Chapter 8 is the last portion of Part 1 of 1984. We join Winston on a brief visit to the prole section of London and he returns to the antique shop where he purchased the diary that he is is using to write daily subservice entries. Along the way, he stops at a pub to speak to an old man about life before the Revolution but discovers he cannot remember anything about that era beyond mere fragments of images and isolated incidents of conflict. Winston realizes that the past is indeed buried.
The chapter and Part 1 concludes with Winston gazing at a coin of Big Brother and contemplating the motto of Oceania: WAR IS PEACE, FREEDOM IS SLAVERY, IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH.