1984

Comparative · 2027 & 2028 Leaving Cert

George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four is one of the most quotable, exam-friendly comparative texts you can study. Here is the plot, the people and the world you need to hold in your head before you start writing about modes.

The story follows Winston Smith, a low-ranking member of the Party in a country called Oceania, one of three superstates permanently at war. Winston works at the Ministry of Truth, where his job is to rewrite old newspapers and records so that history always agrees with whatever the Party is saying today. Every wall carries the same poster: Big Brother is watching you. Telescreens watch and listen in every room, and the Thought Police arrest people for the crime of thinking the wrong thing. Winston knows the whole system is built on lies, and that knowledge is slowly killing him.

Two relationships drive the plot. Winston falls in love with Julia, a younger woman who hates the Party but rebels for pleasure and survival rather than ideas. Together they rent a shabby room above a junk shop and convince themselves they are safe. Winston also fixes on O’Brien, a powerful Inner Party member he believes is a secret rebel. O’Brien turns out to be the trap. Winston and Julia are arrested, separated, and Winston is broken through torture and interrogation, ending in Room 101, where he is forced to face the one thing he fears most. By the close, the Party has won completely: it has not just defeated Winston, it has reached inside him and changed what he believes and even what he loves.

For the exam, the names you must be able to use with confidence are Winston Smith (the doomed individual), Julia (private rebellion), O’Brien (the face of Party power), Big Brother (the all-seeing figurehead nobody ever meets), the Party and its world of Oceania, the Thought Police, and Room 101. Keep the shape of the story clear, because in the Comparative you are always asked to compare it against your other texts through the lens of a mode.

Study 1984

Start with Cultural Context, the mode that fits this novel best. The page below walks you through Orwell’s world, the state, surveillance, language and truth, and how to turn it into comparison points and exam answers.