# Part 1 Chapter 3 - George Orwell - Nineteen Eighty-Four

An episode of [George Orwell - 1984](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1795219843), 8 Feb 2025, 17 min.

Audio: https://dts.podtrac.com/redirect.mp3/api.spreaker.com/download/episode/64271014/part_1_chapter_3_george_orwell_nineteen_eighty_four.mp3



## Transcript

[0:00] Speaker 1: Section three of nineteen eighty four by George Orwell. This
[0:04] Speaker 1: legamous recording may be distributed and adapted freely for any purpose.
[0:10] Speaker 1: Part one, Chapter three. Winston was dreaming of his mother.
[0:17] Speaker 1: He must, he thought, have been ten or eleven years
[0:19] Speaker 1: old when his mother had disappeared. She was a tall, statuesque,
[0:24] Speaker 1: rather silent woman, with slow movements and magnificent fair hair.
[0:29] Speaker 1: His father, he remembered, more vaguely, as dark and thin,
[0:32] Speaker 1: dressed always in neat, dark clothes. Winston remembered especially the
[0:36] Speaker 1: very thin soles of his father's shoes, and wearing spectacles.
[0:41] Speaker 1: The two of them must evidently have been swallowed up
[0:43] Speaker 1: in one of the first great purges of the fifties.
[0:47] Speaker 1: At this moment, his mother was sitting in some place
[0:49] Speaker 1: deep down beneath him, with his young sister in her arms.
[0:54] Speaker 1: He did not remember his sister at all, except as
[0:57] Speaker 1: a tiny, feeble baby, always silent, with large watchful eyes.
[1:02] Speaker 1: Both of them were looking up at him. They were
[1:05] Speaker 1: down in some subterranean place, the bottom of a well,
[1:08] Speaker 1: for instance, or a very deep grave. But it was
[1:11] Speaker 1: a place which, already far below him, was itself moving downwards.
[1:16] Speaker 1: They were in the saloon of a sinking ship looking
[1:19] Speaker 1: up at him through the darkening water. There was still
[1:22] Speaker 1: air in the saloon. They could still see him and
[1:25] Speaker 1: he them, but all the while they were sinking down
[1:28] Speaker 1: down into the green waters, which in another moment must
[1:31] Speaker 1: hide them from sight forever. He was out in the
[1:34] Speaker 1: light and air, while they were being sucked down to death,
[1:38] Speaker 1: and they were down there because he was up here.
[1:41] Speaker 1: He knew it, and they knew it, and he could
[1:43] Speaker 1: see the knowledge in their faces. There was no reproach,
[1:46] Speaker 1: either in their faces or in their hearts, only the
[1:49] Speaker 1: knowledge that they must die in order that he might
[1:52] Speaker 1: remain alive, and that this was part of the unavoidable
[1:55] Speaker 1: order of things. He could not remember what had happened,
[1:59] Speaker 1: but he knew in his dream that in some way
[2:01] Speaker 1: the lives of his mother and his sister had been
[2:03] Speaker 1: sacrificed to his own. It was one of those dreams which,
[2:08] Speaker 1: while retaining the characteristic dream scenery, are a continuation of
[2:11] Speaker 1: one's intellectual life, and in which one becomes aware of
[2:15] Speaker 1: facts and ideas which still seem new and valuable after
[2:18] Speaker 1: one is awake. The thing that now suddenly struck Winston
[2:23] Speaker 1: was that his mother's death nearly thirty years ago had
[2:26] Speaker 1: been tragic and sorrowful in a way that was no
[2:28] Speaker 1: longer possible. Tragedy, he perceived, belonged to the ancient time,
[2:33] Speaker 1: to a time when there was still privacy, love and friendship,
[2:37] Speaker 1: and when the members of a family stood by one
[2:39] Speaker 1: another without needing to know the reason. His mother's memory
[2:43] Speaker 1: tore at his heart, because she had died loving him
[2:46] Speaker 1: when he was too young and selfish to love her
[2:48] Speaker 1: in return, and because somehow he did not remember how
[2:52] Speaker 1: she had sacrificed herself to a conception of loyalty that
[2:56] Speaker 1: was private and unalterable. Such things he saw or could
[3:00] Speaker 1: not happen to day to day. There were fear, hatred,
[3:03] Speaker 1: and pain, but no dignity of emotion, no deep or
[3:07] Speaker 1: complex sorrows. All this he seemed to see in the
[3:10] Speaker 1: large eyes of his mother and his sister, looking up
[3:13] Speaker 1: at him through the green water, hundreds of fathoms down
[3:16] Speaker 1: and still sinking. Suddenly he was standing on short, springy
[3:21] Speaker 1: turf on a summer evening, when the slanting rays of
[3:24] Speaker 1: the sun gilded the ground. The landscape that he was
[3:27] Speaker 1: looking at recurred so often in his dreams that he
[3:30] Speaker 1: was never fully certain whether or not he had seen
[3:32] Speaker 1: it in the real world. In his waking thoughts, he
[3:36] Speaker 1: called it the Golden Country. It was an old, rabbit
[3:39] Speaker 1: bitten pasture, with a foot track wandering across it, and
[3:42] Speaker 1: a mole hill here and there in the ragged hedge
[3:46] Speaker 1: on the opposite side of the field. The boughs of
[3:48] Speaker 1: the elm trees were swaying very faintly in the breeze,
[3:52] Speaker 1: their leaves just stirring in dense masses like women's hair.
