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Definition of Motif
A motif is an element or idea that recurs throughout a work of literature. Motifs, which are often collections of related symbols, help develop the central themes of a book... read full definition
A motif is an element or idea that recurs throughout a work of literature. Motifs, which are often collections of related symbols, help develop the... read full definition
A motif is an element or idea that recurs throughout a work of literature. Motifs, which are often collections of... read full definition
Motifs
Explanation and Analysis—Varicose Ulcer:
Over the course of the novel, the narrator comments repeatedly on a varicose ulcer above Winston's right ankle. Chronic and incessant, this ulcer flares up alongside a recurrent cough when Winston feels ill at ease. As a motif, the ulcer is a physical, everyday manifestation of the effects of totalitarian repression.
An ulcer is an open sore that fails to heal, and "varicose" indicates that Winston's ulcer is connected to an enlarged and swollen vein. When Winston is uncomfortable, the narrator often makes note of his ulcer flaring up. The ulcer thus functions as a sort of signal, and becomes an embodiment of the totalitarian state's hold on the minds and bodies of individuals under its control. Just as Winston fails to escape Big Brother's presence in his life, he never quite succeeds in making the ulcer heal and go away.
The narrator tends to mention the ulcer in passing, designating it as one detail in a larger picture. For example, in the novel's first chapter, the narrator uses the ulcer as one of many reasons why Winston walks slowly up the stairs of Victory Mansions. Later in the same chapter, when Winston begins to write in his forbidden diary, the narrator again mentions the ulcer. It itches "unbearably," but Winston does not dare to scratch it, because "it always became inflamed." As he sits with the diary next to the telescreen, he is conscious of "nothing except the blankness of the page in front of him, the itching of the skin above his ankle, the blaring of the music, and a slight booziness caused by the gin."
The passage in which Winston first writes in his diary gives insight into the policing of physical sensations in Orwell's dystopian world. Winston is wary of revealing physical discomfort, because physical discomfort reveals mental discomfort, and thereby betrays emotions one should mask. Ultimately, Winston has no escape; the ulcer will bother him regardless. If he scratches it, it will become inflamed and painful. If he leaves it, the itching of the skin will feel unbearable. This goes hand in hand with Winston's lack of escape routes. If he does something to resist the Party, he will be caught, tortured, and killed. If he lets life remain as it is, he will forever feel disturbed by his willing contribution to the status quo.
The ulcer motif also represents vulnerability for Winston, as he funnels his shame over his body and sexuality into his varicose veins. When Winston and Julia finally meet face to face in the first chapter of the second book, his varicose veins are chief among the reasons why he doubts that she would be interested in him. He asks her if she can "still bear" to look at him despite his varicose veins. In the fourth chapter of the second book, the narrator remarks that, in the early stages of their affair, he kept his clothes on when they slept together because he was "ashamed of his pale and meager body, with the varicose veins standing out on his calves and the discolored patch over his ankle."
As their relationship flourishes and Winston becomes more comfortable with Julia, the varicose ulcer subsides, "leaving only a brown stain on the skin above his ankle." It seems that love and trust are the ultimate antidote to the atmosphere of fear instilled by the totalitarian government. As he is tortured in the third book, however, the ulcer becomes worse than ever: "an inflamed mass with flakes of skin peeling off it."
Related Themes:
Motifs
Explanation and Analysis—Animal Analogies:
Orwell makes frequent use of animal analogies to describe characters in 1984. While the novel is lacking in actual animals, it is full of people with animalistic appearances and tendencies, which Orwell underlines through metaphors and similes.
Animal analogies are not only a motif in this specific novel, but in Orwell's work overall. For example, in his allegorical novella Animal Farm, he uses anthropomorphized animal characters to criticize human society and political systems. In 1984, Orwell uses animal analogies to shed light on the inhumane nature of totalitarian governance, suggesting that the ability to feel compassion for others and think for oneself distinguishes people from animals. The comparisons also feel appropriate in the novel's propagandistic atmosphere, as propaganda cartoons often depict animals to criticize leaders, armies, and people.
The first book includes many instances in which the narrator compares characters to animals. For example, when Goldstein appears on the telescreen during the Two Minutes Hate, the narrator compares his face to that of a sheep, specifying that "the voice, too, has a sheeplike quality." At first, the similarity seems to be limited to simile and metaphor. Eventually, however, it becomes evident that the sheep resemblance is intended by the Party members who have created the footage of Goldstein, as his bleating voice turns into "an actual sheep's bleat, and for an instant the face changed into that of a sheep." The sheep comparison is, in some ways, rather ironic. While similes and metaphors revolving around sheep tend to connote the inability to think for oneself, the Party's issue with Goldstein is precisely that he thinks and acts independently of their will.
When Winston reflects back on people's responses to the telescreens during the Two Minutes Hate, the passage includes other animal analogies. There was, for example, a "little sandy-haired woman" whose mouth opened and shut "like that of a landed fish." In addition, the dark-haired girl cries "Swine! Swine! Swine!" at the screen.
