Sem 2 Exam Flashcards
Diary entry
“If there is hope, wrote Winston, it lies in the proles.”
O’Brien - Power
“Power is inflicting pain and humiliation. Power is in tearing human minds to pieces and putting them together again in new shapes of your own choosing.” – O’Brien
O’Brien - Torture
Two and two are four. Sometimes, Winston. Sometimes they are five. Sometimes they are three. Sometimes they are all of them at once. You must try harder. It is not easy to become sane.
Syme - Words
“It’s a beautiful thing, the destruction of words.”
Syme - Job
“We’re destroying words – scores of them, hundreds of them, every day. We’re cutting the language down to the bone. ”
Syme - Description
“In an intellectual way, Syme was venomously Orthodox.”
Party Slogan about the past
“Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past.”
Winston on the past
If the Party could thrust its hand into the past and say of this or that event, it never happened – that, surely, was more terrifying than mere torture and death?
Consciousness
“Until they become conscious they will never rebel, and until after they have rebelled they cannot become conscious.”
Setting - Caretaker
Cluttered west London attic a symbol of Aston’s mind, also an important aspect of the isolated nature of the characters within the play.
Bucket, dripping roof, crumbling society
“He (Davies) suddenly becomes aware of the bucket and looks up.” – Act 1 - Monotony of modern existence
Conformity – electroshock therapy done wrong
“Suddenly this chief had these pincers on my skull and I knew he wasn’t supposed to do it while I was standing up, that’s why I… anyway, he did it.” End of act 2 Aston’s monologue
Isolation - Aston is isolated in his room physically and mentally because of his mental disability.
“One day they took me to a hospital, right outside London.” – Act 2 monologue
Family betrayed Aston
“I knew he couldn’t do anything without getting permission.”
Aston attacked by Davies (verbally) Mick stays loyal to family and betrays Davies
“Hurls the Buddha against the gas stove” breaking the symbol of peace
