AP Lit & Comp  1984 Summative Assignment  

David Duncan​ & ​Danielle Lo  

1. Copy and paste the prompt your group developed. It should model the language of a 
typical AP Open Q. 

In the novel ​1984​ by George Orwell, Winston Smith frequently struggles with remembering the past. Memory - or lack 
of it - alters his perception of both the past and the present. Write a well-developed essay in which you analyze 
Winston’s understanding of the past and how it impacts his decisions and discuss how his memory, or lack thereof, 
contributes to the meaning of the work as a whole. 
 
2. Out of all the annotations you created while you read, select several from each Part of 
the novel which best illustrate Orwell’s development of your topic. Be sure to select the 
instances which will BEST help you connect/support/prove your thematic statement. 

Claim about Your  Concrete Details from the Novel  Analysis 

Topic:  --​Make it clear where readers can best see  --​Connect the evidence to your theme: How 
--What is your answer to  Orwell developing your topic in the novel  does the excerpt support the statement? 
EQ1 of your Open Q?  Include proper in-text citation. 

Winston’s  1.​ At the beginning of the novel,  The party benefits from this 
dedication to  Winston struggles to remember  suppression. Without memories 
memory and truth  his childhood then realizes  of the past, Winston has no 
propels him to  “nothing remains” of it (Orwell  benchmark to compare his past 
rebel against the  3).  quality of life to his current. 
Ingsoc, but once    Ingsoc’s oppression is the new 
he loses his grasp    normal, but to them it is just 
over his memory,  normal. Orwell is demonstrating 
he falls victim to  that a lack of concise memories 
the ways of the  make us vulnerable to the lies of 
Party.  our oppressors. ​By obstructing 
the past, the Party has full 
control over its people, molding 
them to their will. 

2. ​As Winston begins to write in  Orwell is very early on 

his diary his short term memory  establishing a relationship 
becomes stronger and a “totally  between defiance and health. A 
different memory [becomes]  sort of symbiotic relationship is 
clarified.” (Orwell 9).  formed. As Winston begins to 
  rebel, he gains his memory 
  which reinforces his rebellious 
behavior. 

3. ​Hate Week starts with  Goldstein’s existence as a whole 

Emmanuel Goldstein’s  fundamentally sets the stage for 
persecution, but Winston  the entirety of the Party’s 
remarks that “nobody quite  dominating control over its 
remembered” how long ago it  people. By having the power to 
had been (Orwell 12).  skew the people’s perceptions of 
time and events, the Party is able 
to redirect and manufacture all 
hate towards Emmanuel 
Goldstein. Orwell demonstrates 
the control the Party can hold 
over its people because of its 
ability to control their emotion. 
Though Winston finds himself 
angry at Big Brother, his anger 
also immediately switches to 
Goldstein. The Party wields 
control over the individual by 
rendering incapable of forming 
individual thought, reducing 
them to mindless allegiance to 
what is handed to them, Orwell’s 
warning against the dissolution 
of individuality. 

4. ​Winston continues to write in  As Winston continues his journey 

his diary and remembers a  into delinquency, his memory 
dream with his mysterious  becomes stronger. Dates that 
co-worker O’Brien. At first he  usually escape his grasp become 
struggles to remember how long  obtainable. Orwell is showing 
ago he had the dream, but  that once we start thinking for 
quickly places it seven years ago.  ourselves we become stronger. 
(Orwell 25).  And that exactly is what the 
  Party fears so much. An 
  individual mind running rampant 
cannot be controlled, cannot be 
deceived against its will, cannot 
be conformed. Only when the 
individual relinquishes their mind 
do they fall under the control of 
the Party. 

5. ​While at a bar, Winston  Winston’s resolve for truth is 

notices other patrons that  highlighted in this scene. His 
celebrate the lie that Big Brother  dedication and correct idea of 
raised rations, when in reality the  past shields him from lies while 
rations were really lowered. He  the others who comply with the 
notes that they “swallowed [this  demands of Big Brother fall for 
lie] easily, with the stupidity of an  this deception. It is also 
animal” (Orwell 58).  important to note Orwell’s 
Simultaneously, Winston ponders  comparison of the patrons to 
if he was the only one to note  animals. He is implying that 
the falsified facade of the  proper memory is a integral to 
chocolate rations.  what makes us human—without 
  it we devolve into lesser versions 
of ourselves.  
 