At lunch in the canteen later that day, Winston seems to be surrounded by animals. To begin with, he is struck by how a man at a nearby table sounds like a duck: "The stuff that was coming out of him consisted of words, but it was not speech in the true sense: it was a noise uttered in unconsciousness, like the quacking of a duck." In the same chapter, the narrator calls Winston's neighbor Parsons "froglike" and a man sitting on the other side of the room "beetlelike." Winston finds it curious how the Ministries is full of the latter: "little dumpy men, growing stout very early in life, with short legs, swift scuttling movements, and fat inscrutable faces with very small eyes." None of these animal comparisons give a positive impression of the characters surrounding Winston: the man who sounds like a duck is characterized as a propaganda machine, unable to think for himself; Parsons is characterized as clueless and slimy; the Ministry men are characterized as dirty and fickle.
Later in the novel, the specific metaphors and similes give way to more general animal analogies. Especially during Winston's torture in the third part, the narrator compares characters to animals in general. When the Skull-Faced Man is sent to Room 101, he begins howling "like an animal." Winston himself becomes "as shameless as an animal." The specific animal analogies in the beginning of the novel indicate that, under the totalitarian system, people are robbed of their humanity. The more general animal analogies at the end show that once they become prisoners and victims, people also lose their individuality.
Related Themes:
Motifs
Explanation and Analysis—Books:
Throughout 1984, Orwell shows that the written word fosters critical thinking and diversity of thought. This motif emerges by way of two physical books: Winston's diary and the book. The former comes into being over the course of the novel's first book, allowing Winston to give concrete shape to his political beliefs and test out his political resistance. The latter is alluded to early on, but assumes a more material presence at the end of the novel's second book. Both the diary and the book supplement Orwell's ideology and project with 1984 itself: to reveal the power of the written word, especially in relation to intellectual and political freedom.
In the first book's first chapter, the narrator describes Winston's thoughts as he builds the courage to write in the diary: "Even with nothing written in it, it was a compromising possession." Orwell slowly builds the lead-up to the moment of writing, making it clear that the mere act of opening a diary is unusual, and thereby dangerous, in his dystopian world.
It's symbolic that the first real event of the novel's plot, after the expositional passages, consists of the protagonist writing in a diary. Through this, Orwell suggests that the act of writing sets Winston on the path to political awakening. Once he has written anything in the diary, the deed has been done: "To mark the paper was the decisive act." This first mark is the date, which both aligns with the format and anticipates the importance of time—especially the past and future—to Winston's ideals. When he asks himself whom he is writing the diary for, he concludes that he writes "For the future, for the unborn."
In the following chapters, the diary becomes a platform where Winston hashes out his faint, private ideas. These ideas make their way onto the pages of 1984, which allows the reader a firsthand look at Winston's increasing confidence in his formulations and convictions. For Winston, writing paves the way for more writing—as well as a thirst for more ideas, more resistance, and more reading.
A few pages after Winston begins to write in the diary, the narrator mentions the book—a sort of manifesto, supposedly penned by Goldstein and promoted by the Brotherhood. In the view of the Party, it is a "terrible book, a compendium of all the heresies." In the society of Big Brother, this "book without a title" is something one knew of "only through vague rumors." Unmentioned for 200 pages, the book becomes real when O'Brien sends it to Winston after their meeting in the eighth chapter of the second book.
Just as excerpts from Winston's diary appear on the page, the reader is given long excerpts from the book. These function as short essays in which Orwell articulates his own political views in a more succinct manner. Upon opening the book," Winston discovers that it has a longer title, "The Theory and Practice of Oligarchical Collectivism," and that its chapters are structured around each of the three Party slogans.
While reading, Winston reflects, "It was bliss, it was eternity." The long excerpts from Goldstein's book simulates his enthusiastic, uninterrupted reading sessions; in these passages, Winston and the reader share the experience of reading. Whereas writing sets him on the path to develop his critical thinking, reading places him in a community and lineage of other critical thinkers who use writing to share their ideas.
Related Themes:
Book 1, Chapter 1
Explanation and Analysis—Telescreen:
Just as it does within the dystopian world of 1984, the telescreen has a near-constant presence throughout the narrative. This motif symbolizes surveillance and discipline. The ubiquity of the telescreen ensures that Big Brother dominates every home, every office, and all public places.
In the novel's first chapters, Orwell acquaints the reader with the function of the telescreen. It is an instrument with the manifold purpose of broadcasting instructions, disseminating propaganda, and executing surveillance. Moreover, it serves as a sort of everyday torture device, in that it deprives people of peace and quiet. When the narrator mentions the telescreen, it is often in conjunction with a voice or "bruising" noise.
The first instance in which the telescreen is mentioned, the narrator describes its physical appearance from the perspective of someone unfamiliar with it.
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.
To a modern reader, the telescreen sounds like a flat-screen television. The main difference, however, is that the viewer has limited control over its volume and no control over its operation. Not only are telescreens more or less everywhere, they are perpetually turned on.
Over the course of the novel's first book, the reader receives a steady trickle of details about how telescreens function. For example, they receive and transmit at the same time, meaning that "any sound that Winston made, above the level of a very low whisper, would be picked up by it" and also that it observes his body "so long as he remained within [its] field of vision." The narrator also specifies that Winston regulates his body language any time he is within its range. He assumes an "expression of quiet optimism [...] when facing the telescreen" because "the smallest thing could give you away," such as "a nervous tic, an unconscious look of anxiety, a habit of muttering to yourself."
