Winston Smith, a 39-year-old Party member, returns home to his flat in Victory Mansions in London (now Airstrip One, part of Oceania). The dystopian world is dominated by Big Brother and the Party, with omnipresent telescreens that monitor citizens constantly. Winston observes the three Party slogans: "WAR IS PEACE, FREEDOM IS SLAVERY, IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH."

In his flat, Winston takes advantage of a blind spot from the telescreen and begins writing in a diary - an act of rebellion that could result in death or 25 years in a forced-labour camp. He writes about a war film showing the brutal killing of refugees, revealing the Party's desensitization to violence.

At the Ministry of Truth (where Winston works), he attends the Two Minutes Hate, a daily ritual where Party members direct rage at Emmanuel Goldstein, the Party's enemy. During the Hate, Winston notices:
- A dark-haired girl from the Fiction Department who makes him uneasy
- O'Brien, an Inner Party member whom Winston suspects may be secretly against the Party

During an intense moment of the Hate, Winston believes he and O'Brien exchange a meaningful look of mutual understanding and rebellion.

Back home, Winston writes "DOWN WITH BIG BROTHER" repeatedly in his diary, realizing he has committed "thoughtcrime" - the ultimate crime against the Party. He knows the Thought Police will eventually catch him. A knock at his door fills him with terror.

The knock at Winston's door turns out to be Mrs. Parsons, his neighbor, asking him to fix her blocked kitchen sink. Winston meets the Parsons family, who represent the ideal Party citizens:

Tom Parsons: Winston's coworker at the Ministry of Truth - a loyal, stupid Party member who enthusiastically participates in all Party activities. He's described as one of the "unquestioning devoted drudges" on whom the Party depends even more than the Thought Police.

The Parsons Children: A frightening 9-year-old boy and his 7-year-old sister, both members of the Spies youth organization. They act like "tiger cubs which will soon grow up into man-eaters," attacking Winston and calling him a traitor and thought-criminal. They're angry they can't attend that evening's public hanging of Eurasian prisoners. As Winston leaves, the boy shoots him painfully in the neck with a catapult. Mrs. Parsons lives in terror of her own children, who will likely denounce her to the Thought Police when they're older.

Back in his flat, Winston reflects on how the Party systematically transforms children into savage loyalists who spy on and betray their own parents. He thinks again of O'Brien and a dream from seven years ago where someone (he believes it was O'Brien) said: "We shall meet in the place where there is no darkness."

The telescreen announces a "victory" at the Malabar front but also announces the chocolate ration will be reduced. Winston writes a message to the future in his diary, declaring "Thoughtcrime IS death." He carefully hides the diary and sets a dust trap to detect if anyone has moved it.

Winston wakes from a dream about his mother and younger sister, who disappeared in one of the purges when he was 10 or 11. In the dream, they are sinking beneath him in dark water, sacrificing themselves so he could live. He realizes that genuine tragedy and love existed in the past but are no longer possible in the present - "Today there were fear, hatred, and pain, but no dignity of emotion, no deep or complex sorrows."

His dream shifts to the "Golden Country" - a peaceful pastoral landscape he often dreams of. The dark-haired girl from his workplace appears and tears off her clothes in a gesture of defiance that seems to "annihilate a whole culture." Winston wakes with the word "Shakespeare" on his lips.

He participates in the mandatory "Physical Jerks" (morning exercises broadcast via telescreen). During the exercise, he reflects on:

Memory and History: Winston struggles to remember his childhood. The Party constantly rewrites history, erasing and altering the past. Even the names of countries have changed (England is now "Airstrip One").

Perpetual War: Winston can't remember a time of peace. The war alliances keep shifting - four years ago Oceania was allied with Eurasia and fighting Eastasia, but now it's reversed. The Party claims the current alliance has always existed.

