There is a shortage of razor blades. We learn there is always continuous shortage of some necessity the Party cannot provide. I believe this to be intentional. The shortage of supplies widens the gap between the privileged and the ones who are not. It extends the power in which the upper class holds.

Introduction of Syme, an intelligent, orthodoxed man who spends his days producing the dictionary. We learn he destroys words, rather than creates them. The reduction in vocabulary achieves the purpose of narrowing range of thought. If an idea cannot but communicate, how will it be acted upon. If there is no term for thought-crime, how would thought-crime happen? Language is the concept. If there is no way to describe the idea, there is no idea. In fact, this is symmetrical to Winston’s retaliation. He protests in privacy, creating his personal journal that no one else can see. What good does this do? Nothing. If the party can control language, communication, there is no chance of revolution. This is another form of Reality control

Parson’s kid actually ratted out a random guy. The state over humanity! Such Indoctrination of Children Parson also bought her a toy to listen through a keyhole. Man the dramatic irony is crazy.

There was a gut feeling in Winston about how things now should not be the natural way of things. Even when there is no memory of past, even when the party has complete control over the reality — there will always be an ancestral memory of what is right and what is not. In fact, when I read this, I used this as my guiding principle to believe Winston will find his fellow rebellions and overthrow the Party. Hope in 1984

Contrarily, his belief may only exist due to the recency of INGSOC’s rule. In a century, the memory of past generations will be forgotten. The Party’s rule and reality control will have manipulated the standards, even the intuitive standard of Winston’s “ancestral memory”. At that point, will the oppressed still feel unsatisfied? If a Party can manipulate reality of standards, will there ever be a revolution? Revolutions nowadays always occur because of the longing for better times. But what if those better times are never in memory? What if the very idea of having a full stomach did not exist? When the Party’s rule extends so far as to manipulate the level of content of the people, it becomes cruelly inhumane. Orwell warns the people of this in the novel.

The chocolate ration is absurd. There is doublethink yet again. The absurdity of believing an idea that was untrue a day ago demonstrates Orwell’s satirical intent.