The Glass Paperweight

The glass paperweight Winston purchases from Mr Charrington’s second-hand store is representative of the past. It’s artistic design and the skills required to create the object no longer exist in society due to the Party having devalued items of beauty for their own sake. The fragment of coral embedded in the transparent glass also represents the delicacy of human relationships. To Winston, it is metaphoric of the rented room, the coral inside being himself and Julia, and for a time they can escape into the paperweight world and be different people, frozen in time. It also symbolises the connection between Winston and Julia which is ultimately destroyed by O’Brien’s torture as callously as the paperweight is smashed by the Thought Police when the pair are discovered in the rented room.

The Paperweight Quotes

The thing was doubly attractive because of its apparent uselessness, though he could guess that it must once have been intended as a paperweight. Part 1 Chapter 8

It was as though the surface of the glass had been the arch of the sky, enclosing a tiny world with its atmosphere complete. He had the feeling that he could get inside it, and that in fact he was inside it… Part 2 chapter 4

The paperweight was the room he was in, and the coral was Julia’s life and his own, fixed in a sort of eternity at the heart of the crystal, frozen in time. Part 2 Chapter 4

‘Do you realize that the past, starting from yesterday, has been actually abolished? If it survives anywhere, it’s in a few solid objects with no words attached to them, like that lump of glass there.’ (Winston to Julia) Part 2 Chapter 5

St Clement’s Church Picture and Rhyme

The picture of St. Clement’s Church in the rented room above Mr Charrington’s shop is another representation of the lost past. It also represents the fading of memories through Mr Charrington and Julia only being able to remember fragments of a rhyme associated with the church, while O’Brien is able to complete only a stanza. The rhyme haunts Winston throughout the novel and compels him to identify its missing verses. Ironically, both the picture and rhyme foreshadow Winston’s fate; it is behind the picture that the telescreen that catches Winston in thoughtcrime is located, while the final verse of the rhyme, ‘Here comes the chopper to chop off your head!’, symbolises Winston’s torture at the end of the novel.

St Clement’s Church Picture and Rhyme Quotes

Winston wondered vaguely to what century the church belonged. It was always difficult to determine the age of a London building. Anything large and impressive … was automatically claimed as having been built since the Revolution … Part 1 Chapter 8

‘…oranges and lemons, say the bells of St. Clement’s.’ That was a rhyme we had when I was a little boy. How it goes on I don’t remember, but I do know it ended up, ‘Here comes a candle to light you to bed, Here comes a chopper to chop off your head.’ (Mr Charrington) Part 1 Chapter 8

The Singing Prole Woman

The woman outside Winston’s rented room whom he hears singing while she hangs out laundry represents Winston’s hope that the proles will eventually recognise their oppressive situation and revolt against the Party. Her singing for singing’s sake, and which is likened to the bird Winston hears in the country clearing where he meets with Julia, represents liberty and freedom of expression, something Winston lacks, being under constant surveillance. Finally, the woman also represents fertility and the birthing of future generations, lending future hope for a revolution.

The Singing Prole Woman Quotes

One had the feeling that she would have been perfectly content, if the June evening had been endless and the supply of clothes inexhaustible, to remain there for a thousand years, pegging out diapers and singing rubbish. (singing prole lady) Part 2 Chapter 4

The birds sang, the proles sang. The Party did not sing. Part 2 Chapter 10

The Place Where There Is No Darkness

This symbol recurs through the novel with Winston first having dreamed of meeting with O’Brien in ‘the place where there is no darkness’ and which then, with growing certainty, he comes to believe will come true. When Winston does eventually meet O’Brien in the place of darkness, it is not the metaphoric place of eternal sunshine or restored humanity that he imagined but rather a windowless prison cell in which the lights are never turned out and there is endless torture. Winston approaches the utopic idea of a place without darkness in a fatalist manner, having already resigned himself to the fate that he will soon be dead. In doing so, Winston rashly places his trust in O’Brien despite his own self-doubts that O’Brien may not be the Party dissenter he imagined.

The Place Where There Is No Darkness Quotes

We shall meet in the place where there is no darkness. Part 1 Chapter 2

‘We shall meet… In the place where there is no darkness…’ (O’Brien) Part 2 Chapter 8

It was the place with no darkness: he saw now why O’Brien had seemed to recognize the allusion. In the Ministry of Love there were no windows. Part 3 Chapter 1