1984, Chapter 2 quiz

Questions and answers

1. 1

   Question 1. How many fingers does O'Brien hold up while demanding Winston see a different number?

   • Three
   • Correct answer: Four
   • Five
   • Six

   O'Brien holds up four fingers and demands that Winston see five, using electric torture to enforce the demand.

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2. 2

   Question 2. What does O'Brien do when Winston cries out that the photograph of Jones, Aaronson and Rutherford exists?

   • He tears it in half and hands Winston one piece to keep as a warning
   • He admits the photograph is genuine but says the three men were guilty of other crimes
   • Correct answer: He drops it into a memory hole, calls it ashes, and says it never existed
   • He pins it above the dial and turns the pain up until Winston agrees it is a forgery

   O'Brien lifts the grating of the memory hole and the slip of paper whirls away in a flash of flame. 'Ashes,' he says. 'Not even identifiable ashes. Dust. It does not exist. It never existed.' When Winston insists they both remember it, O'Brien answers 'I do not remember it.' Winston recognizes that as doublethink.

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3. 3

   Question 3. Why is the Party unsatisfied with merely killing its enemies?

   • The Party is interested only in overt acts, not in secret thoughts
   • Killing is too expensive for the state
   • Big Brother forbids execution
   • Correct answer: Dead enemies become martyrs who inspire future rebellion

   O'Brien explains that earlier regimes like the Inquisition created martyrs. The Party insists on genuine conversion so that no defiant memory survives.

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4. 4

   Question 4. What does O'Brien compare the Party's process of re-education to?

   • Correct answer: A religious conversion
   • A university education
   • A military drill
   • A surgical operation

   O'Brien frames the process as analogous to religious conversion—the heretic must be genuinely reborn in Party orthodoxy, not merely forced into outward compliance.

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5. 5

   Question 5. When Winston asks whether Big Brother exists in the same way that he himself exists, what does O'Brien answer?

   • 'Nobody has ever seen him'
   • 'He exists only on the posters'
   • 'He died years ago'
   • Correct answer: 'You do not exist'

   O'Brien first says Big Brother exists because the Party exists and he is its embodiment. When Winston presses whether he exists as Winston does, the answer is 'You do not exist'. Winston knows the arguments proving his own nonexistence are only a play on words, but he cannot answer them.

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6. 6

   Question 6. What psychological phenomenon does Winston display by developing feelings of love for O'Brien?

   • Projection
   • Correct answer: Stockholm syndrome
   • Dissociative amnesia
   • Cognitive dissonance

   Winston bonds emotionally with O'Brien because O'Brien controls both the infliction and cessation of pain, creating a trauma bond typical of captive-captor relationships.

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7. 7

   Question 7. What does O'Brien claim about the nature of reality?

   • Reality is an illusion created by Big Brother's technology
   • Reality is objective and external, existing in its own right outside the Party
   • Correct answer: Reality exists only in the human mind, and the Party controls the mind
   • Reality is determined by scientific consensus

   O'Brien argues that there is no objective external reality—only what the mind perceives. Since the Party controls all minds, it controls reality itself.

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8. 8

   Question 8. What earlier act of Winston's does the four-fingers scene directly contradict?

   • Correct answer: His diary entry that freedom means saying two plus two make four
   • His conversation with the prole woman
   • His reading of Goldstein's book
   • His purchase of the paperweight

   Before holding up four fingers, O'Brien reminds Winston of writing in his diary, "Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four." The torture that follows attacks the foundation of that belief.

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9. 9

   Question 9. What does O'Brien tell Winston when he asks whether the Brotherhood exists?

   • That the Brotherhood was crushed on the night of Winston's own arrest
   • That Goldstein has been dead for years and the Brotherhood died with him
   • Correct answer: That Winston will never know, even if he is freed and lives to be ninety
   • That the Brotherhood is real and O'Brien has led it all along

   'That, Winston, you will never know.' Even if the Party chooses to free him and he lives to be ninety, he will never learn whether the answer is yes or no; as long as he lives it will be an unsolved riddle in his mind.

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10. 10

    Question 10. How does O'Brien say the Party differs from the Nazis and Soviet Communists?

    • Correct answer: It makes its confessions true and converts the heretic, so it leaves no martyrs behind
    • It is more merciful to its enemies than either of them was
    • It controls a far larger territory than either regime ever held
    • It copies the Russians by extorting obviously untrue confessions before public trial

    O'Brien says the Nazis and the Russians knew one must not make martyrs, yet their victims' confessions were obviously extorted and untrue, so the dead rose up as martyrs anyway. "All the confessions that are uttered here are true. We make them true."

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11. 11

    Question 11. What does O'Brien tell Winston when Winston asks what has been done with Julia?

    • She held out under questioning and still refuses to confess
    • She escaped arrest and is now hiding among the proles
    • She was shot on the night that the two of them were arrested
    • Correct answer: She betrayed him immediately and was completely converted

    O'Brien smiles and answers, "She betrayed you, Winston. Immediately—unreservedly." Everything rebellious has been burned out of her: "It was a perfect conversion, a textbook case."

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12. 12

    Question 12. What does O'Brien say the Party will do to Winston before destroying him?

    • Allow him to write a final confession
    • Correct answer: Squeeze him empty and fill him with the Party's identity
    • Send him to a labor camp for rehabilitation
    • Give him a fair trial before the people

    O'Brien describes the process as squeezing Winston empty of his individual self and filling him with Party orthodoxy, so that his conversion is total and genuine.

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13. 13

    Question 13. Which place does Winston finally force himself to ask O'Brien about at the end of the session?

    • The Golden Country
    • The Ministry of Truth
    • Correct answer: Room 101
    • Victory Square

    Winston's last question bursts out of him: "What is in Room 101?" O'Brien answers drily, "You know what is in Room 101, Winston. Everyone knows what is in Room 101."

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