Nineteen Eighty-Four Reading between the lines Quiz

Nineteen Eighty-Four Reading between the lines questions

The answers and an explanation for each question appear as you play, and on the answer-key page of the printout.

1. Why does Winston sit in the shallow alcove beside the window when he begins to write?
   His neighbours cannot overhear him there · The telescreen cannot see into it · The telescreen's noise is muffled there · The light there is better for writing
2. Writing about his marriage to Katharine and about a prole woman he once paid, Winston comes to see the sexual act as political. Why?
   Only Inner Party members may marry · Private desire itself defies the Party · The Party forbids marriage outright · Children are taken from their parents
3. What does Winston do with that photograph once he realises what he is holding?
   Drops it into the slot for burning · Keeps it folded in his overalls · Hides it inside his diary at home · Shows it quietly to a colleague
4. Why do Winston and the girl arrange their first real exchange of words inside a crowd in Victory Square?
   Noise and crush defeat the telescreens · Patrols never enter Victory Square · The square has no telescreens at all · Party members are expected there
5. O'Brien's pretext for handing Winston his address is a dictionary. What makes Winston read the approach as something else?
   O'Brien names the vaporized Syme · O'Brien asks about his diary · O'Brien switches off the telescreen · O'Brien mentions the Brotherhood
6. What do Winston and Julia agree the Party will never be able to take from them, however the end comes?
   The memory of their first meeting · Their right to die together · The room above the junk shop · What they feel inside themselves
7. What is Winston's chief reaction to reading Goldstein's book?
   It convinces him the proles will rise · It tells him what he already knew · It explains how the Party will fall · It names the men he must contact
8. What does Winston understand when O'Brien walks into his cell?
   O'Brien has been arrested as well · O'Brien is being forced to act · O'Brien had served the Party throughout · O'Brien has come to get him out
9. What does O'Brien mean by calling Winston the last man?
   The last prisoner left alive · The last to resist the dial · The last to hold human values · The last of the old Party
10. Winston is better fed, stronger and practising obedience in his new cell. What shows that his re-education is not complete?
    He wakes shouting Julia's name · He refuses the food they bring · He asks to see O'Brien again · He writes the slogans wrongly
11. What does Winston cry out as the cage is brought up to his face?
    That he will confess to anything · That he never believed Goldstein · That he loves Big Brother now · That they should take Julia instead
12. The Appendix describes Newspeak and its rules throughout in the past tense. What do many readers take this to imply?
    The account was written in secret · The language was never finished · The regime did not last · Oldspeak had already returned
13. What does doublethink require of the mind?
    Forgetting only on command · Obeying before understanding · Holding two contradictions at once · Believing what cannot be checked
14. Why does the Party not simply shoot Winston once he has confessed everything?
    It needs him to name other men · It plans to display him publicly · It never executes Party members · It wants his belief, not his words

More Nineteen Eighty-Four practice: all Nineteen Eighty-Four quizzes · characters quiz · themes quiz · language & structure quiz

Original questions written for Pagine. This book is in copyright, so questions paraphrase rather than quote it.