Once the operation of the telescreens has been set up for the reader, they appear throughout the novel, as Winston and Julia show immense caution about how they behave and communicate in their vicinity. The narrator's constant mention of the telescreens invites readers to experience what he and Julia experience. In a way, their omnipresence can be likened to that of the novel's narrator, who seems aware of Winston's every action and thought.
Regarding the telescreens, the reader should keep in mind that Orwell created this fictional world in the late 1940s. For readers of today, who are constantly surrounded by screens and accustomed to their surveillance, the telescreens may seem less unusual (perhaps even less frightening) than they would to a reader of Orwell's time. In Europe, only a small portion of households had a television set in the middle of the 1940s. As their production picked up after World War II, this percentage skyrocketed by the early 1950s. In this way, the motif becomes a sort of prediction, on Orwell's part, of the growing importance of household televisions in the 1950s and 1960s. It was much later that screens gained the ability to also record footage. Since 1984 was published, people have often expressed awe at Orwell's accurate predictions of subsequent technological developments.
Related Themes:
Explanation and Analysis—Sex and Celibacy:
While describing Winston's experience of the Two Minutes Hate, the narrator introduces one of the novel's main characters. The reader will later learn that this girl is named Julia, but in the beginning of the novel she is simply known as "the dark-haired girl." Her early characterization is situationally ironic, as she is sexualized while being described as a representative of the Junior Anti-Sex League. From this point, the clash between sexuality and sexual repression becomes a motif in the novel. For Winston and Julia, some of their most important resistance is their desire for each other, as they build a relationship on both physical passion and romantic love.
The girl's initial characterization is marked by irony. On the one hand, she is wearing a "narrow scarlet sash" as an "emblem of the Junior Anti-Sex League." On the other hand, this sash is wound around her waist, "just tightly enough to bring out the shapeliness of her hips." Despite being a representative of an organization devoted to celibacy and sexual repression, the character immediately makes Winston think about sex. The very emblem of her anti-sex organization contributes to her sexualization.
Winston feels a vehement dislike of the dark-haired girl and even directs his hatred toward her during the Two Minutes Hate, as the narrator explains in the first chapter of the first book:
He hated her because she was young and pretty and sexless, because he wanted to go to bed with her and would never do so, because round her sweet supple waist, which seemed to ask you to encircle it with your arm, there was only the odious scarlet sash, aggressive symbol of chastity.
The main reason Winston wants to have sex with the dark-haired girl is her sexlessness and the "aggressive symbol of chastity" that makes sex with her unattainable. It is ironic that the very emblem of her celibacy causes Winston to see her in a sexual light. This passage reveals the impossibility of controlling people's desires, even for a totalitarian state: often, prohibition only makes people want things more. Winston primarily wants to sleep with the girl because he believes he "would never do so."
Later, when describing Winston's marriage with Katharine, the narrator offers more information about the Party's stance on sex. For them, the only purpose of marriage is having children "in the service of the Party." Big Brother wants Party members to see sex as a "slightly disgusting minor operation, like having an enema." By "trying to kill the sex instinct" through sexual puritanism, the Party ironically gives sex an immense power.
As his relationship with Julia develops, Winston comes to fully recognize the oppositional power of sex—and, conversely, the "direct, intimate connection between chastity and political orthodoxy." Expressing hatred for purity, Winston is even excited that she's had numerous sexual partners before him because desire is the "force that would tear the Party to pieces." After they sleep together for the first time in the second chapter of the second book, he takes pleasure in the radical nature of lust:
Their embrace had been a battle, the climax a victory. It was a blow struck against the Party. It was a political act.
The diction of "victory" is significant in the world of 1984, as it is a word the Party uses to brand itself: Victory Gin, Victory Coffee, Victory Square, Victory Mansions. By using this word about their love, Winston appropriates the Party's propagandistic language to understand his private emotions and subtle acts of resistance.
Related Themes:
Book 1, Chapter 3
Explanation and Analysis—Golden Country:
Early in the novel, the narrator describes a dream in which Winston stands in a landscape he calls "the Golden Country." This landscape reappears at multiple points in the novel, both in dreams and the real world. As a motif, the Golden Country represents a world of purity, privacy, and hope, in which nature and life are untouched by Big Brother's totalitarian repression.
The reader first encounters the Golden Country in the third chapter of the first book, which begins with Winston dreaming sorrowfully of his mother. This mournful dream gives way to the Golden Country, bringing a marked shift in tone and mood:
Suddenly he was standing on short springy turf, on a summer evening when the slanting rays of the sun gilded the ground. The landscape that he was looking at recurred so often in his dreams that he was never fully certain whether or not he had seen it in the real world. In his waking thoughts he called it the Golden Country.
In this passage, which shows that the landscape is already familiar to Winston, the gleaming visual imagery combines with alliteration to reproduce Winston's dream state for the reader. In the first sentence, several words begin with a soothing /s/ sound. This soft, lulling sound continues in the rest of the passage, by way of vivid imagery and multiple sets of alliteration:
It was an old, rabbit-bitten pasture, with a foot track wandering across it and a molehill here and there. In the ragged hedge on the opposite side of the field the boughs of the elm trees were swaying very faintly in the breeze, their leaves just stirring in dense masses like women’s hair. Somewhere near at hand, though out of sight, there was a clear, slow-moving stream where dace were swimming in the pools under the willow trees.
