1984: Imagery 5 key examples

In the first chapter, the Two Minutes Hate both begins and ends with a rhythmic, hypnotizing sound. The noise is first introduced when the Party's depiction of Goldstein and his army appear on the screen: "The dull rhythmic tramp of the soldiers’ boots formed the background to Goldstein’s bleating voice." At first, this is juxtaposed with the unrestrained, erratic frenzy in the room. Then, after Goldstein's face is replaced with that of Big Brother, everyone in the room breaks out into a "deep, slow, rhythmical chant of 'B-B'!" The narrator compares this "heavy, murmurous sound" to the "stamp of naked feet and the throbbing of tom-toms." Again, the auditory imagery becomes steady and pulsating. In Winston's view, the chant is both a "hymn to the wisdom and majesty of Big Brother" and an "act of self-hypnosis, a deliberate drowning of consciousness by means of rhythmic noise." 

The reader recalls the auditory imagery of the Two Minutes Hate in the fifth chapter of the second book, when the city prepares for Hate Week. Played "endlessly" on the telescreens, the week's theme song has a "savage, barking rhythm" that "resembled the beating of a drum" and was "roared out by hundreds of voices to the tramp of marching feet." Like the passage describing the Two Minutes Hate, the description of the "Hate Song" highlights the role played by noise—especially rhythmic noise, made in unison by a large crowd—in the application of power. Just as a steady sound can be used to hypnotize someone, tramping appears to induce mass hypnosis.

In the third book, as he sits in the prison cell, Winston waits for the tramp of boots to know whether "his own turn had come." After he hears the "tramp of heavy boots" in the second chapter, a "waxen-faced officer" marches in with two guards, and sends him to Room 101. In the fourth chapter, when he calls out Julia's name, he knows he will soon hear the "tramp of boots outside." The auditory imagery of tramping signals either collective obedience or discipline. Throughout 1984, the Party carries out its power through noise, using telescreens to drown out people's individual thoughts and tramping boots to signal their impending punishment.

Asking the reader to imagine the sound made by a large machine that runs without oil, this simile contributes to the grueling sensory experience that is otherwise evoked by the auditory imagery. Through it, Orwell alludes to a common idiom in the English language that compares things to a "well-oiled machine," but he turns it on its head.

Another mechanical simile appears later in the scene:

A hideous ecstasy of fear and vindictiveness, a desire to kill, to torture, to smash faces in with a sledge hammer, seemed to flow through the whole group of people like an electric current, turning one even against one’s will into a grimacing, screaming lunatic.

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Comparing the people's overpowering negative emotions and violent urges to an electric current, Orwell underlines the dangerous consequences of a society in which people have been robbed of the ability to think for themselves. The Party controls the emotional states of its members as though they were machines, or parts of an electric circuit. Even Winston, who is secretly critical of the Party and the events unfolding around him, finds it "impossible to avoid joining in."

In this passage, which shows that the landscape is already familiar to Winston, the gleaming visual imagery combines with alliteration to reproduce Winston's dream state for the reader. In the first sentence, several words begin with a soothing /s/ sound. This soft, lulling sound continues in the rest of the passage, by way of vivid imagery and multiple sets of alliteration:

It was an old, rabbit-bitten pasture, with a foot track wandering across it and a molehill here and there. In the ragged hedge on the opposite side of the field the boughs of the elm trees were swaying very faintly in the breeze, their leaves just stirring in dense masses like women’s hair. Somewhere near at hand, though out of sight, there was a clear, slow-moving stream where dace were swimming in the pools under the willow trees.

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These details become important later in the novel, when Winston finds himself in a landscape that closely corresponds with that of his dreams. The real Golden Country is where he and Julia meet for the first time, in the second chapter of the second book:

Winston looked out into the field beyond, and underwent a curious, slow shock of recognition. He knew it by sight. An old, close-bitten pasture, with a footpath wandering across it and a molehill here and there. In the ragged hedge on the opposite side the boughs of the elm trees swayed just perceptibly in the breeze, and their leaves stirred faintly in dense masses like women’s hair.

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Winston is taken aback to realize that it is possible for the Golden Country to exist in the real world. The "close-bitten pasture," footpath, molehills, and hairlike elm leaves all correspond with the landscape he knows from his dreams. When Winston is able to access the Golden Country by way of his relationship with Julia, the reader understands that she is trustworthy and that their relationship will be pure and private.

Just as Winston loses access to Julia, he eventually loses access to the real Golden Country. The motif goes unmentioned for a long stretch in the novel, while Winston is tortured in the third book. Eventually, the reappearance of the Golden Country in his dreams brings the final level of torture. Finding himself in the Golden Country one night, with all of its familiar features, he wakes up with a "shock of horror" and screams Julia's name. This makes O'Brien see that Winston retains hope of a pure, private world beyond the reaches of the Party, and he brings Winston to Room 101.

