Essay Preview: 1984Report this essayWinston Smith is a low-ranking member of the ruling Party in London, in the nation of Oceania. Everywhere Winston goes, even his own home, the Party watches him through telescreens; everywhere he looks he sees the face of the Partys seemingly omniscient leader, a figure known only as Big Brother. The Party controls everything in Oceania, even the peoples history and language. Currently, the Party is forcing the implementation of an invented language called Newspeak, which attempts to prevent political rebellion by eliminating all words related to it. Even thinking rebellious thoughts is illegal. Such thoughtcrime is, in fact, the worst of all crimes.
As the novel opens, Winston feels frustrated by the oppression and rigid control of the Party, which prohibits free thought, sex, and any expression of individuality. Winston dislikes the party and has illegally purchased a diary in which to write his criminal thoughts. He has also become fixated on a powerful Party member named OBrien, whom Winston believes is a secret member of the Brotherhood–the mysterious, legendary group that works to overthrow the Party.
Winston works in the Ministry of Truth, where he alters historical records to fit the needs of the Party. He notices a coworker, a beautiful dark-haired girl, staring at him, and worries that she is an informant who will turn him in for his thoughtcrime. He is troubled by the Partys control of history: the Party claims that Oceania has always been allied with Eastasia in a war against Eurasia, but Winston seems to recall a time when this was not true. The Party also claims that Emmanuel Goldstein, the alleged leader of the Brotherhood, is the most dangerous man alive, but this does not seem plausible to Winston. Winston spends his evenings wandering through the poorest neighborhoods in London, where the proletarians, or proles, live squalid lives, relatively free of Party monitoring.
One day, Winston receives a note from the dark-haired girl that reads “I love you.” She tells him her name, Julia, and they begin a covert affair, always on the lookout for signs of Party monitoring. Eventually they rent a room above the secondhand store in the prole district where Winston bought the diary. This relationship lasts for some time. Winston is sure that they will be caught and punished sooner or later (the fatalistic Winston knows that he has been doomed since he wrote his first diary entry), while Julia is more pragmatic and optimistic. As Winstons affair with Julia progresses, his hatred for the Party grows more and more intense. At last, he receives the message that he has been waiting for: OBrien wants to see him.
[Cross-Section][Text] [Cue-Caption]
From: Winston Cramer
Date: October 6, 1847
Subject: “We met in The Old Bailey”
Citizen: A. F. Haldane, a detective assistant and the editor of the Herald of the English county, was present at the event as part of the public affairs division at the London Inn.
The hotel he later stayed at, an unusual little establishment, served as a gathering place for the young detectives who were interested in hearing all sides. Although the hotel was owned by a well-known member of the county as an honest agent, she had never been to The Old Bailey (if anyone knew how to do that it is unlikely the inn would allow the subject to see a lawyer in England, let alone a detective of that time). Haldane was a rather eccentric person, well at his wits’ end, his personality somewhat muddled. When he was about fourteen years-old, he received his first criminal summons, and, not wanting to become a troublemaker he decided to start up his own real estate investment business in the process, setting up a business in a bar in Luton called Malthus’s House. Shortly thereafter he took two hundred plus pounds to secure a loan from the landlord of the bar, and was soon earning as a business person for the first time (it seems to have been in an effort to attract tenants from the town).[3][4]
After a few years or two of living in a very low-rent, semi-wobbly building in Cribbble Court, with the tenants only living here through an old-time pub, Haldane bought his first place in May, 1848.[5] While there, he was offered a job as a bar patron for the Herald of the English county, where he quickly met his fate when a man in a tavern forced him to leave for the nearest pub to earn a certain level of money. Fortunately the bar patron, named William Haldane, offered to carry out the repairs Haldane had originally undertaken. He was very happy with this and had to pay Haldane a full house payment. As a matter of fact Haldane had a job at a local pub—in fact it was one of the few jobs in his hometown of Basingstoke that was not owned by a local party or a business.[6][7] A year later this same man offered to pay Haldane a commission at The Old Bailey.[8] This was enough to pay him, and so in January, 1865, he moved to Old Bailey for the first time in eighteen years to pay up. The next morning, not wanting to go over paying the bar or paying Haldane further commission, W. Haldane was told to stand guard at the door.