These details become important later in the novel, when Winston finds himself in a landscape that closely corresponds with that of his dreams. The real Golden Country is where he and Julia meet for the first time, in the second chapter of the second book:
Winston looked out into the field beyond, and underwent a curious, slow shock of recognition. He knew it by sight. An old, close-bitten pasture, with a footpath wandering across it and a molehill here and there. In the ragged hedge on the opposite side the boughs of the elm trees swayed just perceptibly in the breeze, and their leaves stirred faintly in dense masses like women’s hair.
Winston is taken aback to realize that it is possible for the Golden Country to exist in the real world. The "close-bitten pasture," footpath, molehills, and hairlike elm leaves all correspond with the landscape he knows from his dreams. When Winston is able to access the Golden Country by way of his relationship with Julia, the reader understands that she is trustworthy and that their relationship will be pure and private.
Just as Winston loses access to Julia, he eventually loses access to the real Golden Country. The motif goes unmentioned for a long stretch in the novel, while Winston is tortured in the third book. Eventually, the reappearance of the Golden Country in his dreams brings the final level of torture. Finding himself in the Golden Country one night, with all of its familiar features, he wakes up with a "shock of horror" and screams Julia's name. This makes O'Brien see that Winston retains hope of a pure, private world beyond the reaches of the Party, and he brings Winston to Room 101.
Related Themes:
Book 1, Chapter 5
Explanation and Analysis—Chocolate:
Throughout 1984, chocolate plays an important role in Winston's life and memories. As a motif, it teeters on the edge between awareness and ignorance, luxury and deprivation, pleasure and shame. In addition, chocolate exists at the heart of one of his most intense childhood flashbacks.
In the second chapter of the first book, the telescreen announces that "from next week, the chocolate ration would be reduced from thirty grams to twenty." Through this, chocolate is right away associated with scarcity and unavailability. While chocolate often symbolizes everyday luxury, it is equally bound up with deprivation and a decreasing quality of life.
The chocolate ration also appears in Winston's work, as he is given the task to "set right" the "error" in a prior announcement made by the Ministry of Plenty—that there would be "no reduction of the chocolate ration during 1984." In a move that perfectly encapsulates his job description, Winston substitutes the original promise "with a warning that it would probably be necessary to reduce the ration at some time in April."
Later, in the fifth chapter of the first part, the telescreen announces that "there had been demonstrations to thank Big Brother for raising the chocolate ration to twenty grams a week." This prompts Winston to wonder whether anyone else in the canteen remembers the announcement on the news the night before:
And only yesterday, he reflected, it had been announced that the ration was to be reduced to twenty grams a week. Was it possible that they could swallow that, after only twenty-four hours? Yes, they swallowed it.
For Winston and the reader, the changed chocolate ration is a sign of discernment and awareness. He remembers the news from the evening before, he is aware of the change to the original promise, and he notices the inconsistency of the celebratory demonstrations. Yet, the changed ration simultaneously represents the ignorance of doublethink. The people around him don't seem to care. Ultimately, it doesn't seem to matter whether anyone else realizes that the chocolate ration has gone down rather than up. As long as the Party controls the narrative, people's memories and opinions are meaningless.
Chocolate is also bound up with the forbidden, passionate affair between Winston and Julia. The first time they meet in private, in the second chapter of the second book, she brings chocolate from the black market.
Even before he had taken it he knew by the smell that it was very unusual chocolate. It was dark and shiny, and was wrapped in silver paper. Chocolate normally was dull-brown crumbly stuff that tasted, as nearly as one could describe it, like the smoke of a rubbish fire. But at some time or another he had tasted chocolate like the piece she had given him. The first whiff of its scent had stirred up some memory which he could not pin down, but which was powerful and troubling.
On the one hand, Julia's real chocolate is decadent and delightful. On the other hand, the chocolate gives rise to a negatively loaded memory, which makes Winston feel troubled and shameful. A few chapters later, he wakes up in tears, having unlocked the memory in his sleep. It turns out that the last time he saw his mother and sister, he took the family's chocolate ration all for himself and ran out of the house. When he returned, they were gone. This flashback imbues chocolate with yet another layer of contradictory meaning. While it represents the loving relationship between Winston and Julia, it also represents Winston's betrayal of his most formative relationship.
Related Themes:
Book 1, Chapter 7
Explanation and Analysis—2+2=4:
In the first book, it occurs to Winston that the Party has the power to change the most fundamental aspects of reality—like the mathematical fact that 2+2=4. This equation becomes a motif in the novel, as Winston writes the following in his diary: "Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else follows." This foreshadows his punishment later in the novel, when O'Brien tortures him until he allows for two and two to make five.
The equation represents Winston's desire for a world structured by unalterable truths and verifiable facts. He yearns for certain aspects of reality to be sacred, beyond the Party's reach. For him, freedom springs from the ability to see reality for what it is. As long as he knows what is true and has the ability to state it, "all else follows." In the world of 1984, people do not have this freedom. Orwell foreshadows that the Party will quash Winston's hold on this simple truth, when the thought first appears as a coincidental example in the seventh chapter of the first book:
In the end the Party would announce that two and two made five, and you would have to believe it. [...] And what was terrifying was not that they would kill you for thinking otherwise, but that they might be right. For, after all, how do we know that two and two make four? Or that the force of gravity works? Or that the past is unchangeable? If both the past and the external world exist only in the mind, and if the mind itself is controllable—what then?
