Week 2

Down in the street the wind flapped the torn posted to and fro, ad the word INGSOC fitfully appeared and vanished. Ingsoc. The sacred principles of Ingsoc. Newspeak, doublethink, the mutability of the past. He felt as though he were wandering in the forests of the sea bottom, lost in a monstrous world where he himself was the monster. He was alone. The past was dead, the future was unimaginable. What certainty had he that a single human creature now living was on his side? And what way of knowing that the dominion of the Party would not endure forever? Like an answer, the three slogans on the white face of the Ministry of Truth came back to him: 

WAR IS PEACE

FREEDOM IS SLAVERY

IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH.

(pg 26)

The dismal tone of this passage parallels the tone of the entire book thus far. The world that Winston is living in, is a terrifying place, and he has no desire to live. In this passage, Winston's feeling about his lfie really come out through the use of metaphors and rhetorical questions. For example, Winston's feels "as though he were wandering in the forests of the sea bottom." This strong metaphor is followed by the symbol of a monster. The monster represents Winston, and how he is destroying his own life. If Winston were to be like the others, and believe in the Party and Big Brother, he would not dread waking up every day. But because he has his own beliefs and knows the life he is living is not right, he is struggling to make it through life. The rhetorical questions asked, are answered, but in such a vague way. These questions show the reader that they are not the only ones that are confused, but in fact, Winston doesn't really understand how this story of his life, is going to end. The syntactical arrangement of this passage, makes the message that this futuristic life is not worth living, even more clear. For example, Orwell writes a long sentence with the metaphor of a sea monster, and then writes "He was alone." Although this sentence is only 3 words long, those three words add so much to the meaning of this novel. 

Week 1

Down in the street little eddies of wind were whirling dust and torn paper into spirals, and though the sun was shining and the sky a harsh blue, there seemed to be no color in anything except the posters that were plastered everywhere. The black-mustachio'd face gazed down from every commanding corner. There was one on the house front immediately opposite. Big Brother Is Watching You, the caption said, while the dark eyes looked deep into Winston's own. (pg. 2)

1984 is a classic novel, and within the first 2 pages that I read, I found multiple important passages. However this passage stood out most to me. The first rhetorical device I saw was alliteration: "Wind were whirling", "Commanding corner", and "Big Brother." I feel that commanding corner and wind whirling needed to be emphasized to explain the setting of the story, and by repeating the consonant sounds the author is successful. I also noticed a lot of imagery. For example "the sun shining and the sky a harsh blue." This gives the reader an image of the setting outside Winston's apartment. By describing the sky as "harsh," it implies that the weather is bad, which implies that the outside world is not a good place. The next image that one pictures is the billboard on the house that says "Big Brother is Watching You." At this point in the story, the reader doesn't know why these people live such harsh lives or who big brother is, but by describing his image before his person, the reader thinks that this big brother figure is actually the reason why life is so terrible.