6th Hour 1984 Scribe
Hello Everyone!
Today, pages 69-117 were the subject of the discussion. After the bell rang, everyone was sitting ready at their desks in the fishbowl set up with a piece of paper for the quiz. The quiz was created by the presenters: Tessa, Chelsea, and Jordan. Members of the inner circle were Liz, Sarah, Natalie, Chelley, and Sally. After we finished the 10 question quiz, Tessa, Chelsea, and Jordan led the discussion bringing up the following questions as well as some others:
1) Winston remarks about how the hope lies with the Proles. Do you agree or disagree with this statement? Why?
2) When talking to Mr. Charrington, Winston hears of the Church Rhyme beginning with "Oranges and Lemons say the bells of St. Clements," and takes great interest. Why do you think he's so interested in the childhood rhyme?
3) After mentioning that the rhyme could remind him of his childhood, what exactly is childhood a symbol of in 1984? Does it represent the past, the present, or simply not exist at all?
4) Going back to the Proles, why are they not monitered as the Party members are?
5) Why are the classes split so that only 15% of the population lies within the Party and the remaining 85% lie within the Proles?
6) Do you think it's an economically smart move by the Inner Party to split the classes in such a manner? Wouldn't you think that it would be harder to control the non-monitered Proles coming to a total of 85% of the population?
7) Are the Proles considered brainwashed or is it merely members of the Party?
After the discussion we put the desks back and waited for the bell to ring.
Don't forget to blog tonight by 8:00 if you were on the outer circle and turn in your notes from the discussion to Mrs. Moritz tomorrow!!
Also remember to read pages 118 - 148 for Friday!
See you all at school tomorrow!
~Chelley~
Question from Tessa, Jordan and Chelsea:
What provokes Winston to start taking the risks of going into the pub and junk shop after years of not taking risks at all and just living in the regimental lifestyle of The Party?
Today, pages 69-117 were the subject of the discussion. After the bell rang, everyone was sitting ready at their desks in the fishbowl set up with a piece of paper for the quiz. The quiz was created by the presenters: Tessa, Chelsea, and Jordan. Members of the inner circle were Liz, Sarah, Natalie, Chelley, and Sally. After we finished the 10 question quiz, Tessa, Chelsea, and Jordan led the discussion bringing up the following questions as well as some others:
1) Winston remarks about how the hope lies with the Proles. Do you agree or disagree with this statement? Why?
2) When talking to Mr. Charrington, Winston hears of the Church Rhyme beginning with "Oranges and Lemons say the bells of St. Clements," and takes great interest. Why do you think he's so interested in the childhood rhyme?
3) After mentioning that the rhyme could remind him of his childhood, what exactly is childhood a symbol of in 1984? Does it represent the past, the present, or simply not exist at all?
4) Going back to the Proles, why are they not monitered as the Party members are?
5) Why are the classes split so that only 15% of the population lies within the Party and the remaining 85% lie within the Proles?
6) Do you think it's an economically smart move by the Inner Party to split the classes in such a manner? Wouldn't you think that it would be harder to control the non-monitered Proles coming to a total of 85% of the population?
7) Are the Proles considered brainwashed or is it merely members of the Party?
After the discussion we put the desks back and waited for the bell to ring.
Don't forget to blog tonight by 8:00 if you were on the outer circle and turn in your notes from the discussion to Mrs. Moritz tomorrow!!
Also remember to read pages 118 - 148 for Friday!
See you all at school tomorrow!
~Chelley~
Question from Tessa, Jordan and Chelsea:
What provokes Winston to start taking the risks of going into the pub and junk shop after years of not taking risks at all and just living in the regimental lifestyle of The Party?
posted by mmoritz at
4/11/2007 07:45:00 AM
16 Comments:
Most obviously, Winston wants to find out more about the past, and one of the few place to do that is in the prole pubs, because the pubs have old proles from the times before the revolution. I also think that Winston takes these risks because he has already done risky stuff like writing in the journal and such, and hasn't been punished. I think he feels like he is already under the scrutiny of the thought police, so he figures that he might as well take more risks to find out about life before the Party, and also to try to create a life after the Party. Most importantly, he has already basically written in his journal that he is a traitor to the Party, so he is kind of living that out through his risks.
