In this chapter, Orwell gives a great deal of detail about Winston’s job and the place in which he works, the Records Department in the Ministry of Truth, where his job is to rewrite history according to Party need. In this chapter, in addition to noting a few of his colleagues—among them Tillotson, a hostile co-worker in the next cubicle, and Ampleforth, a poet of sorts—Winston’s task is re-write an article in which Big Brother commended a person who is now in the Party’s disfavor. Winston creates a war hero, Captain Ogilvy, who has led an “ideal” life and was killed in battle. Winston writes a speech that Big Brother is supposed to have given, commending this hero that never existed. It strikes Winston that he could create a dead man but not a living one. Ogilvy, now in the records, exists on the same authority as genuine, living people.
