Group: Aku, Otso, Eelis
Rebellion: questions to reflect on
1. With regards to rebellion through writing a journal, is the journal remotely effective? What about in the sense of a small, personal victory? In what ways is Winston guilty of the same lack of ambition that Julia is, as far as rebellious dreams go?

2. How different is Julia’s private form of rebellion than Winston’s hopes for grand- scale rebellion?

3. Are Winston and Julia rebels without a cause? Would that be a problem? What constitutes a legitimate cause for rebellion?

Group: MK, Leo, Evan, Reece
Reality: questions to reflect on
6. Is reality objective, existing independently of our perception of it as Winston believes? Or is reality subjective, existing only in our perception of it as the Party believes? Can two people see the same reality differently? If so, which is the real reality?

 7. Peter Jennings once said, “Whoever controls the media, controls reality.” Do you agree? Do we believe the news we read and see on television? Can the news media be used to manipulate us?

Ideas: erasing the past? Is it possible

Group: Eva-Lota, Marissa, Noah, Aura

Media: questions to reflect on
7. Peter Jennings once said, “Whoever controls the media, controls reality.” Do you agree? Do we believe the news we read and see on television? Can the news media be used to manipulate us?

8. Henry Kissenger wrote, “History is the memory of states.” Is history unchangeable, existing independently of human memory or human records, or can history be rewritten using different records and different points of view? What is the importance of history in our lives?

11. Is reality necessarily subjective for Winston? Can there ever be an objective account of history and its events in 1984, or is reality dependent upon the observer?

Group: Felix, Rosa, Nikke
Thought and language: questions to reflect on
9. Can you really narrow the range of thought by narrowing vocabulary, as the Party seeks to do? What does that mean for people with small vocabularies – would they think less? Why does the Party think so? Can you think of counterexamples to the Party’s proposition?

10. According to Ingsoc, the Party’s ideology, reality exists only in the mind of the individual. Do you believe an external reality exists independent of perception? If a tree falls in the forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?

Group: Nella, Jaime, Henni, Saga

Surveillance: questions to reflect on

17. After all the reality TV shows that people willingly take part in, you’re probably thinking, well, what’s the big deal? After all, there’s even a show called Big Brother. So, what’s the big deal with being monitored 24/7? Is it a source of entertainment? Of control? How does surveillance function in 1984, specifically?

18. How would the Party be weakened if it could not use surveillance its citizens?

Group: 

Love: questions to reflect on

20. Do you believe the Party’s proposition that if people are no longer interested in love, that they will devote all their energies to worshipping the Party?

23. Why do you think the Party discourages love and emotional interaction between humans? Where do we see moments of true human emotion in the novel, and why do they seem significant? Similarly, where do we see moments of callousness (even from Winston)? 


Group: Safin, Markus and Shafei

Comparison with a current country's situation

Group: Jessi, Niina, Laura

That 1984 is a satire on totalitarian states such as Hitler’s Germany and Stalin’s Russia and a warning to the West is one of the commonly accepted interpretations of the novel. Prove that this is so by showing that Orwell did create a complete, repressive totalitarian state in Oceania.