By
kyle, at 3:23 PM
I definetly agree with goodriddance. He wants to take a risk and learn more. He's already taken a risk by being alone and by questioning the government, but he is also very curious about things that he has no one to talk to about. That's how a lot of people feel when they write a journal. They feel they can pour out all their feelings onto a piece of paper that people may or may not see. I think that is why Winston feels provoked to do so.
By
clewis, at 4:13 PM
KONBANWA!!! (Good evening in Japanese, since I'm going to post it a lot.) Anyway, my post:
Though, we haven't known what Winston has thought up until now, I believe he has just accepted what he's done. Now he's starting to doubt himself, history, and the Party. Wanting to learn what really happened in the past provoked him to go into the pub after that old man. He figured that man was alive before the Rebolution and might have some details.
Also the simple act of walking into the pub is Winston's way of defying the Party and proving to himself that the Party doesn't own every aspect of his life. THe acts of venturing to random places in the prole section are a desperate way of discerning that Winston has the power over Winston. Not the Party.
By
Rachel L, at 5:09 PM
Like rachel said, Winston travels into the pub to defy the Party, and to prove to himself that the Party DOES NOT control very part of his life. Also, he figures that he has already wrote in a journal and commited "thought crimes"(both could result in vaporization) and should try to find out as much possible about the his childhood and question about the past society of Oceania before to Though Police come for him.
Winston also enjoys rebelling agaist the Party. It seems to make him more content with his life. Without his rebellion, I think Winston would become bored with his life and totally lose his power of thinking for himself, much like many of his coworkers have. Going into the pub, although dangerous, gives Winston a reason to live his life.
By
haleycc, at 6:16 PM
I agree wth everyone that has posted before me. Winston is taking the risks to learn the true secrets of the Party. He started realizing his surronding and started to pay attention to the stuff he was making up at work. He wanted to figure out why certain things were legal but you could still be vaporized for. The curiosity of a different life before the Revolution is getting the best of him. He wants the comfort of the past and he is on a quest to find others that think like him.
By
kayla f, at 8:55 PM
This is Erik
I think that one of the major factors that provoked Winston to start taking risks was his comrades. The guy he saw at lunch that was totaly mind wiped and was speaking rubbish shows him what is really happening. He sees that guy and doesnt want to turn into him so he has to change.
I also think that before he wrote in the journal, he had a huge amount of pressure built up inside of him. He stated that other people sometimes let out there pressure with twitching and spasms. He had to let his all out. He explodes into writing in the journal, letting all of his true thoguhts spill out onto the pages. Others ways of cooling down for him were going to the pub and the junk shop to be rebellious against the Party.
The combination of these two things provoked Winston to start taking risks.
By
Lundgren, at 10:15 PM
From Erik's Dad: I agree with goodriddance and rachel that Winston enjoys learning the Truth about the past and takes pleasure in his successful acts of defiance of the Party. However, most of his self analysis seems to come after the acts. He doesn't consciously decide to visit the proles instead of going to the Center. "On impulse...he wandered off...hardly bothering in which direction he was going." He doesn't plan a trip back to the diary store, but rather continues wandering and suddenly finds himself there. I believe that Winston starts doing these things to rebel against the Party because of a deep subconscious part of his humanness that has not yet been taken over by the Party. This individualistic drive refuses to be buried by layer upon layer of indoctrination by the Party. As Erik says, it explodes through the outer shell of conscious thought controlled by the Party and starts allowing Winston to actively rebel. This core of his humanness represents the only Hope for humanity in Orwell's bleak depiction of a possible future society.
By
Lundgren, at 12:00 AM
It would appear that he has gotten bored with his life. He is getting old, has no past and an indefinate future, and he just is not one of the people who likes to be ruled over. He is basically creating his own new life by cutting the party completely out. By one spur of the moment action, he seems to have doomed himself to ultimate peril, so his futre is futile and the past doesn't exist. He is living for the moment.
By
Emma Grace, at 5:30 AM
After all the things he has written in his journal, Winston knows he has committed very serious crimes against the Party. He goes to Charrington's shop to make his act of defiance final, to physically go to a place where he shouldn't be. Now that he is not exclusively controlled by the party, he realizes more about his own curiosity, and this is what provokes him to go into the shop.