Doublethink: The Party slogan states "Who controls the past controls the future: who controls the present controls the past." Winston contemplates the terrifying concept of "doublethink" - simultaneously believing contradictory things while being unconscious that you're doing so. Reality itself is controlled by the Party.

The telescreen instructor singles out Winston for not bending properly, demonstrating the constant surveillance and control over even the smallest physical actions.

This chapter provides a detailed look at Winston's job at the Ministry of Truth. He works in the Records Department, rewriting and falsifying historical records to align with the Party's current narrative.

Winston's Daily Work:
- He receives messages via pneumatic tubes instructing him to "rectify" (alter) past newspaper articles
- Examples of alterations: changing Big Brother's predictions to match what actually happened, adjusting economic forecasts to hide failures, rewriting promises (like the chocolate ration pledge)
- Original documents are destroyed in "memory holes" - chutes leading to furnaces
- The corrected versions replace the originals completely, erasing all evidence of changes

The Scale of Falsification:
The Ministry systematically alters ALL historical records - newspapers, books, photographs, films, even works of art and poetry. "All history was a palimpsest, scraped clean and reinscribed exactly as often as was necessary."

Winston's coworkers include:
- A woman who deletes names of "vaporized" people (her own husband was vaporized)
- Ampleforth: a poet who rewrites "ideologically offensive" poems
- Tillotson: likely working on competing versions of the same historical revision

The Major Task:
Winston must rewrite an article praising "Comrade Withers" who has been vaporized (become an "unperson"). Winston invents a fictional hero, "Comrade Ogilvy" - a perfect Party member who never existed. He creates an entire biography for this imaginary person, complete with a heroic death.

Winston reflects: "Comrade Ogilvy, who had never existed in the present, now existed in the past" - as real as any historical figure once the forgery is complete. Statistics and facts are pure fantasy; truth becomes whatever the Party says it is.

Winston has lunch in the Ministry canteen with Syme, a philologist working on the Newspeak Dictionary. Syme explains the true purpose of Newspeak:

Newspeak's Purpose:
- Destroying words, not creating them - reducing vocabulary to eliminate nuance
- "The whole aim of Newspeak is to narrow the range of thought"
- Eventually, thoughtcrime will be "literally impossible, because there will be no words in which to express it"
- Words like "bad" replaced with "ungood," "excellent" with "plusgood" or "doubleplusgood"
- By 2050, all literature (Chaucer, Shakespeare, Milton, Byron) will be rewritten in Newspeak, changing their meaning entirely
- "Orthodoxy means not thinking--not needing to think. Orthodoxy is unconsciousness."

Winston realizes Syme will be vaporized - he's too intelligent and speaks too plainly.

Parsons joins them, collecting subscriptions for Hate Week. He brags about his daughter following and reporting a stranger to the patrols for wearing unusual shoes (likely a foreigner).

The telescreen announces the chocolate ration has been raised to 20 grammes. Winston remembers it was just announced yesterday that it would be REDUCED to 20 grammes from 30. Everyone accepts this without question through doublethink.

The dark-haired girl watches Winston again, making him paranoid she's spying on him. Winston thinks about who will survive the purges: Parsons will survive (too stupid), Syme will be vaporized (too intelligent), he himself will be vaporized.

Winston writes in his diary about a sexual encounter with a prostitute three years ago. The Party's attitude toward sex is explained:

The Party and Sex:
- The Party aims to remove ALL pleasure from the sexual act
- Marriage between Party members requires committee approval; permission is refused if the couple appears physically attracted
- The only recognized purpose of marriage is to produce children for the Party
- Sex is to be viewed as "a slightly disgusting minor operation, like having an enema"
- The Junior Anti-Sex League advocates complete celibacy
- The Party tolerates prostitution among proles as an outlet for instincts, as long as it's "furtive and joyless"
- "The sexual act, successfully performed, was rebellion. Desire was thoughtcrime."

