Task 1.

Watch the 1984 Summary video and fill in the blanks with the correct word or
phrase. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h9JIKngJnCU
1. Nineteen eighty-four is about _____________________.
2. George Orwell wrote 1984 in the late _____________________.
3. 1984 takes place in _____________________.
4. The main character of 1984 is _____________________ _____________________.
5. At the beginning of the book he starts writing a _____________________.
6. Julia works in the same building as him. She's some kind of _____________________.
7. Winston and Julia go to O'Brien's house and confess that they want to be _____________________.
8. In the ministry of love they _____________________Winston in all sorts of horrible ways.
9. Winston and Julia are basically _____________________people after they get out.
10. The last words of the novel are 'he loved _____________________ _____________________.'

Task 2. Watch the video again and discuss the following questions.
1. What does a totalitarian government try to do?
......................................................................................................................................................
2. What is the London in the book like?
......................................................................................................................................................
3. Who is Big Brother?
......................................................................................................................................................
4. How can the government watch you in your home?
......................................................................................................................................................
5. What is the penalty for breaking the rules?
......................................................................................................................................................
6. Why does Winston start writing a diary?
......................................................................................................................................................
7. How does he feel about Julia?
......................................................................................................................................................
8. Why does he accept O'Brien's invitation to his apartment?
......................................................................................................................................................
9. Where are Winston and Julia taken by the police?
......................................................................................................................................................
10. What happens there?
......................................................................................................................................................
11. Why are they eventually released?
......................................................................................................................................................
http://areti-aroundtheworldinenglish.blogspot.gr/

Task 3. Solve the crossword puzzle with suitable words from the video.

6
7
8

10

11

EclipseCrossword.com

Across
4.

controlling a country and its people in a very strict way, without allowing opposition from another
political party (adj)
5. an event in which speakers try to get a group of people excited and enthusiastic about something
(US noun, two words)
9. to force somebody to accept your ideas or beliefs, for example by repeating the same thing many
times or by preventing the person from thinking clearly (v)
10. the group of people who control a country, region, or town and make decisions about its laws and
taxes (n)
11. in very bad condition because of age or lack of care (adj)

Down
1.
2.
3.
4.
6.
7.
8.

an effort by many people to change the government or leader of a country by the use of protest or
violence (n)
a government department that has a particular area of responsibility or the building in which it is
located (n)
the quality of being honest and having strong moral principles (n)
to hurt somebody physically or mentally in order to punish them or make them tell you something (v)
a strong desire or wish for something or to do something (n)
to admit that you have done something wrong or illegal (v)
information, especially false information, that a government or organization spreads in order to
influence peoples opinions and beliefs (n)
http://areti-aroundtheworldinenglish.blogspot.gr/

ANSWER
KEY
Task 1. Watch the 1984 Summary video and fill in the blanks with the correct word or
phrase. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h9JIKngJnCU
1. Nineteen eighty-four is about totalitarianism.
2. George Orwell wrote 1984 in the late 1940s.
3. 1984 takes place in London.
4. The main character of 1984 is Winston Smith.
5. At the beginning of the book he starts writing a diary.
6. Julia works in the same building as him. She's some kind of mechanic.
7. Winston and Julia go to O'Brien's house and confess that they want to be rebels.
8. In the ministry of love they torture Winston in all sorts of horrible ways.
9. Winston and Julia are basically broken people after they get out.
10. The last words of the novel are 'he loved big brother'.

Task 2. The answers to the questions can be found in the underlined parts of the video
transcript (see last two pages).
1. What does a totalitarian government try to do?
......................................................................................................................................................
2. What is the London in the book like?
......................................................................................................................................................
3. Who is Big Brother?
......................................................................................................................................................
4. How can the government watch you in your home?
......................................................................................................................................................
5. What is the penalty for breaking the rules?
......................................................................................................................................................
6. Why does Winston start writing a diary?
......................................................................................................................................................
7. How does he feel about Julia?
......................................................................................................................................................
8. Why does he accept O'Brien's invitation to his apartment?
......................................................................................................................................................
9. Where are Winston and Julia taken by the police?
......................................................................................................................................................
10. What happens there?
......................................................................................................................................................
11. Why are they eventually released?
......................................................................................................................................................
http://areti-aroundtheworldinenglish.blogspot.gr/

Task 3. Solve the crossword puzzle with suitable words from the video.

T O T A

T A R

A N

P E P R A

Y
7

B R A

N W A S H
G

A
10

G O V E R N M E N T
D
11

L A P

D A T E D

EclipseCrossword.com

Across
4.

controlling a country and its people in a very strict way, without allowing opposition from another
political party (adj)
5. an event in which speakers try to get a group of people excited and enthusiastic about something
(US noun, two words)
9. to force somebody to accept your ideas or beliefs, for example by repeating the same thing many
times or by preventing the person from thinking clearly (v)
10. the group of people who control a country, region, or town and make decisions about its laws and
taxes (n)
11. in very bad condition because of age or lack of care (adj)

Down
1.
2.
3.
4.
6.
7.
8.

an effort by many people to change the government or leader of a country by the use of protest or
violence (n)
a government department that has a particular area of responsibility or the building in which it is
located (n)
the quality of being honest and having strong moral principles (n)
to hurt somebody physically or mentally in order to punish them or make them tell you something (v)
a strong desire or wish for something or to do something (n)
to admit that you have done something wrong or illegal (v)
information, especially false information, that a government or organization spreads in order to
influence peoples opinions and beliefs (n)
http://areti-aroundtheworldinenglish.blogspot.gr/