Winston’s questioning of his 
peers and his own self begins his 
slow descent into losing his mind 
to the Party. By questioning his 
own reality, Winston has already 
begun relinquishing his power 
over his thoughts to the Party, as 
his rational processing 
disintegrates under the rigid 
structure of the Party that 
opposes his every thought and 
action. 

6. ​Winston’s conversation with  Ultimately, Winston realizes that 

the old prole bears no fruition  the man faces the same 
despite Winston’s persistent  predicament as he— the past 
attempts to edge out a word of  ceased to exist the moment one 
the political climate of before the  let it slip away. Without those 
Revolution. Winston ultimately  memories, there would no 
realizes that “survivors of the  longer be any standard to be 
ancient world were incapable of  compared to. It is then that 
comparing one age with  Winston truly realizes that even 
another” (Orwell 95).  though he and the old prole had 
both lived in a time before the 
Party, the Party had manipulated 
their memories into no more 
than a seemingly fuzzy mirage. 
With their minds distracted by 
the inconsequential details and 
day-to-day laboring, they cease 
to recognize that they are 
willingly walking to their own 
demise. The Party had not 
stripped them away of their 
memories, but created the 
distraction that they themselves 
removed these memories.  
 
Without the ability to control 
their own thoughts, the people 
 of Ingsoc mindlessly labor under 
the control of the Party, because 
they know nothing but the party. 
Without their memories, the 
people lose their freedom, unable 
to resist against the oppression 
that they do not even realize they 
are held under. 

7. ​Winston continues to  As Winston becomes more 

document his memories  entrenched in his scandalous 
including a incident with a  relationship with Julia and overall 
prostitute over three years ago.  deviant behavior, his memory 
  grows stronger. Winston starts 
  the novel struggling to 
remember events from his day to 
day life, to now vividly recalling 
events from years prior.  

8. ​Winston finds solace within  The room itself, as a physical 

the room above Mr.  location, holds testament to 
Charrington’s shop, as a “pocket  Winston’s perception of the 
of the past” (Orwell 153). The  Party’s lies and deceptions. In his 
room, with its mahogany  attempt to retain his grip on his 
furniture, its significance as a  knowledge and his past, the 
meeting place with Julia, and its  room provides a physical anchor, 
shelter from the probing eyes of  a frequent reminder that he has 
the Party, all culminate in  not descended into insanity, a 
Winston’s grip on his humanity,  confirmation that his mind is still 
his past, and his independence.  autonomous. Orwell uses the 
room as a vehicle of resistance 
against the oppressive Party. A 
consistent and restored mind is 
what keeps Winston grounded, 
something that Orwell remarks 
upon to be the piece that keeps 
Winston from being another 
mindless machine to fulfill the 
Party’s whims and wishes. 

9. ​Winston hits a sort of memory  This instance sort of represents 

peak right before meeting with  the time in which Winston is 
O’Brien. He explains to Julia the  most intuned with his past. This 
nature of his childhood and even  passage’s position in the text is 
a specific story about how he  also very important. He recounts 
stole chocolate rations (Orwell  this story in the middle of his 
161).  affair with Julia, a time marked 
  rampant deviation. Additionally 
  his childhood was something 
that he considered to be lost and 
even says “nothing remains” of 
it, so Orwell is clearing 
establishing a correlation 
between rebellion and control 
over memory. As Winston grows 
more disillusioned with the state, 
he regains his memory, an aspect 
of ourselves that is important to 
our autonomy. 

10.​ O’Brien’s attempts to  O’Brien tells Winston that the 

convince Winston that his  only reality is the reality that the 
memories are but delusions sinks  Party forms— a phenomenon 
Winston into a forceful  we see occur throughout the 
conversion of his memories.  novel. O’Brien breaks down 
Winston’s barrier between truth 
and lies brick by brick. O’Brien 
directly flushes out Winston’s 
mind, purging it of its 
remembrance of the past.  
 
By losing his knowledge of the 
past, Winston loses the 
individuality of himself, the 
autonomy, and what made him 
human. Winston’s knowledge 
become repopulated with what 
O’Brien provides him. Orwell 
undeniably establishes the idea 
that Winston had ultimately lost 
all control over his mind, 
relinquished to the Party. 
Winston has become one of the 
unquestioning pawns of the 
Party, the very thing he strove to 
avoid. He thinks only what the 
Party wants him to think. 

