Orwell, George — Nineteen eighty-four [206]

His mocking eyes roved over Winston’s face. ‘I know you,’ the eyes seemed to say, ‘I see through you. I know very well why you didn’t go to see those prisoners hanged.’ In an intellectual way, Syme was venomously orthodox. — Orwell, George, Nineteen eighty-four, 206

Note

The reader is granted access to the eyes’ unspoken speech — ‘I know you… I see through you’ — while in the same paragraph learning Syme is ‘venomously orthodox.’ The tension between Winston’s comfort in his company and Syme’s orthodoxy sets up the chapter’s central unease.