Winston's Marriage to Katharine:
- They separated 9-11 years ago after only 15 months together
- Katharine was rigidly orthodox - "not a thought in her head that was not a slogan"
- She was frigid and unresponsive, but insisted on regular intercourse for "our duty to the Party" to try to produce a child
- The Party does not permit divorce but encourages separation when there are no children

Winston finishes writing about the prostitute - she turned out to be old (at least 50), with thick paint on her face and no teeth. Despite being horrified, he went through with it. The writing doesn't provide the catharsis he hoped for.

Winston writes in his diary: "If there is hope, it lies in the proles."

The Proles (Proletariat):
- Make up 85% of Oceania's population
- Live in relative freedom - most don't even have telescreens
- The Party views them as "natural inferiors" who must be kept subjugated "like animals"
- Party slogan: "Proles and animals are free"
- They're allowed sexual freedom, gambling, and even religious worship if desired
- "Until they become conscious they will never rebel, and until after they have rebelled they cannot become conscious"
- Winston believes they could overthrow the Party if they realized their strength, but they only care about petty grievances (like saucepans), not larger issues

Impossibility of Knowing the Past:
Winston realizes life before the Revolution cannot be verified. Party history books claim the past was terrible oppression, but there's no way to prove or disprove it. He reads a children's textbook describing evil "capitalists" in ridiculous terms.

The Photograph - Concrete Proof of Falsification:
Years ago (1973), Winston briefly possessed undeniable proof of the Party's lies: a photograph showing three purged Party members (Jones, Aaronson, and Rutherford) at a Party function in New York on a date when they had confessed to being in Siberia betraying secrets to Eurasia. The photograph proved their confessions were lies.

Winston destroyed the photograph in a memory hole after 30 seconds. He reflects that even if it still existed, it might now be meaningless since alliances have shifted.

He writes: "Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else follows."

Winston skips the Community Centre and wanders through the prole districts - a dangerous act suggesting "ownlife" (individualism). He observes the swarming life of the proles, hoping to find truth about the past.

Quest for Truth:
Winston enters a pub and tries to question an old man (80+) about life before the Revolution. The conversation is frustrating - the old man only remembers trivial details (beer prices, top hats, arguments) but cannot compare life then and now in any meaningful way. "They remembered a million useless things...but all the relevant facts were outside the range of their vision."

Winston realizes: When memory fails and records are falsified, the Party's claims become unchallengeable truth.

Mr. Charrington's Junk Shop:
Winston finds himself back at the shop where he bought his diary. He meets the proprietor, Mr. Charrington (63, a widower). Winston buys a beautiful glass paperweight with coral inside - a useless but beautiful object from the past.

Mr. Charrington shows Winston a room upstairs with no telescreen - an old bedroom. Winston fantasizes about renting it, though he knows it's impossibly dangerous.

The old man teaches Winston a fragment of a nursery rhyme: "Oranges and lemons, say the bells of St Clement's, You owe me three farthings, say the bells of St Martin's..."

The Dark-Haired Girl:
As Winston leaves, he sees the dark-haired girl from the Fiction Department on the same obscure street. He's convinced she's spying on him - either for the Thought Police or as an amateur spy. He briefly considers killing her with a cobblestone but is too exhausted.

Back home, Winston contemplates the inevitable: arrest, torture, confession, and death. He thinks of O'Brien's words: "We shall meet in the place where there is no darkness."

Part One ends with the Party slogans: WAR IS PEACE / FREEDOM IS SLAVERY / IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH

The dark-haired girl slips Winston a note in a Ministry corridor. The note says: "I LOVE YOU."

Winston spends an agonizing week trying to arrange a meeting. After several near-misses in the canteen, they finally manage a brief conversation. The girl instructs Winston to meet her Sunday afternoon in the countryside - giving him precise directions with "military precision."

In Victory Square, amid a crowd watching Eurasian prisoners pass by, she whispers the meeting details. They briefly hold hands in the crowd before parting.

