Chapter 4: Winston's job

Chapter 4: Winston's job

1. Memory holes

   • These were used to destroy a document or even any piece of paper.
     • In the walls of the cubicle there were three orifices.
       • To the right of the speakwrite, a small pneumatic tube for written messages,
       • To the left, a larger one for newspapers
       • And in the side wall, within easy reach of Winston’s arm, a large oblong slit protected by a wire grating. This last was for the disposal of waste paper

2. Four small cylinders of paper flopped out of the pneumatic tube

   • Each contained a message of only one or two lines, in the abbreviated jargon not actually Newspeak, but consisting largely of Newspeak words which was used in the Ministry for internal purposes.
     • Then he unrolled and clipped together
       • times 17.3.84 discurso gh malregistrado áfrica rectificar
         • Big Brother had predicted that the South Indian front would remain quiet but that a Eurasian offensive would shortly be 50 1984 launched in North Africa. As it happened, the Eurasian Higher Command had launched its offensive in South India and left North Africa alone. It was therefore necessary to rewrite a paragraph of Big Brother’s speech,
       • times 19.12.83 forecasts 3 yp 4th quarter 83 misprints verify current issue
         • ‘The Times’ of the nineteenth of December had published the official forecasts of the output of various classes of consumption goods in the fourth quarter of 1983. Today’s issue contained a statement of the actual output, from which it appeared that the forecasts were in every instance grossly wrong. Winston’s job was to rectify the original figures by making them agree with the later ones
       • times 14.2.84 miniplenty malquoted chocolate rectify
         • It referred to a very simple error. The Ministry of Plenty had issued a promise that there would be no reduction of the chocolate ration during 1984. Actually, as Winston was aware, the chocolate ration was to be reduced from thirty grammes to twenty at the end of the present week. All that was needed was to substitute for the original promise a warning that it would probably be necessary to reduce the ration at some time in April.
       • times 3.12.83 reporting bb dayorder doubleplusungood refs unpersons rewrite fullwise upsub antefiling
         • Winston, With a faint feeling of satisfaction, laid the fourth message aside. It was an intricate and responsible job and had better be dealt with last.

3. To rectify

   • The messages he had received referred to articles or news items which for one reason or another it was thought necessary to alter.
     • Day by day and almost minute by minute the past was brought up to date.
       • All history was a palimpsest, scraped clean and reinscribed exactly as often as was necessary.
     • In this process, Winston thought
       • Any particular number of ‘The Times’ had been assembled and collated, that number would be reprinted, the original copy destroyed, and the corrected copy placed on the files in its stead
         • This process of continuous alteration was applied to
           • Newspapers, but to books, periodicals, pamphlets, posters, leaflets, films, sound-tracks, cartoons, photographs—to every kind of literature or documentation which might conceivably hold any political or ideological significance.