[Cross-Section][Text] [Cue-Caption]
From: Winston Cramer
Date: October 6, 1847
Subject: “We met in The Old Bailey”
Citizen: A. F. Haldane, a detective assistant and the editor of the Herald of the English county, was present at the event as part of the public affairs division at the London Inn.
The hotel he later stayed at, an unusual little establishment, served as a gathering place for the young detectives who were interested in hearing all sides. Although the hotel was owned by a well-known member of the county as an honest agent, she had never been to The Old Bailey (if anyone knew how to do that it is unlikely the inn would allow the subject to see a lawyer in England, let alone a detective of that time). Haldane was a rather eccentric person, well at his wits’ end, his personality somewhat muddled. When he was about fourteen years-old, he received his first criminal summons, and, not wanting to become a troublemaker he decided to start up his own real estate investment business in the process, setting up a business in a bar in Luton called Malthus’s House. Shortly thereafter he took two hundred plus pounds to secure a loan from the landlord of the bar, and was soon earning as a business person for the first time (it seems to have been in an effort to attract tenants from the town).[3][4]
After a few years or two of living in a very low-rent, semi-wobbly building in Cribbble Court, with the tenants only living here through an old-time pub, Haldane bought his first place in May, 1848.[5] While there, he was offered a job as a bar patron for the Herald of the English county, where he quickly met his fate when a man in a tavern forced him to leave for the nearest pub to earn a certain level of money. Fortunately the bar patron, named William Haldane, offered to carry out the repairs Haldane had originally undertaken. He was very happy with this and had to pay Haldane a full house payment. As a matter of fact Haldane had a job at a local pub—in fact it was one of the few jobs in his hometown of Basingstoke that was not owned by a local party or a business.[6][7] A year later this same man offered to pay Haldane a commission at The Old Bailey.[8] This was enough to pay him, and so in January, 1865, he moved to Old Bailey for the first time in eighteen years to pay up. The next morning, not wanting to go over paying the bar or paying Haldane further commission, W. Haldane was told to stand guard at the door.
[Cross-Section][Text] [Cue-Caption]
From: Winston Cramer
Date: October 6, 1847
Subject: “We met in The Old Bailey”
Citizen: A. F. Haldane, a detective assistant and the editor of the Herald of the English county, was present at the event as part of the public affairs division at the London Inn.
The hotel he later stayed at, an unusual little establishment, served as a gathering place for the young detectives who were interested in hearing all sides. Although the hotel was owned by a well-known member of the county as an honest agent, she had never been to The Old Bailey (if anyone knew how to do that it is unlikely the inn would allow the subject to see a lawyer in England, let alone a detective of that time). Haldane was a rather eccentric person, well at his wits’ end, his personality somewhat muddled. When he was about fourteen years-old, he received his first criminal summons, and, not wanting to become a troublemaker he decided to start up his own real estate investment business in the process, setting up a business in a bar in Luton called Malthus’s House. Shortly thereafter he took two hundred plus pounds to secure a loan from the landlord of the bar, and was soon earning as a business person for the first time (it seems to have been in an effort to attract tenants from the town).[3][4]
After a few years or two of living in a very low-rent, semi-wobbly building in Cribbble Court, with the tenants only living here through an old-time pub, Haldane bought his first place in May, 1848.[5] While there, he was offered a job as a bar patron for the Herald of the English county, where he quickly met his fate when a man in a tavern forced him to leave for the nearest pub to earn a certain level of money. Fortunately the bar patron, named William Haldane, offered to carry out the repairs Haldane had originally undertaken. He was very happy with this and had to pay Haldane a full house payment. As a matter of fact Haldane had a job at a local pub—in fact it was one of the few jobs in his hometown of Basingstoke that was not owned by a local party or a business.[6][7] A year later this same man offered to pay Haldane a commission at The Old Bailey.[8] This was enough to pay him, and so in January, 1865, he moved to Old Bailey for the first time in eighteen years to pay up. The next morning, not wanting to go over paying the bar or paying Haldane further commission, W. Haldane was told to stand guard at the door.
Winston and Julia travel to OBriens luxurious