In this passage, Winston begins to question fundamental empirical truths. Although it is merely a thought exercise, Orwell uses the chain of rhetorical questions to underline that one of the most frightening aspects of unbridled power is that it can go so far as controlling people's experience of reality.
At the very end of the second book, Winston invokes the equation again, as he reflects on the revolutionary power of the proles:
Out of those mighty loins a race of conscious beings must one day come. You were the dead; theirs was the future. But you could share in that future if you kept alive the mind as they kept alive the body, and passed on the secret doctrine that two plus two make four.
Although these reflections are followed by Winston's imprisonment and torture, they offer the novel a gentle tone of hope. Over the course of the first two books, the reader has witnessed Winston's political awakening and growing courage. His reflections on the proles represent the culmination of his awareness. He already knows that he will not live to see a better system. Nonetheless, he has faith in the proles, and their creation of a future in which people have the right to see reality for what it is. O'Brien may succeed in making him believe that two and two make five, but Winston nevertheless trusts that one day, 2+2=4 will again be an unalterable fact.
Related Themes:
Book 1, Chapter 8
Explanation and Analysis—Oranges and Lemons:
As Winston and Mr. Charrington examine a steel engraving of St. Clement's Dane together, the latter shares a line from a rhyme he knew as a little boy ("Oranges and lemons, say the bells of St. Clement’s"), which comes from an English nursery rhyme that lists out old London churches. This allusion becomes a motif in the work, as both the traditional nursery rhyme and London churches come to serve as traces of a past before the Revolution. When it appears that Mr. Charrington only remembers a few of the lines, Winston becomes determined to learn the rest. Seeking to build a bridge between the present and past, Winston sets out on a sort of scavenger hunt for the whole rhyme.
In the eighth chapter of the first book, when the nursery rhyme first comes up, Mr. Charrington only remembers the first and last lines:
How it goes on I don’t remember, but I do know it ended up, Here comes a candle to light you to bed, Here comes a chopper to chop off your head. It was a kind of a dance. They held out their arms for you to pass under, and when they came to Here comes a chopper to chop off your head they brought their arms down and caught you.
Winston is oblivious to the menacing undertone of the rhyme's final line, as he is too preoccupied with the rhyme as a trace of the past. Making him aware of the original function of buildings that have been repurposed by the Party, the conversation opens Winston's eyes to the historical heritage of the cityscape. Still, the violence of the words and dance foreshadow Mr. Charrington's duplicity. When Winston and Julia are imprisoned, he chants this line to proclaim their defeat.
Later, when he brings Julia to the room above Mr. Charrington's shop, Winston is amazed to realize that she knows a line from the rhyme: "When will you pay me? say the bells of Old Bailey—." She explains that her grandfather used to say it to her when she was a little girl, before he was vaporized. As Winston gradually pieces together the rhyme, Orwell shows that knowledge of the past requires a collective, intergenerational effort. A functional archive rests both on respect for the past and on an appreciation for shared memories. Winston longs to live in a world where sharing memories is possible.
Ironically, it is O'Brien who completes the rhyme for Winston, when Winston still believes that he is trustworthy: "When I grow rich, say the bells of Shoreditch." Given the violence of the final line, it seems appropriate that O'Brien should be the arbiter of the nursery rhyme and hold the key to its completion. His possession of the full rhyme both symbolizes his power over Winston and foreshadows his future violence.
For a reader in the 21st century, it is worth noting that the bells of St. Clements Danes still chime. Winston sees the rhyme and the church as a key to a long-lost world, which he longs to return to. Although some of Orwell's dystopian setting may seem reminiscent of the world we live in today, our world is nevertheless more like the world that Winston longs for than that of Big Brother. In this way, the nursery rhyme serves as a reminder of the vast heritage worth valuing and protecting in our world today.
Related Themes:
Book 2, Chapter 2
Explanation and Analysis—Chocolate:
Throughout 1984, chocolate plays an important role in Winston's life and memories. As a motif, it teeters on the edge between awareness and ignorance, luxury and deprivation, pleasure and shame. In addition, chocolate exists at the heart of one of his most intense childhood flashbacks.
In the second chapter of the first book, the telescreen announces that "from next week, the chocolate ration would be reduced from thirty grams to twenty." Through this, chocolate is right away associated with scarcity and unavailability. While chocolate often symbolizes everyday luxury, it is equally bound up with deprivation and a decreasing quality of life.
The chocolate ration also appears in Winston's work, as he is given the task to "set right" the "error" in a prior announcement made by the Ministry of Plenty—that there would be "no reduction of the chocolate ration during 1984." In a move that perfectly encapsulates his job description, Winston substitutes the original promise "with a warning that it would probably be necessary to reduce the ration at some time in April."
Later, in the fifth chapter of the first part, the telescreen announces that "there had been demonstrations to thank Big Brother for raising the chocolate ration to twenty grams a week." This prompts Winston to wonder whether anyone else in the canteen remembers the announcement on the news the night before:
And only yesterday, he reflected, it had been announced that the ration was to be reduced to twenty grams a week. Was it possible that they could swallow that, after only twenty-four hours? Yes, they swallowed it.
