does he want to go? No; he begs not to go 15.) Whom does he accuse? The chinless man of saying things after the guard bashed his face in 16.) Who is O’Brien exactly? A member of the Thoughtpolice

9. Chapter 2 - Summary O’Brien oversees Winston’s prolonged torture sessions. O’Brien tells Winston that his crime was refusing to accept the Party’s control of history and his memory. As O’Brien increases the pain, Winston agrees to accept that O’Brien is holding up five fingers, though he knows that O’Brien is actually holding up only four—he agrees that anything O’Brien wants him to believe is true. He begins to love O’Brien, because O’Brien stops the pain; he even convinces himself that O’Brien isn’t the source of the pain. O’Brien tells Winston that Winston’s current outlook is insane, but that torture will cure him.

10. Chapter 2 - Summary O’Brien tells Winston that the Party has perfected the system practiced by the Inquisition, the Nazis, and the Soviets—it has learned how to eliminate its enemies without making martyrs of them. It converts them, and then ensures that, in the eyes of the people, they cease to exist. Slowly, Winston begins to accept O’Brien’s version of events. He begins to understand how to practice doublethink, refusing to believe memories he knows are real.

11. Chapter 2 - Summary O’Brien offers to answer his questions, and Winston asks about Julia. O’Brien tells him that Julia betrayed him immediately. Winston asks if Big Brother exists in the same way that he himself does, and O’Brien replies that Winston does not exist. Winston asks about the Brotherhood, and O’Brien responds that Winston will never know the answer to that question. Winston asks what waits in Room 101, and O’Brien states that everyone knows what waits in Room 101.

12. Chapter 2 – Chapter Questions 1.) Why are the political prisoners punished? Crimes – espionage, sabotage, & the like Confessions were a formality 2.) What happens to Winston? Repeated beatings, drugging, and interrogations 3.) What is the real weapon? The questions by Party intellectuals that humiliated him & broke him down crying 4.) To what does Winston confess? Assassination of Party members, sabotage, embezzlement, perversion, religious-believer 5.) Who does Winston think is directing all his torture? O’Brien

13. Chapter 2 – Chapter Questions 6.) What is the next change for Winston? He is strapped down and in pain in a rack-like device, similar to a electric chair 7.) Why does O’Brien say Winston has been brought to the Ministry of Love? He has a defective memory; he’s deranged 8.) What does O’Brien say about his posterity/history? Posterity(history) will never hear of you. You will be annihilated from the past/future. 9.) What does O’Brien tell Winston about surrender? When Winston surrenders, it will be of his own free will 10.) According to O’Brien, what will be the changes in Winston? Everything will be dead inside him; He will never be capable of love, friendship, courage, joy, laughter, etc; he will be hollow

14. Chapter 2 – Chapter Questions 11.) What now happens to Winston? Moist pads are strapped to his head; he is given some sort of electric shock treatment 12.) What question is he asked? What country is Oceania at war with? 13.) What does O’Brien tell him? Oceania is at war with Eastasia and has been since the beginning of history 14.) What legend does O’Brien say Winston created? Jones, Aaronson, & Rutherford – the photograph 15.) What does O’Brien say about Winston? Winston was right; O’Brien understands him; He enjoys talking to Winston; Winston’a mind appeals to him

15. Chapter 2 – Chapter Questions 16.) What question does Winston ask? What have you done with Julia? 17.) How does O’Brien answer him? It was a perfect textbook conversation; she betrayed him instantly 18.)What is Winston’s next question? Does Big Brother Exist? 19.) What doe O’Brien say? Of course; he is the embodiments of the Party 20.) When Winston ask if the Brotherhood exists, what is O’Brien’s answer? He will die never knowing yes or no. 21.) What is O’Brien’s answer to Winston’s question, “What is in Room 101?” Everyone knows what is in Room 101

16. Chapters 1-3 Analysis Book Two saw Winston’s love affair with Julia begin and end. Book Three begins his punishment and “correction.” Winston’s torture reemphasizes the book’s theme of the fundamental horror of physical pain—Winston cannot stop the torture or prevent the psychological control O’Brien gains from torturing him, and when the guard smashes his elbow, he thinks that nothing in the world is worse than physical pain. Though the Party’s ability to manipulate the minds of its subjects is the key to the breadth of its power, its ability to control their bodies is what makes it finally impossible to resist.

17. Chapters 1-3 Analysis Up to this point, O’Brien has remained a mystery to the reader, but his arrival toward the beginning of Winston’s prison term places him firmly on the side of the Party. O’Brien seems to have been a rebel like Winston at one point— when Winston asks if he too has been taken prisoner, O’Brien replies, “They got me a long time ago.” O’Brien adds insult to Winston’s imprisonment by claiming that Winston knew all along that he was affiliated with the Party—and Winston knows he is right. This section seems to imply that Winston’s fatalism stems as much from his understanding of his own fatalistic motives as from his belief in the power of the Party. In other words, Winston’s belief that he would ultimately be caught no matter what he did enabled him to convince himself to trust O’Brien. He knew that he would be caught whether he trusted O’Brien or not, and so he let himself trust O’Brien simply because he deeply wanted to do so.

18. Chapters 1-3 Analysis Winston’s obsession with O’Brien, which began with the dream about the place where there is no darkness, was the source of his undoing, and it undoes him now as well. Orwell explores the theme of how physical pain affects the human mind, and arrives at the conclusion that it grants extraordinary emotional power to the person capable of inflicting the pain. Because O’Brien tortures him, Winston perversely comes to love O’Brien. Throughout the torture sessions, Winston becomes increasingly eager to believe anything O’Brien tells him— even Party slogans and rhetoric. In the next section of the novel, Winston even begins to dream about O’Brien in the same way that he now dreams about his mother and Julia.