Winston meets the girl (Julia) in the Golden Country - the pastoral landscape from his dreams. She leads him to a hidden clearing in the woods.

Julia reveals she's had many affairs with Party members. Winston is thrilled by this corruption: "The more men you've had, the more I love you... I hate purity, I hate goodness!" Their sexual relationship is an act of rebellion against the Party.

Julia explains her strategy for survival: enthusiastically participate in Party activities (Junior Anti-Sex League, Hate Week preparations, etc.) as camouflage, so you can break the big rules. "If you kept the small rules, you could break the big ones."

They make love. Winston realizes "Their embrace had been a battle, the climax a victory. It was a blow struck against the Party. It was a political act."

Winston and Julia meet rarely - once more for sex (in a church belfry), but mostly brief encounters in crowded streets, conducting fragmented conversations she calls "talking by instalments."

Julia's Background:
- 26 years old, lives in a hostel, works on novel-writing machines in Fiction Department
- Has no memories before the early 1960s; no interest in Party doctrine or the past
- Was a model Party youth: Spies troop-leader, Youth League secretary, Junior Anti-Sex League member
- Worked in "Pornosec" producing pornography for proles
- Had her first affair at 16; has had many since

Julia's Philosophy:
She's not interested in overthrowing the Party - she thinks organized revolt is stupid and doomed to fail. Her rebellion is personal: break rules, enjoy life, avoid getting caught. She refuses to believe the Brotherhood exists.

Julia understands the Party's sexual puritanism: "When you make love you're using up energy; and afterwards you feel happy and don't give a damn for anything... All this marching up and down and cheering and waving flags is simply sex gone sour."

Winston tells Julia about almost pushing his wife Katharine off a cliff years ago. Julia says she would have done it. Winston reflects: "We are the dead." Julia: "We're not dead yet."

Winston rents the room above Mr. Charrington's junk shop as a secret hideaway for himself and Julia. The room has no telescreen, making it seem like a sanctuary from the Party's surveillance.

Mr. Charrington teaches Winston more of the "Oranges and Lemons" nursery rhyme. Winston buys the glass paperweight with coral inside - a beautiful, useless object from the past.

Julia brings real coffee, sugar, bread, and jam from the black market. They enjoy these luxuries and make love in the room. Winston feels they have created a private world.

Julia puts on makeup, making herself look more feminine and beautiful. This simple act of vanity is itself rebellious.

They discuss their inevitable capture and death, but Julia remains more optimistic about evading the Thought Police than Winston.

Winston and Julia continue meeting in the room above the shop. They discuss the Party's control and their limited rebellion.

Winston reads to Julia from a children's history book. They talk about the proles and whether there's any hope for the future.

Syme has disappeared (vaporized), just as Winston predicted. Nobody mentions it; his name simply vanishes from records.

Preparations for Hate Week intensify. The city is filled with posters, marching, and patriotic fervor.

Winston discusses with Julia whether they should separate to be safer, but neither wants to. They know their affair will end in capture, torture, and death, but they continue anyway.

O'Brien contacts Winston at work, inviting him to his apartment under the pretext of lending him the new Newspeak dictionary.

Winston and Julia visit O'Brien's luxurious Inner Party apartment. O'Brien reveals he is part of the Brotherhood (the underground resistance led by Goldstein) and that he has been watching Winston for years.

O'Brien administers an oath to Winston and Julia, asking if they're willing to:
- Commit murder, sabotage, treason
- Distribute addictive drugs, spread venereal diseases
- Throw acid in a child's face
- Give up their own lives

They agree to everything except being separated forever.

O'Brien promises to send Winston a copy of Goldstein's book, which explains the true nature of their society. He teaches them a toast: "To the past."

O'Brien warns them they will eventually be captured and executed, but says: "We shall meet in the place where there is no darkness."

During Hate Week, in the middle of a massive rally, the enemy suddenly changes. Oceania has always been at war with Eastasia (not Eurasia). All the posters and banners with the wrong enemy must be torn down and replaced immediately.