[3:56] Speaker 1: Somewhere near at hand, though out of sight, there was
[3:59] Speaker 1: a clear, slow moving stream. Where Dace was swimming in
[4:03] Speaker 1: the pools under the willow trees. The girl with dark
[4:07] Speaker 1: hair was coming towards them across the field. With what
[4:11] Speaker 1: seemed a single movement. She tore off her clothes and
[4:14] Speaker 1: flung them disdainfully aside. Her body was white and smooth,
[4:18] Speaker 1: but it aroused no desire in him, Indeed, he barely
[4:21] Speaker 1: looked at it. What overwhelmed him in that instant was
[4:24] Speaker 1: admiration for the gesture with which she had thrown her
[4:27] Speaker 1: clothes aside, with its grace and carelessness, it seemed to
[4:31] Speaker 1: annihilate a whole culture, a whole system of thought, as
[4:34] Speaker 1: though big Brother, and the Party and the thought police
[4:37] Speaker 1: could all be swept into nothingness by a single splendid
[4:40] Speaker 1: movement of the arm. That too, was a gesture belonging
[4:44] Speaker 1: to the ancient time. Winston woke up with the word
[4:47] Speaker 1: Shakespeare on his lips. The telescreen was giving forth an
[4:52] Speaker 1: ear splitting whistle, which continued on the same note for
[4:55] Speaker 1: thirty seconds. It was nought seven fifteen. Getting up to
[5:00] Speaker 1: for office workers, Winston wrenched his body out of bed naked.
[5:05] Speaker 1: For a member of the outer party received only three
[5:07] Speaker 1: thousand clothing coupons annually, and a suit of pajamas was
[5:11] Speaker 1: six hundred, and seized a dingy singlet and a pair
[5:14] Speaker 1: of shorts that were lying across a chair. The physical
[5:18] Speaker 1: jerks would begin in three minutes. The next moment, he
[5:21] Speaker 1: was doubled up by a violent coughing fit, which nearly
[5:23] Speaker 1: always attacked him soon after waking up. It emptied his
[5:27] Speaker 1: lungs so completely that he could only begin breathing again
[5:29] Speaker 1: by lying on his back and taking a series of
[5:32] Speaker 1: deep gasps. His veins had swelled with the effort of
[5:35] Speaker 1: the cough, and the varicus ulca had started itching. Thirty
[5:41] Speaker 1: to forty group yapped a piercing female voice, thirty to
[5:44] Speaker 1: forty group, take your places please, thirties to forties. Winston
[5:50] Speaker 1: sprang to attention in front of the telescreen, upon which
[5:52] Speaker 1: the image of a youngish woman, scrawny but muscular, dressed
[5:56] Speaker 1: in tunic and gym shoes had already appeared, arms bending
[6:01] Speaker 1: and stretching. She wrapped out, take your time by me
[6:04] Speaker 1: one two three four, one two three four, Come on, comrades,
[6:09] Speaker 1: put a bit of life into it. One two three four,
[6:13] Speaker 1: one two three four. The pain of the coughing fit
[6:17] Speaker 1: had not quite driven out of Winston's mind. The impression
[6:20] Speaker 1: made by his dream and the rhythmic movements of the
[6:23] Speaker 1: exercise restored it somewhat. As he mechanically shot his arms
[6:27] Speaker 1: back and forth, wearing on his face the look of
[6:30] Speaker 1: grim enjoyment, which was considered proper during the physical jerks.
