"Inside the flat a fruity voice was reading out a list of figures which had something to do with the production of pig iron. " (Page 2)
Pig iron is a metal processed from carbon, manganese, sulfur, phosphorus, silicon and mostly iron. This metal is created in blast furnaces and is hard, but brittle when cooled. During its production the melted pig iron resembles pig feeder trows, so it was named after pigs. This brittle metal is cheap because it is easy to produce large quantities of it. Orwell mentions pig iron in his imagery of Winston's apartments and mentions it throughout the novel. This is to show the reader that Oceana is built to appear strong, but is actually brittle.
~"Pig Iron's Name." NEWTON/ANL Home Page. 02 Apr. 2009
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