The old man in the pub
A prole of at least eighty, bent but active, with white moustaches that bristle forward like a prawn's. Winston Smith follows him into a pub and buys him beer, hoping for a first-hand account of life before the Revolution, and gets an argument about pint glasses and a memory of a hired top hat.
A pint, and someone to complain to about not getting one. He turns every question about history back to the beer, the price of it, and what a half litre does and does not do for a man of his age.
The book
At a glance
- A prole Winston Smith buys beer for, to ask about the past
- Eighty at the least; middle-aged when the Revolution happened
- A prole pub in the alley near Mr Charrington's shop
- Part One, Chapter 8
Who they are in the book
Spoiler-freeThe old man is the experiment Winston Smith conducts on the past. The history books cannot be trusted because Winston helps rewrite them; the only people left who could say whether life was better before the Revolution are proles old enough to remember it. He sees one go into a dingy pub off the alley where he bought his diary, works out that a man of eighty must have been middle-aged when the Revolution happened, and follows him in.
He finds him mid-argument at the bar, demanding a pint and being told that the house serves litres and half litres. The old man explains that a pint is the half of a quart and there are four quarts to the gallon, and offers to teach the barman the alphabet next. The barman replies that when he was a young man they were all living in the treetops, and the room laughs. Winston buys him a drink and gets him to a table by the window, where there is no telescreen.
Every question misses. Asked whether he has seen great changes, he says the beer was better, and cheaper. Asked which war he means, he says it is all wars. Asked whether the capitalists in top hats really existed, he brightens at the words top hats and remembers that the last one he wore was hired for his sister-in-law's funeral fifty years ago. Winston keeps rephrasing, and every answer is a detail with nothing attached to it. The old man remembers everything he was ever told to forget and nothing that would settle the question.
How the book draws them
- The moustachesWhite, bristling forward like a prawn's. He is bent but active, at least eighty, and straightens his shoulders whenever he is either offended or offered a drink.
- His faceSeveral days of white stubble, and a face that flushes pink when he is roused. He is a prole and wears no uniform of any kind; his clothes are never described.
- The pintThe argument Winston walks in on. A half litre does not satisfy, a whole litre starts his bladder running, and the barman has never heard of a quart.
- "The beer was better"His answer when asked what has changed since he was young. His eyes go from the darts board to the bar to the door of the Gents, as if that is where the changes would have happened.
- The top hatThe one thing that lights him up. He had been thinking only the day before that he had not seen one in years. The last he wore was hired for his sister-in-law's funeral, about fifty years ago.
- How he drinksThe Adam's apple in his lean throat makes a surprisingly rapid up-and-down movement and the beer is gone. He forgets his objection to a full litre by the second glass.
- What he cannot supplyAny general statement at all. He has the details and not the shape, and Winston leaves knowing that the answer he came for does not exist in any living memory he can reach.