[6:33] Speaker 1: He was struggling to think his way backward into the
[6:36] Speaker 1: dim period of his early childhood. It was extraordinarily difficult.
[6:41] Speaker 1: Beyond the late fifties. Everything faded when there were no
[6:45] Speaker 1: external records that you could refer to. Even the outline
[6:48] Speaker 1: of your own life lost its sharpness. You remembered huge
[6:52] Speaker 1: events which had quite probably not happened. You remembered the
[6:55] Speaker 1: detail of incidents without being able to recapture their atmosphere,
[6:58] Speaker 1: and there were long blank pearser to which you could
[7:00] Speaker 1: assign nothing. Everything had been different then, Even the names
[7:05] Speaker 1: of countries and their shapes on the map had been different.
[7:09] Speaker 1: Airstrip I, for instance, had not been so called in
[7:11] Speaker 1: those days. It had been called England or Britain, though London,
[7:15] Speaker 1: he felt fairly certain, had always been called London. Winston
[7:20] Speaker 1: could not definitely remember a time when his country had
[7:23] Speaker 1: not been at war, but it was evident that there
[7:25] Speaker 1: had been a fairly long interval of peace during his childhood,
[7:29] Speaker 1: because one of his early memories was of an air
[7:31] Speaker 1: raid which appeared to take every one by surprise. Perhaps
[7:35] Speaker 1: it was the time when the atomic bomb had fallen
[7:37] Speaker 1: on Colchester. He did not remember the raid itself, but
[7:41] Speaker 1: he did remember his father's hand clutching his own, as
[7:43] Speaker 1: they hurried down, down, down, into some place deep in
[7:47] Speaker 1: the earth, round and round a spiral staircase, which rang
[7:50] Speaker 1: under his feet, and which finally so wearied his legs
[7:54] Speaker 1: that he began whimpering, and they had to stop and rest.
[7:58] Speaker 1: His mother in her slow, dreamy way was following a
[8:00] Speaker 1: long way behind them. She was carrying his baby sister,
[8:05] Speaker 1: or perhaps it was only a bundle of blankets that
[8:07] Speaker 1: she was carrying. He was not certain whether his sister
[8:10] Speaker 1: had been born. Then finally they had emerged into a noisy,
[8:14] Speaker 1: crowded place, which he had realized to be a tube station.
[8:19] Speaker 1: There were people sitting all over the stone flagged floor,
[8:22] Speaker 1: and other people packed tightly together, were sitting on metal bunks,
[8:25] Speaker 1: one above the other. Winston and his mother and father
[8:29] Speaker 1: found themselves a place on the floor, and near them,
[8:32] Speaker 1: an old man and an old woman was sitting side
[8:35] Speaker 1: by side on a bunk. The old man had on
[8:38] Speaker 1: a decent dark suit and a black cloth cap pushed
[8:40] Speaker 1: back from very white hair. His face was scarlet, and
[8:44] Speaker 1: his eyes were blue and full of tears. He reeked
[8:47] Speaker 1: of gin. It seemed to breathe out of his skin
[8:50] Speaker 1: in place of sweat, and one could have fancied that
[8:53] Speaker 1: the tears welling from his eyes were pure gin. But
[8:56] Speaker 1: though slightly drunk, he was also suffering under some grief
[8:59] Speaker 1: that was genuine and unbearable. In his childish way, Winston
[9:03] Speaker 1: grasps that some terrible thing, something that was beyond forgiveness
[9:07] Speaker 1: and could never be remedied had just happened. It also
[9:11] Speaker 1: seemed to him that he knew what it was. Some
[9:14] Speaker 1: one whom the old man loved, a little grand daughter perhaps,
[9:17] Speaker 1: had been killed. Every few minutes. The old man kept repeating,
[9:22] Speaker 1: we didn't ought to have trusted him. I said, so,
[9:25] Speaker 1: Mar didn't. I that's what comes of trusting him? I said,
[9:29] Speaker 1: so All along we didn't ought to have trusted the buggers.
