What is the main idea of this chapter?

Winston has no idea how much time has passed since he was arrested. He has not seen darkness or daylight, and his memories are not continuous: " There had been times when consciousness, even the sort of consciousness that one has in sleep, had stopped dead and started again after a blank interval."

What does"interval"mean?

Broken by the torture, Winston confesses to everything he is accused of: "He confessed to the assassination of eminent Party members, the distribution of seditious pamphlets, embezzlement of public funds, sale of military secrets, sabotage of every kind."

What does"eminent"mean?

Despite being attached to a machine that causes tremendous pain, Winston continues to see four fingers, not five: "The heavy, stern face and the four fingers filled his vision. The fingers stood up before his eyes like pillars, enormous, blurry, and seeming to vibrate, but unmistakably four."

What does"pillars"mean?

O'Brien explains that the goal of the torture is not to make Winston submit, but rather to capture his inner mind, to eliminate all "erroneous" thoughts: "Even in the instant of death we cannot permit any deviation."

What does"deviation"mean?

Winston asks O'Brien whether the Brotherhood exists. What does O'Brien tell him?

Were there any words that you did not know?
You can always list them here.

Winston knows that he will be punished for bursting out with Julia's name. While he waits to hear the tramping boots coming for him, "For the first time he perceived that if you want to keep a secret you must also hide it from yourself."

What does"perceived"mean?

Winston and Julia run across each other one time. Neither is that interested in seeing one another, but eventually they do walk and talk together. " [Julia] walked obliquely away across the grass as though trying to get rid of [Winston], then seemed to resign herself to having him at her side."

What does"obliquely"mean?

The principal figure in the daily Two Minutes Hate is Emmanuel Goldstein, the Enemy of the People. "He was the primal traitor, the earliest defiler of the Party's purity. All subsequent crimes against the Party, all treacheries, acts of sabotage, heresies, deviations, sprang directly out of his teaching."

What does"subsequent"mean?

One of the articles assigned to Winston must be entirely re–written. He enjoys this type of work the most, but he knows he is not the only one assigned to do it: "So tricky a piece of work would never be entrusted to a single person: on the other hand, to turn it over to a committee would be to admit openly that an act of fabrication was taking place."

What does"fabrication"mean?

In Winston's mind the smell of perfume was "inextricably mixed up" with his experience with the prostitute, because women in the Party never wore perfume. What does "inextricable"mean?

What is the main idea of this chapter?

What percentage of Oceania's population is made up of proles (people not belonging to the Party)?

Once Winston had witnessed a mob of women proles gathered around the market stall of a vendor selling saucepans. Some "…clamoured round the stall, accusing the stall–keeper of favouritism and of having more saucepans somewhere in reserve."

What does"reserve"mean?

Winston reflects, "The Party claimed, of course, to have liberated the proles from bondage."

What does"liberated"mean?

Winston has borrowed a children's history book from Mrs. Parsons. Reading it, he thinks, "It might very well be that literally every word in the history books, even the things that one accepted without question, was pure fantasy."

What does"literally"mean?

Winston "wondered, as he had many times wondered before, whether he himself was a lunatic. Perhaps a lunatic was simply a minority of one."

What does"minority"mean?

At the end of this chapter, Winston feels his courage rise. He understands, at last, for whom he is writing the diary. Who is that?

Were there any words that you did not know?
You can always list them here.

Julia does not agree with Winston's view of their situation. "She always contradicted him …and would not accept it as a law of nature that the individual is always defeated."

What does"contradicted"mean?