Orwell, George — Nineteen eighty-four [465]

‘It’s this bloody thing that does it,’ she said, ripping off the scarlet sash of the Junior Anti-Sex League and flinging it onto a bough. Then, as though touching her waist had reminded her of something, she felt in the pocket of her overalls and produced a small slab of chocolate. She broke it in half and gave one of the pieces to Winston. Even before he had taken it he knew by the smell that it was very unusual chocolate. It was dark and shiny, and was wrapped in silver paper. Chocolate normally was dull-brown crumbly stuff that tasted, as nearly as one could describe it, like the smoke of a rubbish fire. But at some time or another he had tasted chocolate like the piece she had given him. The first whiff of its scent had stirred up some memory which he could not pin down, but which was powerful and troubling. — Orwell, George, Nineteen eighty-four, 465

Note

Julia’s rebellion is introduced through two artefacts — the ripped sash and the black-market chocolate — and the chocolate carries a sensory memory that resurfaces and cannot be named, setting up the deep-history thread of the book. The frank simile ‘like the smoke of a rubbish fire’ makes the Party’s ersatz world vividly degraded against the real thing.