Orwell, George — Nineteen eighty-four [271]

Katharine was a tall, fair-haired girl, very straight, with splendid movements. She had a bold, aquiline face, a face that one might have called noble until one discovered that there was as nearly as possible nothing behind it. Very early in their married life he had decided – though perhaps it was only that he knew her more intimately than he knew most people – that she had without exception the most stupid, vulgar, empty mind that he had ever encountered. She had not a thought in her head that was not a slogan, and there was no imbecility, absolutely none, that she was not capable of swallowing if the Party handed it out to her. ‘The human sound-track’ he nicknamed her in his own mind. — Orwell, George, Nineteen eighty-four, 271

Note

Portrait built on a devastating reversal: a face one ‘might have called noble until one discovered that there was as nearly as possible nothing behind it.’ The later nickname ‘the human sound-track’ — a body that only replays the Party’s broadcast — perfects the image of internalized conditioning with no self left inside.