[9:34] Speaker 1: But which buggers they didn't ought to have trusted? Winston
[9:37] Speaker 1: could not now remember, since about that time war had
[9:41] Speaker 1: been literally continuous, though strictly speaking it had not always
[9:44] Speaker 1: been the same war. For several months during his childhood
[9:48] Speaker 1: there had been confused street fighting in London itself, some
[9:51] Speaker 1: of which he remembered vividly. But to trace out the
[9:55] Speaker 1: history of the whole period to say who was fighting
[9:57] Speaker 1: whom at any given moment would have been utterly possible,
[10:00] Speaker 1: since no written record and no spoken word ever made
[10:04] Speaker 1: mention of any other alignment than the existing one at
[10:08] Speaker 1: this moment. For example, in nineteen eighty four, if it
[10:11] Speaker 1: was nineteen eighty four, Oceania was at war with Eurasia
[10:15] Speaker 1: and in alliance with East Asia. In no public or
[10:18] Speaker 1: private utterance was it ever admitted that the three powers
[10:21] Speaker 1: had at any time been grouped along different lines. Actually,
[10:25] Speaker 1: as Winston Well knew, it was only four years since
[10:27] Speaker 1: Oceania had been at war with Eastasia and in alliance
[10:30] Speaker 1: with Eurasia. But that was merely a piece of furtive
[10:34] Speaker 1: knowledge which he happened to possess because his memory was
[10:37] Speaker 1: not satisfactorily under control. Officially, the change of partners had
[10:41] Speaker 1: never happened. Oceania was at war with Eurasia. Therefore, Oceania
[10:46] Speaker 1: had always been at war with Eurasia. The enemy of
[10:49] Speaker 1: the moment always represented absolute evil, and had followed that
[10:52] Speaker 1: any past or future agreement with him was impossible. The
[10:57] Speaker 1: frightening thing he reflected for the ten thousandth time as
[11:00] Speaker 1: he forced his shoulders painfully backward with hands on hips.
[11:04] Speaker 1: They were gyrating their bodies from the waist, an exercise
[11:07] Speaker 1: that was supposed to be good for the back muscles.
[11:09] Speaker 1: The frightening thing was that it might all be true,
[11:13] Speaker 1: if the party could thrust its hand into the past
[11:15] Speaker 1: and say, of this or that event it never happened.
[11:19] Speaker 1: That surely was more terrifying than mere torture and death.
[11:23] Speaker 1: The Party said that Oceania had never been in alliance
[11:26] Speaker 1: with Eurasia. He Winston Smith knew that Oceania had been
[11:31] Speaker 1: an alliance with Eurasia as short a time as four
[11:34] Speaker 1: years ago. But where did that knowledge exist? Only in
[11:38] Speaker 1: his own consciousness, which, in any case must soon be annihilated.
[11:42] Speaker 1: And if all others accepted the lie which the Party imposed,
[11:46] Speaker 1: if all records told the same tale, then the lie
[11:49] Speaker 1: passed into history and became truth. Who controls the past,
[11:54] Speaker 1: ran the party slogan, controls the future? Who controls the
[11:57] Speaker 1: present controls the past? And yet the past, though of
[12:01] Speaker 1: its nature alterable, never had been altered. Whatever was true
[12:06] Speaker 1: now was true, from everlasting to everlasting. It was quite simple.
[12:11] Speaker 1: All that was needed was an unending series of victories
[12:14] Speaker 1: over your own memory. Reality control. They called it in
[12:18] Speaker 1: news speak. Doublethink stand easy, barked the instructress. A little
[12:24] Speaker 1: more genially. Winston sank his arms to his sides and
[12:28] Speaker 1: slowly refilled his lungs with air. His mind slid away
[12:32] Speaker 1: into the labyrinthine world of doublethink. To know and not
[12:36] Speaker 1: to know, to be conscious of complete truthfulness while telling
[12:40] Speaker 1: carefully constructed lies to hold simultaneously two opinions which canceled out,
[12:45] Speaker 1: knowing them to be contradictory, and believing in both of them.
[12:48] Speaker 1: To use logic against logic, to repudiate morality while laying
[12:52] Speaker 1: claim to it, to believe that the democracy was impossible,
[12:55] Speaker 1: and that the party was the guardian of democracy. To
[12:58] Speaker 1: forget whatever it was nest necessary to forget, then to
[13:01] Speaker 1: draw it back into memory again at the moment when
[13:03] Speaker 1: it was needed, and then promptly to forget it again.
[13:07] Speaker 1: And above all, to apply the same process to the
[13:09] Speaker 1: process itself. That was the ultimate subtlety. Consciously to induce unconsciousness,
[13:15] Speaker 1: and then once again to become unconscious of the act
[13:18] Speaker 1: of hypnosis you had just performed. Even to understand the
[13:22] Speaker 1: word doublethink involved the use of double think. The instructress
[13:27] Speaker 1: had called them to attention again. And now let's see
[13:30] Speaker 1: which of us can touch our toes, she said, enthusiastically,
[13:34] Speaker 1: right over from the hips, please comrades one two, one two.
