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1. What is Santiago's reflection about his place in the universe?

2. How do Santiago and Manolin feel about each other?

3. How is the Party’s view of power different than the Nazis or the Communists?

4. What are the dangers of government-controlled media?

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1984 by George Orwell

"He reached down and scratched his ankle again. Day and night the telescreens bruised your ears with statistics proving that people today had more food, more clothes, better houses, better recreations – that they lived longer, worked shorter hours, were bigger, healthier, stronger, happier, more intelligent, better educated, than the people of fifty years ago. Not a word of it could ever be proved or disproved. The Party claimed, for example, that today 40 percent of adult proles were literate: before the Revolution, it was said, the number had only been 15 per cent. The Party claimed that the infant mortality rate was now only 160 per thousand, whereas before the Revolution it had been 300 – and so it went on. It was like a single equation with two unknowns. It might very well be that literally every word in the history books, even the things that one accepted without question, was pure fantasy. For all he knew there might never have been any such law as the jus primae noctis, or any such creature as a capitalist, or any such garment as a top hat.

Everything faded into mist. The past was erased, the erasure was forgotten, the lie became truth. Just once in his life he had possessed – after the event: that was what counted – concrete, unmistakable evidence of an act of falsification. He had held it between his fingers for as long as thirty seconds. In 1973, it must have been – at any rate, it was at about the time when he and Katharine had parted. But the really relevant date was seven or eight years earlier."

P. 50

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(B1) The Old Man And The Sea – Extract One

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(B1) The Old Man And The Sea – Extract One

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The Old Man And The Sea by Ernest Hemingway

“The fish is my friend too,” he said aloud. “I have never seen or heard of such a fish. But I must kill him. I am glad we do not have to try to kill the stars.”

Imagine if each day a man must try to kill the moon, he thought. The moon runs away. But imagine if a man each day should have to try to kill the sun? We were born lucky, he thought.

Then he was sorry for the great fish that had nothing to eat and his determination to kill him never relaxed in his sorrow for him. How many people will he feed, he thought. But are they worthy to eat him? No, of course not. There is no one worthy of eating him from the manner of his behaviour and his great dignity.

I do not understand these things, he thought. But it is good that we do not have to try to kill the sun or the moon or the stars. It is enough to live on the sea and kill our true brothers.

Now, he thought, I must think about the drag. It has its perils and its merits. I may lose so much line that I will lose him, if he makes his effort and the drag made by the oars is in place and the boat loses all her lightness. Her lightness prolongs both our suffering but it is my safety since he has great speed that he has never yet employed. No matter what passes I must gut the dolphin so he does not spoil and eat some of him to be strong.

Now I will rest an hour more and feel that he is solid and steady before I move back to the stern to do the work and make the decision."

P. 28

# data[].attributes.body
1984 by George Orwell

"'You are ruling over us for our own good,' he said feebly. 'You believe that human beings are not fit to govern themselves, and therefore –

He started and almost cried out. A pang of pain had shot through his body. O'Brien had pushed the lever of the dial up to thirty-five.

'That was stupid, Winston, stupid!' he said. 'You should know better than to say a thing like that.'

He pulled the lever back and continued:

'Now I will tell you the answer to my question. It is this. The Party seeks power entirely for its own sake. We are not interested in the good of others; we are interested solely in power. Not wealth or luxury or long life or happiness: only power, pure power. What pure power means you will understand presently. We are different from all the oligarchies of the past, in that we know what we are doing. All the others, even those who resembled ourselves, were – cowards and hypocrites. The German Nazis and the Russian Communists came very close to us in their methods, but they never had the courage to recognise their own motives. They pretended, perhaps they even believed, that they had seized power unwillingly and for a limited time, and that just round the corner there lay a paradise where human beings would be free and equal. We are not like that. We know that no one ever seizes power with the intention of relinquishing it. Power is not a means, it is an end. One does not establish a dictatorship in order to safeguard a revolution; one makes the revolution in order to establish the dictatorship. The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object of power is power. Now do you begin to understand me?'"

P. 173

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(B2) The Old Man And The Sea – Extract Two

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(B2) The Old Man And The Sea – Extract Two

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The Old Man And The Sea by Ernest Hemingway

"'The ocean is very big and a skiff is small and hard to see,' the old man said. He noticed how pleasant it was to have someone to talk to instead of speaking only to himself and to the sea. 'I missed you,' he said. 'What did you catch?'

'One the first day. One the second and two the third.'

'Very good.'

'Now we fish together again.'

'No. I am not lucky. I am not lucky anymore.'

'The hell with luck,' the boy said. 'I'll bring the luck with me.'

'What will your family say?'

'I do not care. I caught two yesterday. But we will fish together now for I still have much to learn.'

'We must get a good killing lance and always have it on board. You can make the blade from a spring leaf from an old Ford. We can grind it in Guanabacoa. It should be sharp and not tempered so it will break. My knife broke.'

'I'll get another knife and have the spring ground. How many days of heavy brisa have we?'

'Maybe three. Maybe more.'

'I will have everything in order,' the boy said. 'You get your hands well old man.'

'I know how to care for them. In the night I spat something strange and felt something in my chest was broken.'

'Get that well too,' the boy said. 'Lie down, old man, and I will bring you your clean shirt. And something to eat.'

'Bring any of the papers of the time that I was gone,' the old man said.

'You must get well fast for there is much that I can learn and you can teach me everything. How much did you suffer?'

'Plenty,' the old man said.

'I'll bring the food and the papers,' the boy said. 'Rest well, old man. I will bring stuff from the drugstore for your hands.'"

