In Chap­ter 4 of 1984, Win­ston Smith starts his work­day at the Min­istry of Truth, feel­ing a sense of res­ig­na­tion as he approach­es the speakwrite—a device used to record his changes to doc­u­ments. The cubi­cle he works in is equipped with var­i­ous pneu­mat­ic tubes, used for com­mu­ni­ca­tion and waste dis­pos­al. Among these is the “mem­o­ry hole,” a mech­a­nism for destroy­ing doc­u­ments that are deemed unnec­es­sary, lead­ing to their even­tu­al incin­er­a­tion in large fur­naces. Win­ston retrieves sev­er­al slips of paper, each requir­ing his inter­ven­tion. Three are straight­for­ward requests, while the fourth is more com­pli­cat­ed, prompt­ing him to set it aside for lat­er atten­tion. His dai­ly tasks involve alter­ing real­i­ty itself, eras­ing any traces of incon­ve­nient truths to uphold the Par­ty’s nar­ra­tive.

To begin his work, Win­ston uses the tele­screen to call up past issues of The Times, which are quick­ly deliv­ered to him. His job entails rewrit­ing arti­cles to reflect the Party’s cur­rent stance and eras­ing any­thing that con­tra­dicts its pro­pa­gan­da. For exam­ple, he is tasked with cor­rect­ing Big Broth­er’s ear­li­er incor­rect pre­dic­tions about mil­i­tary engage­ments, align­ing them with the Par­ty’s present nar­ra­tive. This ongo­ing manip­u­la­tion of his­to­ry is cen­tral to Winston’s work, where the truth is per­pet­u­al­ly altered to main­tain the Par­ty’s con­trol over its cit­i­zens. Every day, he is immersed in the task of reshap­ing real­i­ty, mak­ing the past con­form to the present Par­ty line, and there­by eras­ing the pos­si­bil­i­ty of dis­sent.

After he com­pletes his revi­sions, Win­ston dis­pos­es of the orig­i­nal doc­u­ments in the mem­o­ry hole, ful­ly aware that they will be destroyed, leav­ing no trace of their exis­tence. This process is a key fea­ture of the Party’s total­i­tar­i­an con­trol: his­to­ry is con­tin­u­ous­ly rewrit­ten to ensure that noth­ing con­tra­dicts the Party’s nar­ra­tive. It cre­ates a soci­ety where the truth is not just hid­den but active­ly manip­u­lat­ed, and where evi­dence of past real­i­ties is erad­i­cat­ed. The con­stant alter­ation of facts and fig­ures ensures that the Party’s ver­sion of events becomes the only one that is ever remem­bered, while the true his­to­ry of the world is oblit­er­at­ed. Through this sys­tem­at­ic era­sure, the Par­ty secures its pow­er, elim­i­nat­ing any record that might chal­lenge its author­i­ty or expose its lies.

As Win­ston observes the oth­er work­ers in the Records Depart­ment, he notices that many are engaged in sim­i­lar work, fab­ri­cat­ing truth by eras­ing “unpersons”—individuals who have been vapor­ized or erased from his­to­ry by the Par­ty. This prac­tice fur­ther rein­forces the Par­ty’s con­trol, as it not only alters doc­u­ments but eras­es entire lives from exis­tence. Win­ston reflects on the absur­di­ty of the sta­tis­tics and sto­ries he manip­u­lates, aware of the vast dis­con­nect between the fab­ri­cat­ed nar­ra­tives he is required to cre­ate and the real­i­ty of life out­side the Min­istry. The Party’s manip­u­la­tion of facts cre­ates a world where even basic truths become sub­jec­tive, eas­i­ly dis­tort­ed to fit the needs of those in pow­er. Win­ston’s own grow­ing real­iza­tion of this absur­di­ty under­scores the oppres­sive atmos­phere in which he works, where every truth is flu­id and every fact sub­ject to the Par­ty’s whim.

While work­ing on a more com­plex task, Win­ston is instruct­ed to rewrite a report con­cern­ing Big Broth­er’s Order for the Day, which mis­tak­en­ly iden­ti­fies a com­rade who has since been erased from his­to­ry. In a cre­ative act of forgery, Win­ston invents a new hero—Comrade Ogilvy—a per­son who had nev­er exist­ed but whose fab­ri­cat­ed his­to­ry aligns per­fect­ly with the Party’s ideals. Through this act of cre­ation, Win­ston illus­trates how eas­i­ly the Par­ty can fab­ri­cate heroes and vil­lains, shap­ing his­to­ry to its needs at any giv­en moment. His abil­i­ty to cre­ate a his­tor­i­cal fig­ure out of thin air high­lights the mal­leabil­i­ty of truth in a total­i­tar­i­an state, where even the past is sub­ject to revi­sion. This manip­u­la­tion of real­i­ty, where indi­vid­u­als and events can be invent­ed or erased at will, reveals the ter­ri­fy­ing pow­er the Par­ty holds over not just the present but the very con­cept of truth itself. In the end, Win­ston reflects on his role in this process, won­der­ing about the true nature of exis­tence under Big Brother’s rule, where noth­ing can be trust­ed, and real­i­ty is what the Par­ty says it is.