By
laura h., at 5:42 AM
I agree with Kyle. Winston's main motive for going to the junk shops and pubs is to find out the past. I wonder what made him curious about the past in the first place, like what happened in the prologue to 1984, because the book starts out telling about how Winston got the journal. He increasingly risks the wrath of the thought police because, as Winston himself puts it, once you have committed thoughtcrime, you are already dead. It's just a matter of time before they actually kill you. Because he's 'already dead,' Winston knows that further incurring the wrath of the Party will have no negative impact on him. In fact, it will have the positive impact of ending his misery earlier, and even if it doesn't, Winston will be in a better position because he'll know what he wanted to know.
-Joanne
By
mmoritz, at 6:16 AM
I don't think that there was one momentous event that provoked him to take the risks. I think that he has always been different from most of the other people in Oceania. I agree with Kyle that he had already begun to take the risks.
I also don't know that he had been living the conformist lifestyle of the rest of the community. In my mind, there has always been something in Winston that made him want to rebel. Again, I agree with Kyle that he just wants to discover more about the past. Winston just wants to know he truth, ironic, since he works in the ministry that is supposed to supply the facts. After so many years of lies from the Party, he needs to find out the truth, and he thinks that the only way to do that is to speak to those that were alive before the Revolution.
-Emily
By
mmoritz, at 6:16 AM
I definitely agree with goodriddance and haleycc that Winston goes into the pubs to find more about the past and to defy the party. However, I also think he went to the pubs and junk shops to learn more about the proles, and see their views on the government. I think he wanted to discover if the proles had an interest in rebelling, or if they were just like the party and brain washed. Earlier in the book Winston wrote, “If there is hope it lies in the proles.” Winston wanted to understand if the proles were willing to start a rebellion or were having the same thoughts as him. I also think that because Winston know that eventually he will be vaporized, he can be a little more risky.
However, he is still terrified of the Thought Police and the thought of being caught. He almost killed himself because he thought that the Thought Police were coming for him and he should save himself from the suffering. He also, almost smashed the girl with dark hair’s head in because he thought that she might be following him or betraying him to the Thought Police.
-Devon
By
mmoritz, at 6:19 AM
What finally makes Winston take the risks of going down to the Prole neighborhood again and going to the pub and buying the two different artifacts is the fact that he has finally become fed up to no end with how his life is going. As soon as he wrote in the diary he realized there was no going back and that no matter what the Thought Police would get to him, so he might as well just get as far ahead as he can in learning about life before the Revolution while he can. I agree with everyone who said that he just wants to find out about the past and see how many risks he can take. I also agree with Mrs. Moritz about Winston wanting to find out more about the Proles and their lives, to see how they actually are and if they remember anything prior to the Revolution.
By
.hardcore.love., at 7:06 AM
He does this because he is interested in the past. He tried to find out about the past from an old man in the pub, and h eprobably would not have gone in there if he had not seen the old man. He went into the antique shop because that obviously has alot to do with the past. It might also make him feel better that he has succesfully defied the party.
By
hmadsen, at 7:37 AM
I think Winston probably just hits a point where he breaks. Like, if you are under an immense amount of stress, you get to a point where you have a mental breakdown. Winston is so closely controlled and regimented that he develops a life where he knows nothing else. So I think that his breaking point is when he reaches a certain fatigue with his same old everyday life and wants to explore some new boundaries. Simple things like looking at the picture of Aaronson and Rutherford and that other guy gave him a rush of adrenaline that he had probably never had before. Not necessarily a bad thing, but something out of the normal. It invoked a need to brake the rules in winston. He wanted to see how far he could push the boundaries in his pointless life. Gradually he pushed to the point of no return, and decided that it would be in his best interest to push as far as to the death he had already laid before him. I'm sorry if that got really boring or hard to understand. :P
By
Emma Grace, at 9:31 PM
I agree with what goodriddance said, but I also think that Winston is starting feel insecure with the party. I think that he feels insecure with the fact that things around him are constantly changing, but they change in one big circle. To me it seems that the past events that Winston describes are almost the same to the ones going on during the present. Once he realizes this he starts to become out of his comfort zone so he tries new things to fit back in that zone.
By
kaytlinr, at 8:48 PM
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