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Suddenly he began thinking of O’Brien again. . . .Years ago—how long was it? Seven years it must be—he had dreamed that he was walking through a pitch-dark room. And someone sitting to one side of him had said as he passed: ‘We shall meet in the place where there is no darkness.’

In the book’s first chapter, we learned about O’Brien, “a member of the Inner Party and holder of some post so important and remote that Winston had only a dim idea of its nature,” with whom Winston is strangely fixated. Here, in Book One, Chapter 2, we learn about Winston’s unsubstantiated belief that O’Brien shares his disdain for the Party and its practices—all apparently based on an odd dream the normally rational Winston had about a mysterious “place where there is no darkness.” Read more in Quotes by Symbol: The Place Where There Is No Darkness (the first quote).

‘We shall meet in the place where there is no darkness,’ he had said. Winston did not know what it meant, only that in some way or another it would come true.

In the next paragraph of Book One, Chapter 2, Winston’s unwarranted conviction that O’Brien is a kindred non-believer in the Party is described further. Read more about this quote in Quotes by Symbol: The Place Where There Is No Darkness (the second quote).

He was already dead, he reflected. It seemed to him that it was only now, when he had begun to be able to formulate his thoughts, that he had taken the decisive step.

According to the incredibly strict rules of the ruling Party in 1984, keeping a diary is a highly subversive act subject to extreme punishment if discovered. Here, in Book One, Chapter 2, we learn that shortly after he begins keeping a diary, Winston fully understands this—even to the extent that he considers himself doomed. Knowing that Winston has this mindset near the start of the novel is something that we should keep in mind as we try to understand the motives for his actions as it progresses. Read more about this quote in Quotes by Theme: The Impact of Totalitarianism (the first quote).

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