In Chapter
4,discusses the underbelly of the Ministry of Truth, which deals in propaganda and smut for the
working class:
And the Ministry had not only to supply the
multifarious needs of the party, but also to repeat the whole operation at a lower level for the
benefit of the proletariat. There was a whole chain of separate departments
dealing with pro- letarian literature, music, drama, and entertainment generally.
Here were produced rubbishy newspapers containing almost nothing except sport, crime and
astrology, sensational five-cent novelettes, films oozing with sex, and sentimental songs which
were composed entirely by mechanical means on a special kind of kaleidoscope known as a
versificator. There was even a whole sub-sectionPornosec, it was called in
Newspeakengaged in producing the lowest kind of pornography, which was sent out in sealed
packets and which no Party member, other than those who worked on it, was permitted to look at.
has even had some experience in dealing
in this department:
She had even (an infallible mark of
good reputation) been picked out to work in Pornosec, the
sub-section of theDepartment which turned out cheap pornography for distribution among the
proles. It was nicknamed Muck House by the people who worked in it,
she remarked. There she had remained for a year, helping to produce booklets in sealed packets
with titles like Spanking Stories or One Night in a
Girls School, to be bought furtively by proletarian youths who were under the
impression that they were buying something illegal.
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