Notes on 1984 Ch. 7&8

Chapter 7

• "Until they become conscious they will never rebel, and until after they have rebelled they cannot become conscious"(70).
• Winston believed that in the past children had been sold to factories at the age of six.
• Their lives were pretty much planned
• Sexual Puritanism was allowed for the Party to do whenever they pleased. They would not be punished for doing so, but the people of Oceania would.
• Party's slogan: Proles and animals are free.
• Primae noctis was a law which allowed every capitalist had the right to sleep with any woman working in one of his factories.
• Winston made a discovery that Oceania was no longer at war with Eurasia
• The confessions had been rewritten and rewritten a hundred times until the original facts and dates no longer had the smallest significance.
• The past not only changed, but changed continuously.
• The immediate advantage of falsifying the past were obvious, but the ultimate motive was mysterious.
• The Party was so in control that they would, in the end, announce that two and two make five.
• The people were forced to believe this.
• The worst part about this was not that they would kill you for thinking otherwise, but that they might actually be right also. No one really knows the truth.
• "Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else follows"(81).

Chapter 8

• Ownlife: individualism and eccentricity.
• Streamer was a nickname for which the Proles applied to rocket bombs.
• A farthing, that was a small copper coin, looked something like a cent.
• "Oranges and lemons, say the bells of St. Clements, you owe the three farthing"(100).
• Routine of confession that had to be gone through: the groveling of the floor and screaming for mercy, the crack of broken bones, the smashed teeth, and bloody clots of hair.
• " We shall meet in a place where there is no darkness"(103).
• This is an imagined future no one can see.
• Winston goes back to the shop where he bought his diary.
• buys a piece of glass
• The store owner brings Winston to another room.
• Winston wants to rent the room that the store owner once used.
• Winston spots the woman that's been following him.
• Winston believes she was following him again.
• He thinks about if is going after her, but instead goes home to write
  in his diary.