Title: 1984 Part Two VIII-X Summary and Analysis | GradeSaver
Headings: 1984 Summary and Analysis of Part Two VIII-X
1984
by George Orwell
1984 Summary and Analysis of Part Two VIII-X

Content: Winston decides to jump ahead and begins reading the third chapter, which discusses how the world was split into three super powers. Russia absorbed Europe, and the United States absorbed Great Britain. A decade later, after a great deal of fighting, Eastasia finally solidified. Eurasia consists of the whole,
"northern part of the European and Asiatic land mass, from Portugal to the Bering Strait, Oceania comprises the Americas, the Atlantaic islands including the British Isles, Australasia, and the souther portion of Africa. Eastasia, smaller than the other and with a less definite western frontier, comprises China and the countries to the south of it, the Japanese islands and a large but fluctuating portion of Manchuria, Mongolia, and Tibet." Goldstein explains that for the past twenty-five years, these superstates have been permanently at war, despite the impossibility of a decisive outcome. Goldstein claims that the goal of modern warfare is to use the products created by society without raising standards of living. When a war is on, massive production is needed, but economic growth is impossible. The superstate populations are kept "bare, hungry, and dilapidated," compared to how they lived before the Revolution. Goldstein notes the difficulty in maintaining a balance between wealth and power in healthy, growing societies.