Pp. 47-48

# data[].attributes.body
1984 by George Orwell

"He reached down and scratched his ankle again. Day and night the telescreens bruised your ears with statistics proving that people today had more food, more clothes, better houses, better recreations – that they lived longer, worked shorter hours, were bigger, healthier, stronger, happier, more intelligent, better educated, than the people of fifty years ago. Not a word of it could ever be proved or disproved. The Party claimed, for example, that today 40 percent of adult proles were literate: before the Revolution, it was said, the number had only been 15 per cent. The Party claimed that the infant mortality rate was now only 160 per thousand, whereas before the Revolution it had been 300 – and so it went on. It was like a single equation with two unknowns. It might very well be that literally every word in the history books, even the things that one accepted without question, was pure fantasy. For all he knew there might never have been any such law as the jus primae noctis, or any such creature as a capitalist, or any such garment as a top hat.

Everything faded into mist. The past was erased, the erasure was forgotten, the lie became truth. Just once in his life he had possessed – after the event: that was what counted – concrete, unmistakable evidence of an act of falsification. He had held it between his fingers for as long as thirty seconds. In 1973, it must have been – at any rate, it was at about the time when he and Katharine had parted. But the really relevant date was seven or eight years earlier."

P. 50

# data[].attributes.headline
(B2) The Old Man And The Sea – Extract Two

# data[].attributes.subject
(B2) The Old Man And The Sea – Extract Two

# data[].attributes.body
The Old Man And The Sea by Ernest Hemingway

"'The ocean is very big and a skiff is small and hard to see,' the old man said. He noticed how pleasant it was to have someone to talk to instead of speaking only to himself and to the sea. 'I missed you,' he said. 'What did you catch?'

'One the first day. One the second and two the third.'

'Very good.'

'Now we fish together again.'

'No. I am not lucky. I am not lucky anymore.'

'The hell with luck,' the boy said. 'I'll bring the luck with me.'

'What will your family say?'

'I do not care. I caught two yesterday. But we will fish together now for I still have much to learn.'

'We must get a good killing lance and always have it on board. You can make the blade from a spring leaf from an old Ford. We can grind it in Guanabacoa. It should be sharp and not tempered so it will break. My knife broke.'

'I'll get another knife and have the spring ground. How many days of heavy brisa have we?'

'Maybe three. Maybe more.'

'I will have everything in order,' the boy said. 'You get your hands well old man.'

'I know how to care for them. In the night I spat something strange and felt something in my chest was broken.'

'Get that well too,' the boy said. 'Lie down, old man, and I will bring you your clean shirt. And something to eat.'

'Bring any of the papers of the time that I was gone,' the old man said.

'You must get well fast for there is much that I can learn and you can teach me everything. How much did you suffer?'

'Plenty,' the old man said.

'I'll bring the food and the papers,' the boy said. 'Rest well, old man. I will bring stuff from the drugstore for your hands.'"

Pp. 47-48

# data[].attributes.body
1984 by George Orwell

"'You are ruling over us for our own good,' he said feebly. 'You believe that human beings are not fit to govern themselves, and therefore –

He started and almost cried out. A pang of pain had shot through his body. O'Brien had pushed the lever of the dial up to thirty-five.

'That was stupid, Winston, stupid!' he said. 'You should know better than to say a thing like that.'

He pulled the lever back and continued:

'Now I will tell you the answer to my question. It is this. The Party seeks power entirely for its own sake. We are not interested in the good of others; we are interested solely in power. Not wealth or luxury or long life or happiness: only power, pure power. What pure power means you will understand presently. We are different from all the oligarchies of the past, in that we know what we are doing. All the others, even those who resembled ourselves, were – cowards and hypocrites. The German Nazis and the Russian Communists came very close to us in their methods, but they never had the courage to recognise their own motives. They pretended, perhaps they even believed, that they had seized power unwillingly and for a limited time, and that just round the corner there lay a paradise where human beings would be free and equal. We are not like that. We know that no one ever seizes power with the intention of relinquishing it. Power is not a means, it is an end. One does not establish a dictatorship in order to safeguard a revolution; one makes the revolution in order to establish the dictatorship. The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object of power is power. Now do you begin to understand me?'"

P. 173

# data[].attributes.headline
(B1) The Old Man And The Sea – Extract One

# data[].attributes.subject
(B1) The Old Man And The Sea – Extract One

# data[].attributes.body
The Old Man And The Sea by Ernest Hemingway

“The fish is my friend too,” he said aloud. “I have never seen or heard of such a fish. But I must kill him. I am glad we do not have to try to kill the stars.”

Imagine if each day a man must try to kill the moon, he thought. The moon runs away. But imagine if a man each day should have to try to kill the sun? We were born lucky, he thought.

Then he was sorry for the great fish that had nothing to eat and his determination to kill him never relaxed in his sorrow for him. How many people will he feed, he thought. But are they worthy to eat him? No, of course not. There is no one worthy of eating him from the manner of his behaviour and his great dignity.

I do not understand these things, he thought. But it is good that we do not have to try to kill the sun or the moon or the stars. It is enough to live on the sea and kill our true brothers.

Now, he thought, I must think about the drag. It has its perils and its merits. I may lose so much line that I will lose him, if he makes his effort and the drag made by the oars is in place and the boat loses all her lightness. Her lightness prolongs both our suffering but it is my safety since he has great speed that he has never yet employed. No matter what passes I must gut the dolphin so he does not spoil and eat some of him to be strong.

Now I will rest an hour more and feel that he is solid and steady before I move back to the stern to do the work and make the decision."

P. 28