Winston and others work frantically to destroy and rewrite all records to reflect that Oceania has ALWAYS been at war with Eastasia and allied with Eurasia.

A messenger delivers Goldstein's book ("The Theory and Practice of Oligarchical Collectivism") to Winston at work.

Winston takes the book to the room above Mr. Charrington's shop and begins reading it aloud to Julia. The book explains:
- The three superstates (Oceania, Eurasia, Eastasia) maintain perpetual war to consume resources and keep populations in fear
- The war is not meant to be won, but to be continuous
- The Party's structure: Inner Party (2%), Outer Party (13%), Proles (85%)
- The Party's true goal is power for its own sake: "Power is not a means; it is an end"
- How doublethink and reality control work
- Why the proles are kept ignorant but relatively free

Julia falls asleep while Winston reads. They make love, then both fall asleep.

They wake to a voice from behind the picture on the wall: "You are the dead." It was a hidden telescreen all along.

The Thought Police smash into the room. Mr. Charrington appears - he's a Thought Police officer. Winston's glass paperweight is smashed.

Winston is imprisoned in the Ministry of Love - a windowless building with harsh fluorescent lights.

The cell is crowded with various prisoners. Winston observes:
- Ordinary criminals and political prisoners mixed together
- People disappear from the cell when their names are called (taken for interrogation/execution)
- Prisoners are terrified of "Room 101"

Winston sees several people he knows arrested:
- Ampleforth (the poet) - arrested for leaving the word "God" in a Kipling translation
- Parsons - denounced by his own 7-year-old daughter for saying "Down with Big Brother" in his sleep (he's proud of her)

Prisoners are beaten if they try to feed starving prisoners or comfort each other.

Winston is weak and filthy, growing a beard. He doesn't know how long he's been imprisoned.

O'Brien enters Winston's cell. Winston realizes O'Brien has always been with the Thought Police, never part of the Brotherhood. "They got me a long time ago," Winston says.

O'Brien takes charge of Winston's torture and "re-education." The torture is systematic and brutal, involving beatings, electroshock, and starvation.

O'Brien reveals:
- The Brotherhood may or may not exist - Winston will never know
- Goldstein's book was written by the Inner Party (possibly including O'Brien himself)
- O'Brien has been watching Winston for seven years
- The place where there is no darkness" is the Ministry of Love (always lit)

O'Brien's goal is not to extract a confession or punish, but to CURE Winston - to make him genuinely love Big Brother.

O'Brien tortures Winston while teaching him the Party's philosophy:
- "Freedom is slavery" - freedom is the freedom to say 2+2=4, but the Party can make it 5
- Reality exists only in the mind; the Party controls reality
- The Party seeks power purely for its own sake: "The object of power is power"
- "If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face—forever"

Winston is broken down physically and mentally. When shown his reflection, he's shocked by how skeletal and aged he's become.

Winston's torture continues. O'Brien uses a dial that controls the intensity of electric shocks.

O'Brien forces Winston to accept that 2+2=5, sometimes 3, sometimes all of them simultaneously - whatever the Party says. Winston tries to believe it to stop the pain.

O'Brien shows Winston photographs (including the one of Jones, Aaronson, and Rutherford that Winston saw years ago), then makes them disappear down the memory hole. "They never existed," O'Brien says, forcing Winston to accept that his memory is false.

Winston's mind begins to crack. He starts to genuinely believe the Party's version of reality, using doublethink to simultaneously know and not know the truth.

O'Brien reveals the three stages of Winston's reintegration:
1. LEARNING (understanding)
2. UNDERSTANDING (acceptance)
3. ACCEPTANCE (loving Big Brother)

Winston is currently between stages 2 and 3. He has accepted the Party's power intellectually but doesn't yet love Big Brother emotionally.

O'Brien asks what Winston's last refuge is - what keeps him from fully submitting. Winston cries out "Julia!" - he still loves her.

