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STUDYWORLD STUDYNOTES

1984

Comprehensive Summary and Review of Part I Chapters 1-4

Summary:

As Winston Smith entered his apartment building, he passed a familiar poster. "It was one of those pictures which are so contrived that the eyes follow you about when you move. BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING YOU, the caption beneath it ran." Then Winston opened the door to his flat to be greeted by a voice on his "telescreen" - a device he could dim, but never shut off completely. Telescreens broadcasted government propaganda and served as the eyes and ears of the Thought Police, who scrutinized everyone for any possible deviation from acceptable thought or action.

In the flat was a tiny alcove just out of sight from the telescreen's vision. Winston sat down to write in his diary, an act that was not officially illegal "but if detected it was reasonably certain that it would be punished by death . .

Review:

1984 starts with a first person narration that is used effectively to show the universal fear of the Thought Police and Winston's fear of everything connected to Ingsoc, or English socialism. The Party, as it is simply called, is the Governing body of the superstate Oceana. The figurehead leader of The Party is a person known only as Big Brother, a brother that is always watching you.

The ever vigilant eyes of Big Brother are the Thought Police, who monitor everyone, everywhere through the use of telescreens. Designed to broadcast party propaganda, telescreens also have a video camera which transmits the activities of all those within sight of the screen to the Thought Police.

The party controls not only the lives of people through the use of telescreens, but reality itself. They do this by altering the past, a fact easily concealed by The Party's principles of doublethink. The best explanation of doublethink are examples provided by The Party's slogans. These are: WAR IS PEACE; SLAVERY IS FREEDOM; and IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH.