English A2 Individual Oral Passage 1984

Transcription

1 English A2 Individual Oral Passage 1984 'Do you believe in God, Winston?' 'No.' 'Then what is it, this principle that will defeat us?' 'I don't know. The spirit of Man.' And do you consider yourself a man?' 'Yes.' 'If you are a man, Winston, you are the last man. Your kind is extinct; we are the inheritors. Do you understand that you are alone? You are outside history, you are non-existent.' His manner changed and he said more harshly: 'And you consider yourself morally superior to us, with our lies and our cruelty?' 'Yes, I consider myself superior.' O'Brien did not speak. Two other voices were speaking. After a moment Winston recognized one of them as his own. It was a sound-track of the conversation he had had with O'Brien, on the night when he had enrolled himself in the Brotherhood. He heard himself promising to lie, to steal, to forge, to murder, to encourage drug-taking and prostitution, to disseminate venereal diseases, to throw vitriol in a child's face. O'Brien made a small impatient gesture, as though to say that the demonstration was hardly worth making. Then he turned a switch and the voices stopped. time. Beneath the overalls his body was looped with filthy yellowish rags, just recognizable as the remnants of underclothes. As he slid them to the ground he saw that there was a three-sided mirror at the far end of the room. He approached it, then stopped short. An involuntary cry had broken out of him. 'Go on,' said O'Brien. 'Stand between the wings of the mirror. You shall see the side view as well.' He had stopped because he was frightened. A bowed, greycoloured, skeleton-like thing was coming towards him. Its actual appearance was frightening, and not merely the fact that he knew it to be himself. Prepare a structured commentary on this passage, placing it in context. Please Include the following : Comment on Orwell s portrayal of O Brien and Winston Comment on Orwell s use of narrative point of view 'Get up from that bed,' he said. The bonds had loosened themselves. Winston lowered himself to the floor and stood up unsteadily. 'You are the last man,' said O'Brien. 'You are the guardian of the human spirit. You shall see yourself as you are. Take off your clothes.' Winston undid the bit of string that held his overalls together. The zip fastener had long since been wrenched out of them. He could not remember whether at any time since his arrest he had taken off all his clothes at one

2 oral presentation sheet intro. concl body

3 oral presentation sheet intro. body This passage is from 1984 by George Orwell. It is taken from part III of the novel. If the three parts had names, part I would be Winston, part II would be Winston and Julia, and part III would be O Brien. In this passage, Winston and O Brien are the only characters. O Brien has interrogated Winston for months now, and W. is nearly ready for room 101 which he does not know, of course. The interrogation is not standard for Winston; something unexpected happens here when he is freed from his bonds and conversation for the moment holds no threat of physical torture. I will discuss the uniqueness and routine nature of the procedure; then I will move on to a discussion of how W. is both alone and connected, moving on to Orwell s use of narrative point of view in connection with these two. for my first point, it is also nonstandard because As I said, Winston s experience here is non-standard. He is tied to the bed in the beginning, but does not receive electric shocks as usual. Instead, O Brien plays the tape recording of W & J when they came to O Brien to sign up for the Brotherhood, not aware, of course, of O Brien s role as an agent of the thought police. --> he is even allowed to get up from the bed, walk around, see his reflection in the mirror something he has not seen for a long time, judging from his reaction --> He has become so unfamiliar with his reflection which has altered so drastically- that his body is referred to as thing, and referred to by the impersonal its appearance rather than the personal his line12 ït was the sound track.. a child s face line 31 a bowed...himself However for O Brien it is a routine experience. --> unless he has brought these to work that morning for the special purpose of interrogating W., this is routine, standard practice. When we read about W. s appearance we remember an earlier description of a skeleton-like man, in the room where W was first held, the man everybody knew was dying, --> We must assume, then, that EVERY prisoner goes through the same procedure; interrogation until the point of death, confrontation with former self who promised a string of embarrassing acts ---> and confrontation with a frightening remainder of his former self in the mirror, an indescribably filthy walking skeleton. Winston is confronted with the corruption of his body and soul, and he is shocked: --> there is a tape recorder in the room and the tape of W & J s betrayal of the party, and there is a mirror. Having done this often before, he makes an impatient gesture. one prisoner tried to hand the man a chunk of bread until the voice from the telescreen ordered him to stop. to lie, to steal, to forge, to murder, to encourage drug-taking and prostitution, to disseminate venereal diseases, to throw vitriol in a child s face, an involuntary cry had broken out of him.(line 28)

4 body (transition to next point) So This brings me to my next point. So However Moreover Although as a last remark on this point, whereas O Brien must have witnessed the same shock and horror in the prisoners he has interrogated, for Winston this ordeal is a unique experience. Winston is utterly alone. --> He is made even more alone by Orwell s description of the tape --> Presumably, the tape also has Julia s voice on it, but only W s and O B s are heard. Julia s voice in that interrogation room might have reminded W of a time when he felt strong and supported by J; not alone as he is now. O.Brien even says it explicitly: --> Winston is not only alone because he is divorced from his former self and because he has lost Julia, but also because O Brien reminds him that there is no one who thinks like him. Paradoxically, the routine use of tapes and mirror suggest that W is one of a steady stream of like-minded men. He is invisibly linked to other dissidents. --> he is also connected to O Brien O Brien commands and Winston obeys --> we are also reminded of what W had thought earlier: Perhaps one did not want to be loved as much as understood. O Brien understands him, knows what he is thinking. Later, he will remind W of this thought and even admit to liking their conversations. Where Julia was uninterested in W s ideas, O B is interested in W s mind, even if this interest stems from a desire to invade it and break it. What we see here is a typical interrogator interrogated situation, where a curious bond grows between the two. O Brien s harshness becomes that of a stern father, admonishing his wayward son only to help him improve his ways. I would like to mention the irony of O Brien s claim that W is extinct. W had said as much himself, when he speculated that the proles would inherit. He accepted his extinction then as a logical consequence. --> He does not recognise his own body or his own clothes. two other voices were speaking line 7; Your kind is extinct; we are the inheritors. Do you understand you are alone? e.g. the man with the skull face mentioned earlier Get up from that bed Take off your clothes Stand between the wings of the mirror we are the dead

5 body Finally, I would like to move on to narrative point of view. For O Brien, Orwell has chosen dialogue and gestures. These two are external clues to O Brien s thoughts and feelings. The reader knows what Winston knows and no more. Even when there is an indication of inner feelings --> interpretation of the gesture is all we get --> O Brien made an impatient gesture as though to say that the point was hardly worth making. Firstly Secondly This has various effects; it makes O Brien more powerful. When a person s thoughts and feelings are difficult to gauge, it is difficult to understand him and know what to fear. It shifts the reader s sympathy to Winston. Especially in the latter half of the extract, W s thoughts and feelings become known through description by the omniscient author --> He could not remember.. he was frightened This brings me to my conclusion As we see in this extract, Winston has come to the logical conclusion of a process he started when he bought the diary. After this scene where Winston s vulnerability is shown, he is deemed ready for 101 and its apotheosis. Part of the novel s appeal consists in Winston being like us thinking like us, feeling like us, rejecting 1984 society as we would reject it. In order to achieve this identification with Winston, Orwell has allowed the reader access to Winston s mind and heart through the limited omniscient point of view. By contrast, we only know what other characters are like through what they say and do. In this extract, the only other character is O Brien. O Brien is all powerful, able to suspend electric shocks, to loosen Winston s bonds, to allow him the comfort of good food and fresh clothes to recuperate, but also with the power of choosing the moment for the verdict: room 101. O Brien calls Winston the last man. Incidentally, Orwell s initial title for 1984 was The Last Man in Europe. Winston is supposed to be the last survivor of a race that thinks like us, feels like us, remains defiant as we would hope to be faced with the fascism of any totalitarian regime. In his separation from others, from Julia, from society, he is connected with the reader who identifies with him and him alone. concl.