1984, Chapter 2 quiz

Questions and answers

1. 1

   Question 1. Why does Mrs. Parsons come to Winston's door in Part One, Chapter 2?

   • To deliver a message from Tom Parsons
   • To borrow Victory Coffee from him
   • Correct answer: To ask him to unclog her kitchen sink
   • To warn him about a telescreen malfunction

   Mrs. Parsons appears at Winston's door looking haggard and asks for help because her kitchen sink is clogged and her husband Tom is not home.

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2. 2

   Question 2. What youth organization do the Parsons children belong to?

   • The Junior Anti-Sex League
   • Correct answer: The Spies
   • The Thought Police Cadets
   • The Youth League

   The children wear the uniform of the Spies, the Party's youth organization for those not yet old enough to join the Youth League.

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3. 3

   Question 3. What do the Parsons children accuse Winston of being?

   • An enemy of Big Brother
   • A member of the Brotherhood
   • A rebel inside Victory Mansions
   • Correct answer: A traitor and thought-criminal

   The boy pops up with a toy pistol and yells "You're a traitor!" and "You're a thought-criminal!" while his sister imitates his every movement.

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4. 4

   Question 4. Why are the Parsons children upset, according to their mother?

   • Correct answer: They cannot attend a public hanging of Eurasian prisoners
   • They were told they are too young to join the Youth League
   • They were denied extra chocolate rations
   • Their father forgot to take them to the Two Minutes Hate

   Mrs. Parsons explains their behavior by saying they are disappointed at not being taken to see the hanging; Winston remembers that some Eurasian prisoners are to be hanged in the Park that evening.

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5. 5

   Question 5. What phrase does O'Brien speak in Winston's dream?

   • Freedom is slavery
   • Correct answer: We shall meet in the place where there is no darkness
   • The Brotherhood will prevail
   • Big Brother is watching you

   Winston recalls a dream in which O'Brien's voice said, "We shall meet in the place where there is no darkness," a phrase that lodges itself immovably in his mind.

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6. 6

   Question 6. What does Winston do so that he can tell whether anyone has moved his diary?

   • He lays a single hair across the page-ends of the book
   • He puts a tiny drop of fresh ink on the corner of the cover
   • He rests a twenty-five cent piece on top of the cover
   • Correct answer: He puts a grain of whitish dust on the corner of the cover

   Deciding that a hair across the page-ends would be too obvious, Winston deposits "an identifiable grain of whitish dust" on the corner of the cover, where it is bound to be shaken off if the book is moved.

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7. 7

   Question 7. What evidence does Winston have that O'Brien might be a secret dissident?

   • Correct answer: Nothing more than a single fleeting glance exchanged at a gathering
   • O'Brien was seen reading a forbidden book
   • O'Brien passed him a secret note at a rally
   • O'Brien once criticized Big Brother in a whisper

   Winston's hope that O'Brien shares his views rests on almost nothing: a single glance exchanged during the Two Minutes Hate. Even after "this morning's flash of the eyes" he cannot be sure whether O'Brien is a friend or an enemy.

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8. 8

   Question 8. How is Winston injured as he leaves the Parsons flat?

   • He trips over a hockey-stick lying on the living-room floor
   • Mrs. Parsons drags him back by the neck as he reaches the passage door
   • Correct answer: The Parsons boy fires a catapult at the back of his neck
   • The little girl jabs the back of his neck with a fragment of wood

   Winston has gone only a few steps down the passage when something hits the back of his neck "an agonizingly painful blow"; he turns to see Mrs. Parsons dragging her son back into the doorway as the boy pockets a catapult (slingshot).

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9. 9

   Question 9. Which of these events actually happened in this chapter?

   • True or False: Mrs. Parsons successfully disciplines her children and stops them from harassing Winston.

     Didn't happen

     Mrs. Parsons cannot control her children: as Winston leaves, her son fires his catapult at him, and Winston is struck by "the look of helpless fright on the woman's greyish face." Winston thinks she must lead a life of terror with such children.

   • True or False: Winston reflects that children in Oceania have been trained to spy on and denounce their own parents.

     Happened

     Winston reflects that organizations like the Spies turn children into "ungovernable little savages" who adore the Party, and that hardly a week passes without a newspaper story of some child hero who overheard a compromising remark and denounced its parents to the Thought Police.

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10. 10

    Question 10. When the Parsons boy yells "I'll vaporize you", what does it mean, in Oceania, to be vaporized?

    • To be heated, boiled, and converted into steam so that no solid residue of the body remains
    • Correct answer: To be arrested, executed, and erased from all records so no evidence of your existence remains
    • To be forgotten, ignored, and left unmentioned so that old acquaintances simply lose track of you
    • To be relocated, reassigned, and sent abroad so that no one at home can find you again

    Vaporization is the Party's ultimate punishment: the person is not only killed but completely erased from history, records, and memory, as though they never existed.

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11. 11

    Question 11. What does the word "invertebrate" mean as used to describe Mrs. Parsons when Winston asks her for a spanner?

    • Extremely aggressive and forceful
    • Thoughtful and carefully considered
    • Correct answer: Weak and spineless; lacking all firmness
    • Deliberately cruel and dismissive

    "Invertebrate" literally means having no backbone; here Orwell uses it figuratively for weakness. Asked for a spanner, Mrs. Parsons goes limp with helplessness: "I don't know, I'm sure."

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12. 12

    Question 12. What is "thoughtcrime" in Orwell's Oceania?

    • Correct answer: Holding unapproved or unorthodox thoughts that deviate from Party ideology
    • Neglecting official duties because one's attention has wandered from the assigned task
    • Planning an ordinary crime in advance while fully intending to carry the act out
    • Speaking unapproved or unorthodox opinions that deviate from permitted public speech

    Thoughtcrime is the act of having any thought that deviates from Party orthodoxy. It is considered the most fundamental crime in Oceania because the Party seeks to control not just behavior but thought itself.

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