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Rereading Nineteen Eighty Four – Part III Chap. 6 (20)

Winston sits in the Chestnut Tree Cafe looking at the telescreen, anxiously waiting.  He expected a bulletin of news but it was merely a change of music.

He had the map of Africa behind his eyelids. The movement of the armies was a diagram: a black arrow tearing vertically southward, and a white arrow horizontally eastward, across the tail of the first.

 As though for reassurance  he looked at the  portrait of Big Brother.

The thought stumbles thought his mind; Was it conceivable that the second arrow did not even exist?His interest flagged again. He drank another mouthful of gin, picked up the white knight and made a tentative move. Check. But it was evidently not the right move, because —

———-

The inability of Winston to think rationally, to be able to complete a memory without being jarred to the moment is lost.  The torture has created silent internal blockers so that Winston is incapable of thinking about anything for more than a minute or two.

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Written by jaylar

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