Orwell's 1984: how a cut becomes a rise
The short answer
In Orwell's 1984, the telescreen announces a chocolate ration cut from 30 grams to 20, a third gone, and the next day thanks Big Brother for raising it to 20. Winston Smith rewrites old records so the past agrees with the present: boots at 62 million pairs were 43% of a 145 million forecast, until he marks the forecast down to 57 million and the plan is 109% fulfilled. Once the record is changed, nothing shows the past was ever different.
Chapters and transcript
- 0:00
In Orwell's 1984, Winston's job is to rewrite old news to fit the new.
Winston Smith works at the Ministry of Truth, correcting old issues of The Times so that past statements agree with what has happened since.
- 0:13
The telescreen announces: the chocolate ration will be cut from 30 grams to 20.
In chapter 2 the telescreen follows news of a victory with the announcement that from next week the chocolate ration will be reduced from thirty grammes to twenty.
- 0:21
That is 10 grams of 30: a third of the ration gone.
Ten grams out of thirty is a cut of a third, 33%, computed in the film.
- 0:29
The next day, it thanks Big Brother for raising the ration to 20 grams.
In chapter 5 the telescreen reports demonstrations thanking Big Brother for raising the ration to twenty grammes a week, a day after the cut was announced.
- 0:35
People believe it. Winston wonders if he alone remembers 30.
The people around him accept it, some eagerly; Winston wonders whether he is the only one who remembers that the ration was thirty grammes last week.
- 0:41
In February, the Ministry of Plenty had pledged no cut to the ration in 1984.
In chapter 4 Winston finds that in February the Ministry of Plenty had issued a pledge that there would be no reduction of the chocolate ration during 1984.
- 0:49
Winston replaces the pledge with a warning that a cut may come in April.
His correction substitutes for the promise a warning that it would probably be necessary to reduce the ration some time in April.
- 0:56
The original goes down the memory hole, to be burned.
The original message and his notes go into the memory hole, where they are burned.
- 1:03
The Ministry had forecast 145 million pairs of boots for the quarter.
In the same chapter, the Ministry of Plenty's forecast put the quarter's output of boots at 145 million pairs.
- 1:09
The output given was 62 million: 43% of the forecast.
The actual output was given as 62 million: 62 ÷ 145 is 43% of the forecast, computed in the film.
- 1:16
Winston rewrites the forecast to 57 million. Now the plan is overfulfilled: 109%.
Winston marks the forecast down to 57 million so that the usual claim of overfulfilment can be made: 62 ÷ 57 is 109%, computed in the film.
- 1:27
Neither figure was true. Perhaps half the population went barefoot.
Neither number, Winston reflects, was any nearer the truth; perhaps no boots were made at all, while perhaps half the population of Oceania went barefoot.
- 1:33
Change the record, and the past always agrees with the present.
So it is with every recorded fact: once the record is corrected, no document survives to show that the past was ever different.
Sources
Every figure in the film comes from these. The animation is illustrative.
- George Orwell, Nineteen Eighty-Four, Part One: chapter 2 (the ration cut from thirty grammes to twenty), chapter 4 (the February pledge, the memory hole, boots forecast at 145 million against 62 million, marked down to 57 million) and chapter 5 (the ration “raised” to twenty grammes). Paraphrased; the novel is still in copyright in some countries.