1984

Name: ____________________________________________________________ Date: _____________

One: VII, VIII

1. Where does Winston think hope lies? Why?

2. What is the Party belief about the proles?

3. Describe the one time that Winston held real evidence of an act of falsification.

4. What bothers Winston the most, along with the sense of nightmare?

5. What bothers Winston more than the thought that he might be a lunatic?

6. What is the heresy of heresies? Why is that terrifying to Winston?

7. For whom does Winston realize he is writing his diary? Why?

8. What is the final, most essential command of the Party?

9. What does Winston write in his diary?

10. Describe what happens when Winston goes to the antique shop, and who he sees when he

       comes out.

One: VII, VIII

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. Before the Revolution they had been hideously oppressed by the capitalists, they had been

     starved and flogged . . . .

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2. A few agents of the Thought Police moved always among them, . . . . but no attempt was made to

    indoctrinate them with the ideology of the Party. It was not desirable that the proles should have

    strong political feelings.

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3. They had confessed to intelligence with the enemy, . . . . intrigues against the leadership of Big

    Brother which had started long before the Revolution happened and acts of sabotage causing the

    death of hundreds of thousands of people.

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4. After confessing to these things they had been pardoned, reinstated in the Party, and given posts which were in fact sinecures but which sounded important.

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5. With the feeling that he was speaking to O’Brien, and also that he was setting forth an important

    axiom, he wrote: Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else

   follows.

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6. The words kept coming back to him, statement of a mystical truth and a palpable absurdity.

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7. Suddenly the whole street was in commotion. There were yells of warning from all sides.

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8. A twinge of fear went through him. It had been a sufficiently rash act to buy the book in the

    beginning, and he had sworn never to come near the place again.

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9. At the heart of it, magnified by the curved surface, there was a strange, pink, convoluted object

    that recalled a rose or a sea anemone.

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10. When once you had succumbed to thoughtcrime it was certain tat by a give date you would be

       dead.

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Part II: Determining the Meaning

Match the vocabulary words to their dictionary definitions.

___ 1. capitalists                      A. very easy jobs that pay well

___ 2. indoctrinate                  B. nonsense

___ 3. sabotage                       C. hasty and careless

___ 4. sinecures                      D. teach a belief or principal

___ 5. axiom                            E. a statement taken to be true without proof

___ 6. absurdity                      F. having folds or winding curves

___ 7. commotion                   G. damage or destruction done as an attack

___ 8. rash                               H. gave way; yielded

___ 9. convoluted                   I. excited noise and activity

___ 10. succumbed                 J. people who use money to carry on business