Quotes --> Themes Flashcards
“Though not quickly enough to prevent a swirl of gritty dust from entering along with him”
Technique(s): Symbolism, Foreshadowing
Theme(s): Propaganda, constant surveillance, impermeable nature of the party and its control over individuals.
“Simply because of a feeling that the beautiful creamy paper deserved to be written on”
Technique(s): Descriptive Imagery –> Imagery –> Symbolism
Theme(s): Individual freedoms, freedom of expression and action.
“their embrace had been a battle, the climax a victory”
Technique(s): Metaphor, Irony
Theme(s): Suppression of sexual instincts and freedoms
“To make speech… as nearly as possible independent of consciousness”
Technique(s): Written in standard English. Disrupts narrative. Tone is factual and monotone.
Theme(s): Deconstruction of language.
“The past is whatever the records and memories agree upon… the past is whatever the party chooses to make it”
Technique(s): Anaphora
Theme(s): Fragile and unreliable nature of memory
[Gabriel Garcia Marquez] “what matters is not what happens to you but what you remember and how you remember it”
Technique(s): (Critic Quote)
Theme(s): Fragile and unreliable nature of memory
“mute protest in your own bones, the instinctive feeling that the conditions you lived in were intolerable”
Technique(s): Symbolism, Oxymoron
Theme(s): Hope, innate human nature to overcome oppression.
“Bottling down some powerful instinct and using it as a driving force”
Technique(s): Metaphor
Theme(s): Freedom of expression
“The mind should develop a blind spot whenever a dangerous thought presented itself”
Technique(s): Paradox
Theme(s): Doublethink
“Rebellion meant a look in the eyes, an inflection of the voice; at the most, an occasional whispered word”
Technique(s): Symbolic of the extreme limitations of rebellion.
Theme(s): Rebellion
“Until they become conscious they will never rebel, and until after they have rebelled they cannot become conscious”
Technique(s): Paradox by chiasmus emphasises its impossibility
Theme(s): Rebellion, consciousness as an integral aspect of change.
“the party taught that the proles were natural inferiors who must be kept in subjection, like animals”
Technique(s): Simile of Zoomorphism
Theme(s): Motif of proles as animals.
“Proles and animals are free”
Technique(s): Zoomorphism
Theme(s): Motif of proles and animals as the spirit of humanity
“Like birds, passion on from body to body the vitality which the party did not share and could not kill”
Technique(s): Zoomorphism, simile
Theme(s): Motif of proles and animals. Animals symbolic of spirit.
“The birds sag, the proles sang, the party did not sing.”
Technique(s): Zoomorphism, Objective correlative of “song”
Theme(s): Singing as freedom of speech
“passed on the secret doctrine that two plus two make four”
Technique(s): Metaphor, Objective Correlative
Theme(s): Logic as the basis of human intuition and sanity and language and expression
“‘It exists!’ He cried. ‘No’, said O’brien”
Technique(s): Dialogue
Theme(s): Interpreting reality
“Winston stopped reading. Chiefly in order to appreciate the fact that he was reading,”
Technique(s): Epistrophe
Theme(s): Deconstruction of language, Hope
“We shall squeeze you empty, and then we shall fill you with ourselves”
Technique(s): Metaphor
Theme(s): Power, lack of individuality
“There will be no curiosity, no enjoyment of the process of life. All competing pleasures will be destroyed”
Technique(s): Anaphora, hyperbole
Theme(s): Dehumanising nature of the party
“then what is it, this principle that will defeat us?”
Technique(s): Symbolism
Theme(s): Innate human ability to resist oppression.
“Everyone is cured sooner or later”
Technique(s): Irony of ‘cure’
Theme(s): Dehumanisation
“If thought corrupts language, language can also corrupt thought” [politics and the English language]
Technique(s): Chiasmus
Theme(s): Cognitive thought and its relationship with language
“We’re destroying words- scores of them, hundreds of them every day. We’re cutting the language down to the bone.”
Technique(s): Irony, metaphor.
Theme(s): Deconstruction of language
“In the end we shall make thought crime literally impossible, because there will be no words in which to express it”
Technique(s): Irony
Theme(s): Deconstruction of language
“The power of holding two contradicting beliefs in one’s mind simultaneously, and accepting both of them”
Technique(s): Paradox
Theme(s): Doublethink
“If both the past and the external world exist only in the mind, and if the mind itself is controllable- what then?”
Technique(s): Rhetorical Question
Theme(s): Objective truths
“It is not easy to become sane”
Technique(s): Irony
Theme(s): Ambiguity of reality
“Childhood except a series of brightly lit tableaux occurring against no background and mostly unintelligible”
Technique(s): Metaphor
Theme(s): Deconstruction of familial unit
“Dust in the creases of her face”
Technique(s): Symbolism
Theme(s): Freedom of expression, dehumanisation
“He had won the victory over himself, he loved big brother”
Technique(s): Bathos
Theme(s): Love, family, struggle
