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EMMANUEL GOLDSTEIN
[Winston began reading.]
Chapter 1.
IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH.
Throughout recorded time, and probably since the end of the Neolithic Age, there have been
three kinds of people in the world, the High, the Middle, and the Low. They have been
subdivided in many ways, they have borne countless different names, and their relative numbers,
as well as their attitude toward one another, have varied from age to age; but the essential
structure of society has never altered. Even after enormous upheavals and seemingly irrevocable
changes, the same pattern has always reasserted itself, just as a gyroscope will always return to
equilibrium, however far it is pushed one way or the other.
The aims of these groups are entirely irreconcilable—
Winston stopped reading, chiefly in order to appreciate the fact that he was reading, in comfort and
safety. He was alone: no telescreen, no ear at the keyhole, no nervous impulse to glance over his
shoulder or cover the page with his hand. The sweet summer air played against his cheek. From
somewhere far away there floated the faint shouts of children; in the room itself there was no sound
except the insect voice of the clock. He settled deeper into the armchair and put his feet up on the
fender. It was bliss, it was eternity. Suddenly, as one sometimes does with a book of which one
knows that one will ultimately read and reread every word, he opened it at a different place and
found himself at the third chapter. He went on reading:
Chapter 3.
WAR IS PEACE.
The splitting-up of the world into three great superstates was an event which could be and
indeed was foreseen before the middle of the twentieth century. With the absorption of Europe
by Russia and of the British Empire by the United States, two of the three existing powers,
Eurasia and Oceania, were already effectively in being. The third, Eastasia, only emerged as a
distinct unit after another decade of confused fighting. The frontiers between the three
superstates are in some places arbitrary, and in others they fluctuate according to the fortunes of
war, but in general they follow geographical lines. Eurasia comprises the whole of the northern
part of the European and Asiatic land-mass, from Portugal to the Bering Strait. Oceania
comprises the Americas, the Atlantic islands including the British Isles, Australasia, and the
southern portion of Africa. Eastasia, smaller than the others and with a less definite western
frontier, comprises China and the countries to the south of it, the Japanese islands and a large but
fluctuating portion of Manchuria, Mongolia, and Tibet.
In one combination or another, these three superstates are permanently at war, and have been