11. ​After Winston is released  By this point the party has taken 
from the Ministry of Love,  over Winston and the man we 
broken and brainwashed, his  knew no longer exists. Up until 
perception of the past is  this point Winston had grasp of 
completely transformed. Sitting  what was true and what wasn’t. 
in the Chestnut Tree Café, an  He could see through the 
 “uncalled” memory “float[s] into  government's lies and 
his mind” (Orwell 295). He  doublethinks​, but know he has 
remembers a time from his  turned his back on truth and 
childhood where he played  embraced Big Brother. Orwell 
Snakes and Ladders with his  goes to great lengths throughout 
sister and mother. Although it  Winston’s journey to establish 
was a “happy” time he pushes it  how Winston’s grasp of the past 
out of his mind and deems it a  has protected him, yet now that 
“false memory.” (Orwell 296).  he has lost it he is ready to love 
  Big Brother. 

**To add rows to this chart, right click (use two fingers on a Chromebook). Then select “Insert row below.” Repeat for 
as many rows as you need. 
 
3. Theme Statement: Remember that a theme statement is a 1-2 sentence interpretation of 
the “work as a whole.” Review the qualities of a good theme statement on your ​Brave 
New World​ handout, or see rubric on next page. 

In ​1984, G
​ eorge Orwell warns the reader about the dangers of totalitarian governments: once they accumulate 
enough power—whether it stems from technology, control over memory, or a shift in morals— they will strip us of 
our freedom, our autonomy, our minds, and eventually our humanity.  

 
***Note: We both have different books, so there are mild discrepancies in the page 
numbers, but the events should still all be ordered sequentially. 
 
 
RUBRIC 

Theme Statement 
  1  2  3  4  5  6 
Simply  Summarizes with  Identifies but may  Identifies and  Presents author’s  Presents author’s 
summarizes or  hints of an  not develop a  presents the  thoughts on  ideas in an 
focuses on plot;  undeveloped  significant topic in  author’s ideas on  narrow,  original treatment 
Authorial  no connection to  topic; no  the work; may be  a significant topic;  well-chosen topic;  of topic with a 
Intent &  a universal truth  connection to a  no connection to  these ideas apply  connects widely  meaningful 
Universality  universal truth  a universal truth  universally.  to a universal  connection to a 
truth  universal truth 

No established  Statement is not  Statement is  Arguable, but  Arguable and  Arguable, unique, 
Arguability  argument  arguable  slightly arguable,  obvious  complex  and complex 
but ineffective 
 Simple words  Language is  Language is  Wording mostly  Wording conveys  Wording is 
used incorrectly.  simply functional  functional with  correct, and  ideas correctly  grammatically 
The theme is not  and contains  some errors;  language is  and effectively;  correct, precise, 
expressed in a  some errors.  moments of  mostly effective.  theme statement  and sophisticated; 
Syntax &  complete  Theme statement  sparkle. Theme  Theme statement  is expressed in 1-2  theme statement 
Language  sentence  may not be a  statement is  is conveyed in 1-2  sophisticated  is expressed in 1-2 
complete  conveyed in 1-2  clear sentences  sentences  well-controlled 
sentence, or it  mostly clear  sentences 
may be 3 or more  sentences 
sentences 

Does not mention  May not mention  May mention  Provides author’s  Correctly  Fluidly and 
the author/text  the author or text  author and/or  first and last  mentions author’s  correctly 
Indicates  title  title, with some  name & text title  name & text title  mentions author 
Author & Text  formatting errors  & a properly 
formatted text 

Support & Analysis of Annotation Topic  

  1  2  3  4  5  6 
Very little or no  Attempts to trace  Traces the  Traces the topic  Carefully traces  Insightfully traces 
tracing of the  the development  development of  throughout the  the topic  the topic 
development of  of the topic in the  the topic in the  novel; covers a  throughout the  throughout the 
the topic in the  novel; may draw  novel; may  minimum of  entirety of the  entirety of the 
novel  theme from only  neglect or omit  events which  novel.  novel; thorough 
  one or two  prominent  connect.    examination. 
  examples  instances.        
Support & 
           
Analysis    Links between         
Links between  evidence and  Inconsistently  Links evidence  Clearly links  Clearly, 
evidence and  claims are unclear  links evidence and  and  evidence and  consistently, and 
claims are absent  interpretation  interpretation;  interpretation  insightfully links 
some interpretive  evidence and 
work left to the  interpretation 
reader