For Winston and the reader, the changed chocolate ration is a sign of discernment and awareness. He remembers the news from the evening before, he is aware of the change to the original promise, and he notices the inconsistency of the celebratory demonstrations. Yet, the changed ration simultaneously represents the ignorance of doublethink. The people around him don't seem to care. Ultimately, it doesn't seem to matter whether anyone else realizes that the chocolate ration has gone down rather than up. As long as the Party controls the narrative, people's memories and opinions are meaningless.
Chocolate is also bound up with the forbidden, passionate affair between Winston and Julia. The first time they meet in private, in the second chapter of the second book, she brings chocolate from the black market.
Even before he had taken it he knew by the smell that it was very unusual chocolate. It was dark and shiny, and was wrapped in silver paper. Chocolate normally was dull-brown crumbly stuff that tasted, as nearly as one could describe it, like the smoke of a rubbish fire. But at some time or another he had tasted chocolate like the piece she had given him. The first whiff of its scent had stirred up some memory which he could not pin down, but which was powerful and troubling.
On the one hand, Julia's real chocolate is decadent and delightful. On the other hand, the chocolate gives rise to a negatively loaded memory, which makes Winston feel troubled and shameful. A few chapters later, he wakes up in tears, having unlocked the memory in his sleep. It turns out that the last time he saw his mother and sister, he took the family's chocolate ration all for himself and ran out of the house. When he returned, they were gone. This flashback imbues chocolate with yet another layer of contradictory meaning. While it represents the loving relationship between Winston and Julia, it also represents Winston's betrayal of his most formative relationship.
Related Themes:
Explanation and Analysis—Golden Country:
Early in the novel, the narrator describes a dream in which Winston stands in a landscape he calls "the Golden Country." This landscape reappears at multiple points in the novel, both in dreams and the real world. As a motif, the Golden Country represents a world of purity, privacy, and hope, in which nature and life are untouched by Big Brother's totalitarian repression.
The reader first encounters the Golden Country in the third chapter of the first book, which begins with Winston dreaming sorrowfully of his mother. This mournful dream gives way to the Golden Country, bringing a marked shift in tone and mood:
Suddenly he was standing on short springy turf, on a summer evening when the slanting rays of the sun gilded the ground. The landscape that he was looking at recurred so often in his dreams that he was never fully certain whether or not he had seen it in the real world. In his waking thoughts he called it the Golden Country.
In this passage, which shows that the landscape is already familiar to Winston, the gleaming visual imagery combines with alliteration to reproduce Winston's dream state for the reader. In the first sentence, several words begin with a soothing /s/ sound. This soft, lulling sound continues in the rest of the passage, by way of vivid imagery and multiple sets of alliteration:
It was an old, rabbit-bitten pasture, with a foot track wandering across it and a molehill here and there. In the ragged hedge on the opposite side of the field the boughs of the elm trees were swaying very faintly in the breeze, their leaves just stirring in dense masses like women’s hair. Somewhere near at hand, though out of sight, there was a clear, slow-moving stream where dace were swimming in the pools under the willow trees.
These details become important later in the novel, when Winston finds himself in a landscape that closely corresponds with that of his dreams. The real Golden Country is where he and Julia meet for the first time, in the second chapter of the second book:
Winston looked out into the field beyond, and underwent a curious, slow shock of recognition. He knew it by sight. An old, close-bitten pasture, with a footpath wandering across it and a molehill here and there. In the ragged hedge on the opposite side the boughs of the elm trees swayed just perceptibly in the breeze, and their leaves stirred faintly in dense masses like women’s hair.
Winston is taken aback to realize that it is possible for the Golden Country to exist in the real world. The "close-bitten pasture," footpath, molehills, and hairlike elm leaves all correspond with the landscape he knows from his dreams. When Winston is able to access the Golden Country by way of his relationship with Julia, the reader understands that she is trustworthy and that their relationship will be pure and private.
Just as Winston loses access to Julia, he eventually loses access to the real Golden Country. The motif goes unmentioned for a long stretch in the novel, while Winston is tortured in the third book. Eventually, the reappearance of the Golden Country in his dreams brings the final level of torture. Finding himself in the Golden Country one night, with all of its familiar features, he wakes up with a "shock of horror" and screams Julia's name. This makes O'Brien see that Winston retains hope of a pure, private world beyond the reaches of the Party, and he brings Winston to Room 101.
Related Themes:
Explanation and Analysis—Sex and Celibacy:
While describing Winston's experience of the Two Minutes Hate, the narrator introduces one of the novel's main characters. The reader will later learn that this girl is named Julia, but in the beginning of the novel she is simply known as "the dark-haired girl." Her early characterization is situationally ironic, as she is sexualized while being described as a representative of the Junior Anti-Sex League. From this point, the clash between sexuality and sexual repression becomes a motif in the novel. For Winston and Julia, some of their most important resistance is their desire for each other, as they build a relationship on both physical passion and romantic love.
