Previous
Flashbacks
Definition of Foreshadowing
Foreshadowing is a literary device in which authors hint at plot developments that don't actually occur until later in the story. Foreshadowing can be achieved directly or indirectly, by making... read full definition
Foreshadowing is a literary device in which authors hint at plot developments that don't actually occur until later in the story. Foreshadowing can be achieved... read full definition
Foreshadowing is a literary device in which authors hint at plot developments that don't actually occur until later in the... read full definition
Book 1, Chapter 2
Explanation and Analysis—O'Brien:
As Winston recalls the Two Minutes Hate in the novel's first chapter, he reflects on the unexpected presence of a member of the Inner Party named O'Brien. These reflections foreshadow O'Brien's later malevolence, hinting to the reader that he will serve as the novel's antagonist.
The first time O'Brien is mentioned, he is characterized as a "large, burly man with a thick neck and a coarse, humorous, brutal face." Already, the reader finds O'Brien menacing. Winston is nevertheless drawn to him because of his "charm of manner" and because he thinks O'Brien's face suggests political unorthodoxy. Winston's blind trust of O'Brien is cemented when, at the end of the Two Minutes Hate, the two men exchange a knowing glance that feels like an "unmistakable message." In this moment, Orwell foreshadows that O'Brien will play an important role in Winston's burgeoning resistance against the Party.
The following chapter builds on this foreshadowing, as the reader learns that "the flash of intelligence" is informed by a dream Winston had seven years ago. In this dream, someone in a pitch-dark room tells him that they will meet in “the place where there is no darkness.” Winston later identifies this voice as O'Brien's:
Winston had never been able to feel sure—even after this morning’s flash of the eyes it was still impossible to be sure—whether O’Brien was a friend or an enemy. Nor did it even seem to matter greatly. There was a link of understanding between them, more important than affection or partisanship. “We shall meet in the place where there is no darkness,” he had said. Winston did not know what it meant, only that in some way or another it would come true.
This passage makes the reader sure that O'Brien will be somehow involved in Winston's plot against the Party. However, the reader doesn't feel as sure as Winston that O'Brien is on his side. In the atmosphere of distrust that Orwell has cultivated through the exposition, it feels dubious to assume, based on a mere glance, that a slight acquaintance shares one's opposition to the status quo. The claim that it doesn't "matter greatly" whether O'Brien is a friend or enemy feels like a forewarning that it will come to matter a great deal. Winston's certainty that the prediction will come true one day invites the reader to keep an eye out for rooms without darkness.
In the sixth chapter of the second book, O'Brien gives Winston his address. This excites Winston but also fills him with dread: "it was like a foretaste of death, like being a little less alive." As he speaks with O'Brien, "a chilly shuddering feeling" takes possession of his body, and he experiences the "sensation of stepping into the dampness of a grave." These presentiments contribute to the reader's distrust of O'Brien, foreshadowing his central role in Winston's torture.
In the end, Winston realizes that the "room without darkness" is his prison cell in the Ministry of Love. As he sits there, hungry and exhausted, it hits him that the building has no windows and that the lights in the room will never be turned out. Because of his hope for escape, Winston wanted to believe that the room without darkness would be a good place. Similarly, because of his immense loneliness, he wanted to believe that O'Brien was on his side.
Related Themes:
Book 1, Chapter 7
Explanation and Analysis—2+2=4:
In the first book, it occurs to Winston that the Party has the power to change the most fundamental aspects of reality—like the mathematical fact that 2+2=4. This equation becomes a motif in the novel, as Winston writes the following in his diary: "Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else follows." This foreshadows his punishment later in the novel, when O'Brien tortures him until he allows for two and two to make five.
The equation represents Winston's desire for a world structured by unalterable truths and verifiable facts. He yearns for certain aspects of reality to be sacred, beyond the Party's reach. For him, freedom springs from the ability to see reality for what it is. As long as he knows what is true and has the ability to state it, "all else follows." In the world of 1984, people do not have this freedom. Orwell foreshadows that the Party will quash Winston's hold on this simple truth, when the thought first appears as a coincidental example in the seventh chapter of the first book:
In the end the Party would announce that two and two made five, and you would have to believe it. [...] And what was terrifying was not that they would kill you for thinking otherwise, but that they might be right. For, after all, how do we know that two and two make four? Or that the force of gravity works? Or that the past is unchangeable? If both the past and the external world exist only in the mind, and if the mind itself is controllable—what then?
In this passage, Winston begins to question fundamental empirical truths. Although it is merely a thought exercise, Orwell uses the chain of rhetorical questions to underline that one of the most frightening aspects of unbridled power is that it can go so far as controlling people's experience of reality.
At the very end of the second book, Winston invokes the equation again, as he reflects on the revolutionary power of the proles:
Out of those mighty loins a race of conscious beings must one day come. You were the dead; theirs was the future. But you could share in that future if you kept alive the mind as they kept alive the body, and passed on the secret doctrine that two plus two make four.
Although these reflections are followed by Winston's imprisonment and torture, they offer the novel a gentle tone of hope. Over the course of the first two books, the reader has witnessed Winston's political awakening and growing courage. His reflections on the proles represent the culmination of his awareness. He already knows that he will not live to see a better system. Nonetheless, he has faith in the proles, and their creation of a future in which people have the right to see reality for what it is. O'Brien may succeed in making him believe that two and two make five, but Winston nevertheless trusts that one day, 2+2=4 will again be an unalterable fact.
Related Themes:
Book 1, Chapter 8
Explanation and Analysis—Oranges and Lemons:
As Winston and Mr. Charrington examine a steel engraving of St. Clement's Dane together, the latter shares a line from a rhyme he knew as a little boy ("Oranges and lemons, say the bells of St. Clement’s"), which comes from an English nursery rhyme that lists out old London churches. This allusion becomes a motif in the work, as both the traditional nursery rhyme and London churches come to serve as traces of a past before the Revolution. When it appears that Mr. Charrington only remembers a few of the lines, Winston becomes determined to learn the rest. Seeking to build a bridge between the present and past, Winston sets out on a sort of scavenger hunt for the whole rhyme.
In the eighth chapter of the first book, when the nursery rhyme first comes up, Mr. Charrington only remembers the first and last lines:
How it goes on I don’t remember, but I do know it ended up, Here comes a candle to light you to bed, Here comes a chopper to chop off your head. It was a kind of a dance. They held out their arms for you to pass under, and when they came to Here comes a chopper to chop off your head they brought their arms down and caught you.
Winston is oblivious to the menacing undertone of the rhyme's final line, as he is too preoccupied with the rhyme as a trace of the past. Making him aware of the original function of buildings that have been repurposed by the Party, the conversation opens Winston's eyes to the historical heritage of the cityscape. Still, the violence of the words and dance foreshadow Mr. Charrington's duplicity. When Winston and Julia are imprisoned, he chants this line to proclaim their defeat.
Later, when he brings Julia to the room above Mr. Charrington's shop, Winston is amazed to realize that she knows a line from the rhyme: "When will you pay me? say the bells of Old Bailey—." She explains that her grandfather used to say it to her when she was a little girl, before he was vaporized. As Winston gradually pieces together the rhyme, Orwell shows that knowledge of the past requires a collective, intergenerational effort. A functional archive rests both on respect for the past and on an appreciation for shared memories. Winston longs to live in a world where sharing memories is possible.
Ironically, it is O'Brien who completes the rhyme for Winston, when Winston still believes that he is trustworthy: "When I grow rich, say the bells of Shoreditch." Given the violence of the final line, it seems appropriate that O'Brien should be the arbiter of the nursery rhyme and hold the key to its completion. His possession of the full rhyme both symbolizes his power over Winston and foreshadows his future violence.
For a reader in the 21st century, it is worth noting that the bells of St. Clements Danes still chime. Winston sees the rhyme and the church as a key to a long-lost world, which he longs to return to. Although some of Orwell's dystopian setting may seem reminiscent of the world we live in today, our world is nevertheless more like the world that Winston longs for than that of Big Brother. In this way, the nursery rhyme serves as a reminder of the vast heritage worth valuing and protecting in our world today.
Related Themes:
Book 2, Chapter 10
Explanation and Analysis—2+2=4:
In the first book, it occurs to Winston that the Party has the power to change the most fundamental aspects of reality—like the mathematical fact that 2+2=4. This equation becomes a motif in the novel, as Winston writes the following in his diary: "Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else follows." This foreshadows his punishment later in the novel, when O'Brien tortures him until he allows for two and two to make five.
The equation represents Winston's desire for a world structured by unalterable truths and verifiable facts. He yearns for certain aspects of reality to be sacred, beyond the Party's reach. For him, freedom springs from the ability to see reality for what it is. As long as he knows what is true and has the ability to state it, "all else follows." In the world of 1984, people do not have this freedom. Orwell foreshadows that the Party will quash Winston's hold on this simple truth, when the thought first appears as a coincidental example in the seventh chapter of the first book:
In the end the Party would announce that two and two made five, and you would have to believe it. [...] And what was terrifying was not that they would kill you for thinking otherwise, but that they might be right. For, after all, how do we know that two and two make four? Or that the force of gravity works? Or that the past is unchangeable? If both the past and the external world exist only in the mind, and if the mind itself is controllable—what then?
In this passage, Winston begins to question fundamental empirical truths. Although it is merely a thought exercise, Orwell uses the chain of rhetorical questions to underline that one of the most frightening aspects of unbridled power is that it can go so far as controlling people's experience of reality.
At the very end of the second book, Winston invokes the equation again, as he reflects on the revolutionary power of the proles:
Out of those mighty loins a race of conscious beings must one day come. You were the dead; theirs was the future. But you could share in that future if you kept alive the mind as they kept alive the body, and passed on the secret doctrine that two plus two make four.
Although these reflections are followed by Winston's imprisonment and torture, they offer the novel a gentle tone of hope. Over the course of the first two books, the reader has witnessed Winston's political awakening and growing courage. His reflections on the proles represent the culmination of his awareness. He already knows that he will not live to see a better system. Nonetheless, he has faith in the proles, and their creation of a future in which people have the right to see reality for what it is. O'Brien may succeed in making him believe that two and two make five, but Winston nevertheless trusts that one day, 2+2=4 will again be an unalterable fact.
Related Themes:
