Two Minutes Hate Rally

The Two Minutes Hate Rally is the ritual of collective rage by which the Party of Oceania focuses its members' fear and hatred on Emmanuel Goldstein, the Enemy of the People. The novel's first extended scene stages it in the Records Department of the Ministry of Truth, where it erupts with a hideous, grinding screech from the big telescreen and, in under two minutes, introduces the dark-haired girl who will become Julia, drags Winston Smith into a frenzy he cannot resist, and produces a single charged glance from O'Brien that will sustain his hopes for years. The Hate is at once a valve for official emotion and a conditioning device, and its mechanics shape the rest of the book.

The Enemy on the Screen

As usual, the face of Emmanuel Goldstein, the Enemy of the People, flashed onto the screen, drawing hisses and a squeak of mingled fear and disgust from the little sandy-haired woman near Winston. Goldstein's legend is recited as the image holds: once a leading figure of the Party almost on a level with Big Brother, he turned to counter-revolutionary activities, was condemned to death, and mysteriously escaped and disappeared. The programmes of the Two Minutes Hate varied from day to day, but there was none in which Goldstein was not the principal figure—the primal traitor, the earliest defiler of the Party's purity, the source of every subsequent treachery, sabotage, heresy and deviation. He was still alive somewhere, it was said, hatching conspiracies under the protection of foreign paymasters or perhaps even hiding in Oceania itself. On screen his lean Jewish face with its fuzzy aureole of white hair and small goatee beard seemed at once clever and despicable, sheep-like in face and voice, as he delivered his usual venomous attack on the Party, demanding peace with Eurasia and freedom of speech, press, assembly and thought, while the endless columns of the Eurasian army marched behind his head. His influence, Winston reflected, never seemed to grow less: fresh dupes were always waiting, spies and saboteurs were unmasked daily under his direction, and he was the rumoured commander of the underground Brotherhood and the author of a terrible book known simply as "the book."

Compulsory Frenzy and Transferable Hatred

Before the Hate had proceeded for thirty seconds, uncontrollable exclamations of rage were breaking out from half the people in the room. The horrible thing about it was not that one was obliged to act a part, but that it was impossible to avoid joining in; within thirty seconds any pretence was unnecessary. A hideous ecstasy of fear and vindictiveness, a desire to kill, torture and smash faces with a sledge-hammer, flowed through the group like an electric current. The little sandy-haired woman turned bright pink, her mouth opening and shutting like a landed fish; even O'Brien's heavy face flushed as he sat very straight, his powerful chest swelling and quivering. The dark-haired girl behind Winston cried out "Swine! Swine! Swine!" and flung a heavy Newspeak dictionary at the screen, striking Goldstein's nose before bouncing off. Winston found himself shouting with the others and kicking his heel against the rung of his chair. The rage, however, was abstract and undirected, switchable like the flame of a blowlamp: at one moment his hatred was against Big Brother, the Party and the Thought Police, and his heart went out to the lonely, derided heretic on the screen; the next instant he was at one with the crowd, Big Brother towering up as protector, Goldstein as sinister enchanter. By a violent effort he could even transfer his hatred to the girl behind him, and his mind filled with vivid hallucinations of flogging her to death, tying her naked to a stake and shooting her full of arrows like Saint Sebastian, or ravishing and cutting her throat—because she was young and pretty and sexless, and because round her supple waist there was only the odious scarlet sash, aggressive symbol of chastity.

Climax, Slogans and Self-Hypnosis

The Hate rose to its climax: Goldstein's voice became an actual sheep's bleat, and for an instant his face changed into that of a sheep. The sheep-face then melted into the figure of a Eurasian soldier advancing with roaring sub-machine-gun, so that people in the front row flinched backwards; and in the same moment, to a deep sigh of relief, the hostile figure melted into the face of Big Brother, black-haired, black-moustachio'd, full of power and mysterious calm, so vast that it almost filled the screen. Nobody heard his words; they were mere encouragement, indistinguishable in the din of battle. Then the face faded and the three slogans of the Party stood out in bold capitals: "WAR IS PEACE," "FREEDOM IS SLAVERY," "IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH." The face seemed to persist for several seconds. The little sandy-haired woman flung herself forward over the back of the chair in front of her, murmured "My Saviour!" as she extended her arms to the screen, then buried her face in her hands in what was plainly a prayer. At this moment the entire group broke into a deep, slow, rhythmical chant of "B-B!… B-B!… B-B!" — a heavy, murmurous, curiously savage sound, in whose background one seemed to hear the stamp of naked feet and the throbbing of tom-toms. Partly a hymn to the wisdom and majesty of Big Brother, it was still more an act of self-hypnosis, a deliberate drowning of consciousness by rhythmic noise. Winston's entrails grew cold; he chanted with the rest because it was impossible to do otherwise, but the subhuman sound always filled him with horror.

The Glance from O'Brien

There was a space of a couple of seconds during which the expression in Winston's eyes might conceivably have betrayed him, and it was exactly at that moment that the significant thing happened—if, indeed, it did happen. Momentarily he caught O'Brien's eye. O'Brien had stood up, taken off his spectacles, and was in the act of resettling them on his nose with his characteristic gesture. For a fraction of a second their eyes met, and Winston knew—yes, he knew!—that O'Brien was thinking the same thing as himself. "I am with you," O'Brien seemed to be saying; "I know precisely what you are feeling. I know all about your contempt, your hatred, your disgust. But don't worry, I am on your side!" Then the flash of intelligence was gone and O'Brien's face was as inscrutable as everybody else's. That was all, and Winston was already uncertain whether it had happened. Such incidents never had any sequel; all they did was keep alive in him the belief, or hope, that others besides himself were enemies of the Party. Perhaps the rumours of vast underground conspiracies were true, perhaps the Brotherhood really existed; but there was no evidence, only fleeting glimpses—snatches of overheard conversation, faint scribbles on lavatory walls, once even a small movement of the hands between two strangers that looked like a signal of recognition. He went back to his cubicle without looking at O'Brien again; following up the contact would have been inconceivably dangerous. Yet even that second's exchange was a memorable event in the locked loneliness in which one had to live.

Aftermath and Significance

The rally does more than demonstrate obedience; it is a carefully engineered emotional circuit. Because the rage is switchable, the same apparatus that produces hatred of Goldstein can produce adoration of Big Brother; because the chant drowns consciousness, the participant is made to feel the Party's emotions as his own. The scene introduces the two figures who will define Winston's story: the dark-haired girl whose scarlet sash marks her as a Junior Anti-Sex League zealot, and O'Brien, whose single glance appears to promise a shared secret. It also plants the rumours of the Brotherhood and "the book," both of which will return as real forces in Winston's life. The Hate's success in manufacturing unanimity is the backdrop against which his later rebellion, and his final conversion, must be measured.