The girl's initial characterization is marked by irony. On the one hand, she is wearing a "narrow scarlet sash" as an "emblem of the Junior Anti-Sex League." On the other hand, this sash is wound around her waist, "just tightly enough to bring out the shapeliness of her hips." Despite being a representative of an organization devoted to celibacy and sexual repression, the character immediately makes Winston think about sex. The very emblem of her anti-sex organization contributes to her sexualization.
Winston feels a vehement dislike of the dark-haired girl and even directs his hatred toward her during the Two Minutes Hate, as the narrator explains in the first chapter of the first book:
He hated her because she was young and pretty and sexless, because he wanted to go to bed with her and would never do so, because round her sweet supple waist, which seemed to ask you to encircle it with your arm, there was only the odious scarlet sash, aggressive symbol of chastity.
The main reason Winston wants to have sex with the dark-haired girl is her sexlessness and the "aggressive symbol of chastity" that makes sex with her unattainable. It is ironic that the very emblem of her celibacy causes Winston to see her in a sexual light. This passage reveals the impossibility of controlling people's desires, even for a totalitarian state: often, prohibition only makes people want things more. Winston primarily wants to sleep with the girl because he believes he "would never do so."
Later, when describing Winston's marriage with Katharine, the narrator offers more information about the Party's stance on sex. For them, the only purpose of marriage is having children "in the service of the Party." Big Brother wants Party members to see sex as a "slightly disgusting minor operation, like having an enema." By "trying to kill the sex instinct" through sexual puritanism, the Party ironically gives sex an immense power.
As his relationship with Julia develops, Winston comes to fully recognize the oppositional power of sex—and, conversely, the "direct, intimate connection between chastity and political orthodoxy." Expressing hatred for purity, Winston is even excited that she's had numerous sexual partners before him because desire is the "force that would tear the Party to pieces." After they sleep together for the first time in the second chapter of the second book, he takes pleasure in the radical nature of lust:
Their embrace had been a battle, the climax a victory. It was a blow struck against the Party. It was a political act.
The diction of "victory" is significant in the world of 1984, as it is a word the Party uses to brand itself: Victory Gin, Victory Coffee, Victory Square, Victory Mansions. By using this word about their love, Winston appropriates the Party's propagandistic language to understand his private emotions and subtle acts of resistance.
Related Themes:
Book 2, Chapter 9
Explanation and Analysis—Fraternity:
The language of fraternity is prevalent in 1984. This motif comes out through two supposedly conflicting but ultimately similar forces: Big Brother and the Brotherhood. In both, the ideal of fraternity is intended to simulate familial bonds and appeal to people's sense of duty.
Big Brother is the totalitarian leader of Oceania. More than an actual character in the novel, he serves as the embodiment of the state apparatus—Big Brother is the Party funneled into a single, symbolic figurehead. Goldstein explains this in the book," which Winston reads in the ninth chapter of the second book:
Nobody has ever seen Big Brother. He is a face on the hoardings, a voice on the telescreen. We may be reasonably sure that he will never die, and there is already considerable uncertainty as to when he was born. Big Brother is the guise in which the Party chooses to exhibit itself to the world.
As the reader begins to gather independently of Goldstein's explanations, the real existence of Big Brother is besides the point. What matters is people's simultaneous devotion to him—as nurtured by his title, which builds on imagined kinship ties—and fear of him. The cult of personality surrounding Big Brother is strengthened through posters of his "enormous," "black-mustachio'd" face, plastered on walls across the city. His face also appears frequently on the telescreen and in books, and the city contains large statues of him. People like Winston rarely escape Big Brother's "dark eyes" or the verbalized reminder, at the bottom of the posters, that "Big Brother Is Watching You."
Another repeated element that contributes to the motif of fraternity is Big Brother's adversary, the Brotherhood. Throughout the first and second books, Winston's thoughts on the Brotherhood vacillate. He yearns for the organization to exist, but often concludes that it is unlikely to be more than a myth. When O'Brien misleads Winston in the second book, he tricks him into believing he is being inducted into the Brotherhood. It appears, after O'Brien's true identity is uncovered in the third book, that the Brotherhood has been invented by the Party to ensnare people with unorthodox views.
As a concept, fraternity has long been central to political ideology and movements. In Europe, it played an important role in religious orders of the Middle Ages. It also predominated the French Revolution, in which it was a political ideal on the level of liberty and equality. Since then, the language of fraternity has been used in many Western constitutions. In wars since the early 20th century, soldiers have been encouraged to see each other as "brothers in arms" for the purpose of building identification with and loyalty for one another.
Ultimately, neither Big Brother nor the Brotherhood seem to really exist in 1984, something Winston has an inkling of. In the second chapter of the third book, he asks O'Brien whether Big Brother exists:
“Of course he exists. The Party exists. Big Brother is the embodiment of the Party.”
“Does he exist in the same way as I exist?”
“You do not exist,” said O’Brien.
Although this response makes Winston feel defeated, he defends his existence and proceeds to ask whether the Brotherhood exists. O'Brien responds that "it will be an unsolved riddle" in his mind for as long as he lives. It is telling that both sides—the Party and its resistance—weaponize fraternity to build support and emphasize their own trustworthiness. Just as family and friendship appear to have lost essence in Orwell's dystopian world, these two conceptions of fraternity empty the concept of its meaning.
