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Rereading Nineteen Eighty Four – Part III Chap. 1 (1)

Chapter 1 begins after Winston is arrested.  

Part 2 Chapter 9 ends in the middle of a sentence.  A sentence Winston was reading in Goldstein’s book. The abruptness of ending mid word was shocking.

As Chapter One begins we find Winston sitting on a bench in a cell, watched over by a telescreen, and very hungry.  Every movement he makes is seen and a voice will shout from the screen, and he will obey.

He as other political prisons sat silently, unmoving.  Non political prisons moved about, shouted, ate food they had smuggled in.  Some knew the guards and wheedled cigarettes from them.  The proles ignored the telescreens.

Prisoners were constantly coming and going, many were drunk, many fought back.  But these were common criminals, not Party ones.

The saying; ‘only the proles are free’  is exemplified.  For them, being in jail for drunkenness or a crime is not the psychological terror it is for Party members.

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Written by jaylar

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