1984

Name: ____________________________________________________________ Date: _____________

1984 Part One: I, II, III

1. Who is the main character? Describe the main character.

2. What is the setting of the novel? Give the country and the city.

3. What are the three slogans of the Party? Write them the way they are shown in the novel.

4. What does the caption on the posters say?

5. Name each of the Ministries and explain its function. Also include the Newspeak name for each

    ministry.

6. What date does the main character record?

7. Describe the two people the main character sees just before the Two Minutes Hate.  Tell what he

    thinks of each of these people.

8. Explain the importance of Emmanuel Goldstein. Also describe the way his image looks.

9. Explain the importance of Big Brother. Also describe the way his image looks.

10. What crime does the main character commit? How does he do this? What is the punishment?

11. What is the telescreen and how is it used?

12. Describe thoughtcrime and give an example.

PREREADING VOCABULARY WORKSHEETS 1984

One: I, II, III

Part I: Using Prior Knowledge and Contextual Clues

Below are the sentences in which the vocabulary words appear in the text. Read the sentence. Use
any clues you can find in the sentence combined with your prior knowledge, and write what you
think the italicized words mean in the space provided.

1. It was one of those pictures, which are so contrived that the eyes follow you about when you

2. You had to live– did live, from habit that became instinct– in the assumption that every sound you

     made was overheard, and, except in darkness, every movement scrutinized.

3. The Ministry of Truth contained, it was said, three thousand rooms above ground level, and

     corresponding ramifications below.

4. It was always the women, and above all the young ones, who were the most bigoted adherents of

    the Party, the swallowers of slogans, the amateur spies and nosers-out of unorthodoxy.

5. It was always the women, and above all the young ones, who were the most bigoted adherents of

    the Party, the swallowers of slogans, the amateur spies and nosers-out of unorthodoxy.

6. There were also stories of a terrible book, a compendium of all the heresies, of which Goldstein

     was the author and which circulated clandestinely here and there.

7. It struck Goldstein’s nose and bounced off; the voice continued inexorably.

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8. Always the eyes watching you and the voice enveloping you.

9. Some nosing zealot in the ministry . . . . might start wondering why he had been writing during

    the lunch interval, . . .. and then drop a hint in the appropriate quarter.

10. The two of them must evidently have been swallowed up in one of the first great purges of the

       Fifties.

Part II: Determining the Meaning: Match the vocabulary words to their dictionary definitions.

___ 1. contrived                      A. branches; subdivisions

___ 2. scrutinized                    B. not holding generally accepted beliefs

___ 3. ramifications                C. surrounding

___ 4. bigoted                          D. planned; designed

___ 5. unorthodoxy                E. relentless; unyielding

___ 6. clandestinely                F. removal of undesired people from a nation or party

___ 7. inexorably                    G. examined carefully

___ 8. enveloping                    H. done in a secret or underhanded manner

___ 9. zealot                            I. unreasonably attached to an opinion or belief

___ 10. purges                        J. a person who shows too much enthusiasm; a fanatic

NOTE: The following are terms used in England. The comparable terms as used in the United States

are given. These words are not tested.

• lift = elevator

• flat = apartment

• tube = subway

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