Related Themes:
Book 2, Chapter 10
Explanation and Analysis—2+2=4:
In the first book, it occurs to Winston that the Party has the power to change the most fundamental aspects of reality—like the mathematical fact that 2+2=4. This equation becomes a motif in the novel, as Winston writes the following in his diary: "Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else follows." This foreshadows his punishment later in the novel, when O'Brien tortures him until he allows for two and two to make five.
The equation represents Winston's desire for a world structured by unalterable truths and verifiable facts. He yearns for certain aspects of reality to be sacred, beyond the Party's reach. For him, freedom springs from the ability to see reality for what it is. As long as he knows what is true and has the ability to state it, "all else follows." In the world of 1984, people do not have this freedom. Orwell foreshadows that the Party will quash Winston's hold on this simple truth, when the thought first appears as a coincidental example in the seventh chapter of the first book:
In the end the Party would announce that two and two made five, and you would have to believe it. [...] And what was terrifying was not that they would kill you for thinking otherwise, but that they might be right. For, after all, how do we know that two and two make four? Or that the force of gravity works? Or that the past is unchangeable? If both the past and the external world exist only in the mind, and if the mind itself is controllable—what then?
In this passage, Winston begins to question fundamental empirical truths. Although it is merely a thought exercise, Orwell uses the chain of rhetorical questions to underline that one of the most frightening aspects of unbridled power is that it can go so far as controlling people's experience of reality.
At the very end of the second book, Winston invokes the equation again, as he reflects on the revolutionary power of the proles:
Out of those mighty loins a race of conscious beings must one day come. You were the dead; theirs was the future. But you could share in that future if you kept alive the mind as they kept alive the body, and passed on the secret doctrine that two plus two make four.
Although these reflections are followed by Winston's imprisonment and torture, they offer the novel a gentle tone of hope. Over the course of the first two books, the reader has witnessed Winston's political awakening and growing courage. His reflections on the proles represent the culmination of his awareness. He already knows that he will not live to see a better system. Nonetheless, he has faith in the proles, and their creation of a future in which people have the right to see reality for what it is. O'Brien may succeed in making him believe that two and two make five, but Winston nevertheless trusts that one day, 2+2=4 will again be an unalterable fact.
Related Themes:
Book 3, Chapter 2
Explanation and Analysis—Fraternity:
The language of fraternity is prevalent in 1984. This motif comes out through two supposedly conflicting but ultimately similar forces: Big Brother and the Brotherhood. In both, the ideal of fraternity is intended to simulate familial bonds and appeal to people's sense of duty.
Big Brother is the totalitarian leader of Oceania. More than an actual character in the novel, he serves as the embodiment of the state apparatus—Big Brother is the Party funneled into a single, symbolic figurehead. Goldstein explains this in the book," which Winston reads in the ninth chapter of the second book:
Nobody has ever seen Big Brother. He is a face on the hoardings, a voice on the telescreen. We may be reasonably sure that he will never die, and there is already considerable uncertainty as to when he was born. Big Brother is the guise in which the Party chooses to exhibit itself to the world.
As the reader begins to gather independently of Goldstein's explanations, the real existence of Big Brother is besides the point. What matters is people's simultaneous devotion to him—as nurtured by his title, which builds on imagined kinship ties—and fear of him. The cult of personality surrounding Big Brother is strengthened through posters of his "enormous," "black-mustachio'd" face, plastered on walls across the city. His face also appears frequently on the telescreen and in books, and the city contains large statues of him. People like Winston rarely escape Big Brother's "dark eyes" or the verbalized reminder, at the bottom of the posters, that "Big Brother Is Watching You."
Another repeated element that contributes to the motif of fraternity is Big Brother's adversary, the Brotherhood. Throughout the first and second books, Winston's thoughts on the Brotherhood vacillate. He yearns for the organization to exist, but often concludes that it is unlikely to be more than a myth. When O'Brien misleads Winston in the second book, he tricks him into believing he is being inducted into the Brotherhood. It appears, after O'Brien's true identity is uncovered in the third book, that the Brotherhood has been invented by the Party to ensnare people with unorthodox views.
As a concept, fraternity has long been central to political ideology and movements. In Europe, it played an important role in religious orders of the Middle Ages. It also predominated the French Revolution, in which it was a political ideal on the level of liberty and equality. Since then, the language of fraternity has been used in many Western constitutions. In wars since the early 20th century, soldiers have been encouraged to see each other as "brothers in arms" for the purpose of building identification with and loyalty for one another.
Ultimately, neither Big Brother nor the Brotherhood seem to really exist in 1984, something Winston has an inkling of. In the second chapter of the third book, he asks O'Brien whether Big Brother exists:
“Of course he exists. The Party exists. Big Brother is the embodiment of the Party.”
“Does he exist in the same way as I exist?”
“You do not exist,” said O’Brien.
Although this response makes Winston feel defeated, he defends his existence and proceeds to ask whether the Brotherhood exists. O'Brien responds that "it will be an unsolved riddle" in his mind for as long as he lives. It is telling that both sides—the Party and its resistance—weaponize fraternity to build support and emphasize their own trustworthiness. Just as family and friendship appear to have lost essence in Orwell's dystopian world, these two conceptions of fraternity empty the concept of its meaning.
Related Themes:
