Sunday 5 December 2010

We didn't ought to 'ave trusted the buggers. (rw6, 1984)

In chapter 3 of Nineteen Eighty-Four, when he should be touching his toes, Winston reminisces about the never ending war that began in his childhood. The specific detail is the awful grief of a gin soaked old man, but Orwell manages to pack a lot more into the short account:
In his childish way Winston grasped that some terrible thing, something that was beyond forgiveness and could never be remedied, had just happened. It also seemed to him that he knew what it was. Someone whom the old man loved--a little granddaughter, perhaps--had been killed. Every few minutes the old man kept repeating:
'We didn't ought to 'ave trusted 'em. I said so, Ma, didn't I? That's what comes of trusting 'em. I said so all along. We didn't ought to 'ave trusted the buggers.'
But which buggers they didn't ought to have trusted Winston could not now remember.
Since about that time, war had been literally continuous (Orwell, 2008, p. 35 - 36)
Discussion Questions
  • Which buggers do you think they were? 
  • Why shouldn't they have been trusted?  
__________
References
Orwell, G. (2008). Nineteen Eighty-Four. London: Penguin Books Ltd.

(In case you don't have the paper version of the novel handy, it's also available online @ http://wikilivres.info/w/index.php?title=Nineteen_Eighty-Four/Part_I/Chapter_3&oldid=93701 )
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2 comments:

  1. Roong5 December 2010 at 23:45

    Since Winston was supposedly born at the end of WWII, my first guess which is "Germany" would fail flat because Google tells me that London was attacked by Germany in 1940, Winstons wasn't exist then, he is 39 in "1984". (or is he not?)

    So, it means that there was another war going on in Britain after the WWII (I don't know for the reality world but at least there had to be one in Winston's world) and this war is most likely the one that was the foundation of the Party's rising into power (and later turned from Socialism into kinda Totalitarianism).

    My second guess would be ....... well, I couldn't think of one ... the government at that time, maybe? I mean, it shouldn't be the Party itself because I don't think the Party would take over the state via violence. Or is it?

    This is confusing!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Peter.AUA6 December 2010 at 08:33

    And why can Winston not now remember?

    (I wish I'd thought of this question when I was writing the initial post.)

    ReplyDelete

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