If you wish, you (or your students) can watch the 1984 Summary video with closed captions (English
subtitles) here: http://areti-aroundtheworldinenglish.blogspot.gr/2013/03/orwells-1984-summaryvideo-sparknotes.html
TRANSCRIPT
Nineteen eighty-four is about totalitarianism. (1)A totalitarian government is one that tries to control every aspect of
life. How people spend every minute of their time, even in private, who they can associate with, what they're
allowed to say. A totalitarian government even tries to control what people think and what they believe. George
Orwell wrote 1984 in the late 1940s. What he knew about totalitarianism was based on the Soviet Union and Nazi
Germany. Those governments had come into being not that long before and they weren't very well understood yet.
What Orwell was trying to do with 1984 was to give his readers a clear picture of what life would be like if a free
country like England were under totalitarian rule. 1984 takes place in London. (2)The London in the book is a
depressing place. There's never enough to eat, the food's disgusting, there aren't enough clothes or shoes or
anything to go around, and the city is pretty dilapidated except for these giant pyramid-shaped government
buildings that rise above the landscape. There's some sort of war going on and no one really understands what it's
about. Rockets frequently explode in the streets and blow people to death. The worst part is that the government is
always watching everything people do. (3)There are these posters of Big Brother, who is supposedly the leader of
the government, that say Big Brother is watching you. There are thought police, who have hidden cameras and
microphones literally everywhere. (4)The government can watch you in your home through your TV screen and you
are not allowed to turn your TV off ever. (5)There are a lot of things you are not allowed to do in this society and if
you do them, the police might take you away and throw you into a forced labour camp. You are not allowed to have
close friends, you are not allowed to be in love, you can't date or have sex with someone you like. You're basically
supposed to save all your emotional energy for the party, the party being the government. Then there are things you
have to do. You have to watch the government programming on TV, most of it is news, some of it is exercises. You
have to attend pep rallies including this one called the two-minute hate. So it's hard to even have time to think your
own thoughts because they're constantly filling your head with propaganda. The main character of 1984 is Winston
Smith. He's 39, he has a job in the government and he has this horrible dreary existence without any friends or
anyone in his life. (6)At the beginning of the book he starts writing a diary to talk about how much he hates life in
this society even though a writing a diary is one of those things you'd be killed for doing if you were caught. The
diary is his place for thinking about his society. It's a place where he tries to imagine if life could possibly be different
from the way it is. There's no way for him to know if things were ever different before because the government has
changed all the records of the past and rewritten all the history books. At the beginning of the novel there are two
other people who matter to Winston and he doesn't even know either of them. One of them is Julia. Julia is this
attractive young woman who works in the same building as him. She's some kind of mechanic. (7)Winston basically
hates her. He hates her because she's pretty and he can't have her. But he also thinks she is the sort of person who
would turn him into the thought police. So he's afraid of her but also sort of fascinated. The other person he's
interested in is this portly guy named O'Brien, who's a member of the inner party. That means he's a boss much
higher up than Winston. Winston should be afraid of this guy but he gets the sense that O'Brien is intelligent so he
has this yearning to be friends with him. He thinks O'Brien would understand how he feels about life. The book takes
a turn one day when Julia slips Winston a note that says 'I love you.' This note completely rocks Winston's world. Of
course he's interested, he can't wait to get in touch with her but it's very hard for them to say two words to each
other in private with all these spies and cameras everywhere. Finally they do manage to get out to the country and
they start this mad love affair. The love affair makes them both very happy. It's dangerous because they could be
killed or sent to labor camps if they get caught but that makes it more exciting. At last Winston has someone who
understands him and who hates the party as much as he does. But Winston needs to go that extra step. He's
rebelling against the party privately by having the secret affair. (8)Now he wants to go to the next level and be an
active rebel against the government. He gets his chance one day when O'Brien invites him to his apartment to look
at something work related. Winston takes a leap of faith and guesses that O'brien must be part of the rebellion

because no one invites people over to their home. It just isn't done. So he and Julia go to O'Brien's house and
confess that they want to be rebels and O'Brien says 'yes, I am a rebel too. And we all read this book that explains
why things are the way they are.' Winston reads the book and he's blown away by it. Unfortunately right after he
reads it, (9)the thought police bust in and arrest him and Julia and carry them off to the ministry of love to torture
them. So O'Brien wasn't a rebel after all, he just wanted to catch Winston. (10)In the ministry of love they torture
Winston in all sorts of horrible ways. They break his bones and his teeth, they use electric shock, they starve him and
on and on. He tells them everything he knows. He confesses to everything they ask him and he tells them everything
he knows about Julia. After torturing him over and over O'Brien finally tells Winston what it is that the government
really wants. What they want is to have total power over the minds of people like Winston. They want people like
Winston to say two plus two equals five and really believe it, not just say it to avoid the beating. For the government
it's purely an exercise in power. They're not trying to control his mind for some other purpose; they just want to
exercise total power over people's minds. They finally do break Winston completely in this place called room 101,
where they do whatever it is you're most afraid of. They lock his face into a cage and threaten to let these rats eat
their way through his face. He has a phobia of rats so he loses it and says 'Do it to Julia, not me' which is a complete
betrayal of what's most important to him. (11)The government has taken his last shred of integrity. After he does
that, they let him and Julia go. The thought police don't care about them anymore. The two of them meet on the
outside but they can't love each other anymore. Winston and Julia are basically broken people after they get out.
Winston has changed to the point that he doesn't even want to think about anything that might be rebellious. He
just sits in a cafe listening to the news and smiling. The last words of the novel are 'he loved big brother.' So one of
the points the book makes is that a human being can be broken down completely until they believe whatever you
tell them, even if it's that two plus two equals five. At the same time the book has a positive message which is that
it's really hard to get inside someone's head to that extent. The government has to go to incredible lengths to
brainwash Winston successfully.