[13:40] Speaker 1: Winston loathed this exercise, which sent shooting pains all the
[13:43] Speaker 1: way from his heels to his buttocks, and often ended
[13:46] Speaker 1: by bringing on another coughing fit. The half pleasant quality
[13:50] Speaker 1: went out of his meditations. The past, he reflected, had
[13:53] Speaker 1: not merely been altered, it had actually been destroyed. For
[13:58] Speaker 1: how could you establish even the most obvious fact when
[14:00] Speaker 1: there existed no record outside your own memory. He tried
[14:05] Speaker 1: to remember in what year he had first heard mention
[14:07] Speaker 1: of Big Brother. He thought it must have been at
[14:10] Speaker 1: some time in the sixties, but it was impossible to
[14:12] Speaker 1: be certain. In the party histories, of course, big Brother
[14:16] Speaker 1: figured as the leader and guardian of the revolution since
[14:18] Speaker 1: its very earliest days. His exploits had been gradually pushed
[14:22] Speaker 1: backwards in time, until already they extended into the fabulous
[14:26] Speaker 1: world of the forties and the thirties, when the capitalists,
[14:29] Speaker 1: in their strange cylindrical hats still rode through the streets
[14:33] Speaker 1: of London in great gleaming motor cars or horse carriages
[14:36] Speaker 1: with glass sides. There was no knowing how much of
[14:40] Speaker 1: this legend was true and how much invented. Winston could
[14:43] Speaker 1: not even remember at what date the Party itself had
[14:46] Speaker 1: come into existence. He did not believe he had ever
[14:49] Speaker 1: heard the word ingsock before nineteen sixty, but it was
[14:52] Speaker 1: possible that, in its old speak form English socialism, that
[14:56] Speaker 1: is to say, it had been current earlier, everything thing
[15:00] Speaker 1: melted into mist. Sometimes, indeed, you could put your finger
[15:03] Speaker 1: on a definite lie. It was not true, For example,
[15:07] Speaker 1: as was claimed in the Party history books, that the
[15:09] Speaker 1: Party had invented aeroplanes. He remembered aeroplanes since his earliest childhood.
[15:15] Speaker 1: But you could prove nothing. There was never any evidence.
[15:19] Speaker 1: Just once in his whole life he had held in
[15:21] Speaker 1: his hands unmistakable documentary proof of the falsification of an
[15:25] Speaker 1: historical fact. And on that occasion Smith screamed the shrewish
[15:31] Speaker 1: voice from the telescreen six o sevent nine. Smith, w yes,
[15:36] Speaker 1: you bend lower, please, you can do better than that.
[15:40] Speaker 1: You're not trying lower, please, that's better, comrade, Now stand
[15:46] Speaker 1: at ease the whole squad and watch me. A sudden,
[15:50] Speaker 1: hot sweat had broken out all over Winston's body. His
[15:53] Speaker 1: face remained completely inscrutable. Never show dismay, never show resentment.
[15:59] Speaker 1: A single flicker of the eyes could give you away.
[16:02] Speaker 1: He stood watching while the instructress raised her arms above
[16:05] Speaker 1: her head, and one could not say gracefully, but with
[16:08] Speaker 1: remarkable neatness and efficiency, bent over and tucked the first
[16:12] Speaker 1: joint of her fingers under her toes. There comrades, that's
[16:17] Speaker 1: how I want to see you doing it. Watch me again.
[16:20] Speaker 1: I'm thirty nine and I've had four children. Now look
[16:25] Speaker 1: she bent over again. You see my knees aunt bent.
[16:28] Speaker 1: You can all do it if you want to, she
[16:30] Speaker 1: added as she straightened herself up. Any one under forty
[16:33] Speaker 1: five is perfectly capable of touching his toes. We don't
[16:37] Speaker 1: all have the privilege of fighting in the front line,
[16:39] Speaker 1: but at least we can all keep fit. Remember our
[16:42] Speaker 1: boys on the Malabar Front and the sailors in the
[16:45] Speaker 1: floating fortresses. Just think what they have to put up with.
[16:49] Speaker 1: Now try again. That's better, comrade, That's much better, she
[16:54] Speaker 1: added encouragingly, as Winston, with a violent lunge, succeeded in
[16:58] Speaker 1: touching his toes with knees unbent for the first time
[17:01] Speaker 1: in several years. End of Section three.

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