O'Brien says Winston will need to go to Room 101.

Winston is held in better conditions, allowed to recover somewhat. He's given food, allowed to wash, and can move around his cell.

He gains back some weight and strength. He even has dreams of Julia and the Golden Country.

Winston writes "2+2=5" and "GOD IS POWER" on his slate, trying to convince himself. He's intellectually broken but still holds onto his love for Julia emotionally.

In his mind, Winston still confesses secretly to thoughtcrimes he doesn't actually feel guilty about. He has learned to lie to the Party but not yet to lie to himself completely.

Winston understands he will be released, allowed to live for a while, and then eventually taken out and shot. He knows too much to be allowed to exist indefinitely.

One night Winston dreams of Julia and cries out her name. He knows this means he's not fully cured.

Guards come for him. He's going to Room 101 - the place where "the worst thing in the world" awaits.

Room 101 contains "the worst thing in the world" - which is different for each person. For Winston, it's rats.

O'Brien brings in a cage containing large, starving rats. The cage is designed to be strapped to Winston's face, with a door that will open and release the rats to eat through his face.

As the rats are about to be released, Winston breaks completely. In utter terror, he screams the only thing that will save him:

"Do it to Julia! Not me! Julia! I don't care what you do to her. Tear her face off, strip her to the bones. Not me! Julia! Not me!"

This is the final betrayal. Winston has not just intellectually accepted the Party's power - he has emotionally betrayed the one person he loved. This is what O'Brien needed: complete submission, where Winston sacrifices Julia to save himself.

The torture stops. Winston has passed through Room 101. He is finally broken.

Winston is released. He now has a sinecure job and spends his days at the Chestnut Tree Cafe, drinking gin and playing chess.

He's hollow and docile. He watches the telescreen and accepts everything it says without question. He uses doublethink naturally now.

Winston occasionally sees Julia once. They meet briefly and admit they betrayed each other. "I betrayed you," she says. "I betrayed you," he echoes. They feel nothing for each other now.

Julia explains that after Room 101, you can never feel the same way again. The Party has destroyed their capacity to love each other.

They part without any emotion, and Winston knows they will never seek each other out again.

Winston reflects on how he's changed. He has learned to control his facial expressions perfectly. He follows the telescreen news with genuine enthusiasm. He has mastered doublethink.

Winston continues his empty existence at the Chestnut Tree Cafe. He drinks gin, plays chess against himself, and watches the telescreen.

He works on a problem: how to make a chess problem where it looks like white will win but black actually wins. This occupies his mind and gives him a strange satisfaction.

Winston has become everything the Party wanted: obedient, mentally controlled, broken.

He no longer wonders about the past or questions the Party. He accepts doublethink fully. When Oceania changes enemies again, he accepts it without difficulty.

Winston vaguely remembers his mother, Julia, and the glass paperweight, but these memories are distant and don't trouble him.

He waits, knowing that eventually he will be taken out and shot - "the bullet entering his brain" - but he no longer fears it. In fact, he vaguely looks forward to it.

Winston sits in the Chestnut Tree Cafe. The telescreen announces a great victory in Africa - Oceania has won an important battle.

Winston is playing chess and drinking his usual gin. He's been putting on weight and drinking more.

As he listens to the telescreen announce the victory, Winston looks up at the enormous face of Big Brother on the poster.

The final transformation is complete. Winston realizes he has been wrong all along. He feels genuine love and devotion.

The novel ends with one of the most chilling lines in literature:

"He loved Big Brother."

Winston's rebellion is over. The Party has won completely. His re-education is finished - not just his outward compliance, but his innermost feelings have been transformed. This is the ultimate horror of the totalitarian state: it doesn't just control your actions, it controls your thoughts and emotions. Winston believed he had an unassailable inner self, but the Party proved that even that could be destroyed and remade.

The book ends with Winston's complete psychological annihilation.