In this passage, which shows that the landscape is already familiar to Winston, the gleaming visual imagery combines with alliteration to reproduce Winston's dream state for the reader. In the first sentence, several words begin with a soothing /s/ sound. This soft, lulling sound continues in the rest of the passage, by way of vivid imagery and multiple sets of alliteration:

It was an old, rabbit-bitten pasture, with a foot track wandering across it and a molehill here and there. In the ragged hedge on the opposite side of the field the boughs of the elm trees were swaying very faintly in the breeze, their leaves just stirring in dense masses like women’s hair. Somewhere near at hand, though out of sight, there was a clear, slow-moving stream where dace were swimming in the pools under the willow trees.

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These details become important later in the novel, when Winston finds himself in a landscape that closely corresponds with that of his dreams. The real Golden Country is where he and Julia meet for the first time, in the second chapter of the second book:

Winston looked out into the field beyond, and underwent a curious, slow shock of recognition. He knew it by sight. An old, close-bitten pasture, with a footpath wandering across it and a molehill here and there. In the ragged hedge on the opposite side the boughs of the elm trees swayed just perceptibly in the breeze, and their leaves stirred faintly in dense masses like women’s hair.

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Winston is taken aback to realize that it is possible for the Golden Country to exist in the real world. The "close-bitten pasture," footpath, molehills, and hairlike elm leaves all correspond with the landscape he knows from his dreams. When Winston is able to access the Golden Country by way of his relationship with Julia, the reader understands that she is trustworthy and that their relationship will be pure and private.

Just as Winston loses access to Julia, he eventually loses access to the real Golden Country. The motif goes unmentioned for a long stretch in the novel, while Winston is tortured in the third book. Eventually, the reappearance of the Golden Country in his dreams brings the final level of torture. Finding himself in the Golden Country one night, with all of its familiar features, he wakes up with a "shock of horror" and screams Julia's name. This makes O'Brien see that Winston retains hope of a pure, private world beyond the reaches of the Party, and he brings Winston to Room 101.

With this opening, the reader is given an instance of relief from the gray and mechanical surroundings that have pervaded the novel so far. The dappled light, pools of gold, and misty bluebells all come together to create a soothing mood. In addition, the personification of the air imbues the scene with a sense of intimacy that has been totally absent so far in the novel. The reader knows that he is on his way to meet the dark-haired girl, and the caressing air signals that the two characters will be physically intimate. 

The intervals in which Winston and the dark-haired girl (whom he shortly thereafter gets to know as Julia) meet, talk, and sleep together give the reader much-needed rest from the otherwise gloomy mood. Just as they are able to rest and be their true selves when they are together in private, the reader is able to gather some diversion and hope from their shared moments. Moreover, there is some hope in the fact that nature of this kind exists whatsoever in the world of Big Brother. Although the Party has destroyed many of the sweet parts of life, nature seems to prevail. 

In this part, Winston balances the knowledge that he is gazing at himself with an absolute sense of alienation. The narrator captures this through the impersonal diction of "a thing," "a creature," and "a face." The indefinite articles convey that he is not yet ready to claim what he sees as himself. Over the course of the passage, the narrator seems to be describing an animal skeleton or a ragged doll.

As the passage continues, the narrator narrows in on Winston's filthiness:

Except for his hands and a circle of his face, his body was gray all over with ancient, ingrained dirt. Here and there under the dirt there were the red scars of wounds, and near the ankle the varicose ulcer was an inflamed mass with flakes of skin peeling off it. But the truly frightening thing was the emaciation of his body. The barrel of the ribs was as narrow as that of a skeleton; the legs had shrunk so that the knees were thicker than the thighs.

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For the reader, the grayness and grittiness of Winston's skin give it a tactile quality, which combines with the visual imagery of his splotchy scars. The disconcerting tactile and visual imagery is combined with similes to give the reader a fully fledged picture of what Winston looks like. His ribs are like that of a skeleton.

This passage marks a turning point for Winston, especially in his mental state. Although the long-term torture has been breaking him down, he has managed to retain a sense of himself. Once he sees what he looks like, he begins to fully comprehend what he has gone through—and will continue to go through—at the hands of the Party. O'Brien uses this tactic to show how degraded Winston is, after he claims that he is superior to the Party. He shows Winston what he sees when he looks at him, pointing out his grime, dirt, stink, emaciation, baldness, and tooth loss. He tells Winston that he is nothing but a bag of filth, at which point Winston collapses and begins to weep.