Character Analysis Of 1984 By Winston Smith

In order for the “Big Brother” to maintain this ideology, the ruler needs to have highly organized system and individuals to follow each and every task. In the novel, Oceania’s society has reached the level of brainwashing. In order for anyone to conquer such a vast and complicated system, the individual will need a highly-organized plan and a sophisticated mind to carry through. Winston possesses neither of these traits; therefore he was doomed to fail.

Winston started as a unique man who hated following the rules and he made a complete 180 following the events in jail. Winston came out a new man, with respect for the Party and Big Brother as well as others around him. Winston had this to say about his new life at the end of the book, “it was all right, everything was all right, the struggle was finished.” When he said the struggle was finished he realized he was done fighting Big Brother and the Party and finally was willing to accept them.

Winston, despite his flawed nature and his cryptic thoughts, could be seen as somewhat of a hero, he got the girl, he found a flaw in the system, he attempted to join a rebellion

Even though he is married, he and Julia have an affair that combines their personal desires as well as their desire to fight against the Party as it is explicitly stated in the novel. Winston and Julia both willingly participate in the affair because they are both moved to action by the Party’s acts of injustice. Winston is aware that the Party has blatantly outlawed “love” and Winston wants to feel romance in order to spite the Party. Both Julia and Winston would do anything to spite Big Brother. In addition to the love factor, Winston isn’t just participating because Julia is youthful, more so because he is drawn to the act of power. Winston isn’t just resisting power, he feels the need to hold

Having a passionate relationship is no longer a foreign concept to Winston, he now loathes it. When having a conversation with Julia he thinks, “. With Julia, everything came back to her own sexuality." As soon as this was touched upon in any way she was capable of great acuteness.”. Winston does, in fact, enjoy the sex, but after seeing Julia for months at this point, he realizes their differences. Julia is focused on having a sexual relationship with people, but not committing anything that would affect the integrity of the party’s rule. When Winston thinks, “ With Julia, everything came back to her own sexuality”, it is showing the signs of a disconnect. While the love for Julia has not changed in this passage, his quest for anti-Big brother actions is not fully satisfied. The physical relations between Julia and Winston only scratches the surface on what Winston desires.

Winston goes through emotional change throughout 1984 that changes his perspective and personality. At the beginning of the book, Winston is filled with hatred towards the Party. “They’ll shoot me in the back of the neck i dont care down with big brother they always shoot you in the back of the neck i dont care down with big brother-” (Orwell, 19). Winston’s fury towards the Party and Big Brother is evident. Through his diary entries, you can definitely tell that he harbors an intense anger towards them. So, it may seem that this trait will never change and make him always fight for it. The reader may at first think that he will never change views. But then, Winston completely changes perspective at the end of the book when he states, “He loved Big Brother.” (Orwell, 298). This keeps Winston from becoming another boring character who refuses to change his opinion which makes for an interesting book and a more complex character.

Even before Winston meets Julia, he had dreams about her. Orwell wrote, “ What overwhelmed him in that instant was admiration for the gesture with which she had thrown her clothes aside… as though Big Brother and the Thought Police could all be swept into nothingness by a single movement”(27). Even dreaming about such thing can get Winston killed. Later on in the book, the dream becomes a reality. Winston meets Julia during book two and they soon start to have a relationship. Having a relationship with someone that is not their spouse, is a crime. Having sex for reasons other than just reproducing, is also a crime. On page 111, Winston and Julia have sex for the first time. He loved the feeling of corruption and wrongness, he says, “I hate purity, I hate goodness. I don’t want any virtue to exist anywhere. I want everyone to be corrupt to the bones”(Orwell 111). Winston gets tired of living in a society where acting wrong is prohibited so, he wants to be the exact opposite. Thats why he says that he loves the feeling of

In the novel, Winston is a character who lacks "hero" traits as he has more traits of an everyman than a hero. Winston is an out of shape, average man with a "varicose ulcer above his right ankle" (3). Considering the typical hero, not only does Winston lack the physical strength, he lacks the mentality as well. Throughout the novel, he consistently talks about "overthrowing the Party," but he never actually does it. Instead of overthrowing the Party, he rebels by purchasing a diary and writing sentences such as "DOWN WITH BIG BROTHER" (20) and " I don’t care down with big brother they always shoot you in the back of the neck" (21). Winston chooses to write these into his diary as he is too cowardly to say this in public. As time passes, his

“I hate purity, I hate goodness! I don’t want any virtue to exist anywhere. I want everyone to be corrupt to the bones.” (Orwell 72). These are not the words of a man bereft of virtue. In fact, with these words, Winston Smith expresses his frustration at the falsehood the Party represents. This is, after all, a régime that perpetuates its repression through “double speak.” Its slogans displayed through Oceania are: “WAR IS PEACE, FREEDOM IS SLAVERY, IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH.” (Orwell 14). Winston Smith’s world is a world where all that is noble is forbidden, and all that is forbidden is noble. Truth and lies are intertwined to the extent of being indistinguishable. The awareness that Winston Smith possesses makes him an uncommon, if not extraordinary man. It is because of this awareness that he rebels against the tyranny of the Party and refuses to conform or adapt, and walk the predetermined path of a meaningless existence that has been chosen for

Winston is an odd character in the novel 1984. Even tho he is the main character he shows signs of him being scared and timid but still tries to be a rebel. Winston is a scrawny middle aged man, he lives all alone in his house. He spends his time writing in his journal if it's about the community or the government.

In the book 1984, Smith is trying to be an individual in a society that is ruled by Big Brother. as a consequence of him trying to be an individual, he is testing the rules of the party. The individual in an authoritarian society is forced to follow the rules and beliefs of the rest of the society.

How would you like to live in a world under constant surveillance and not knowing what is going on in the world? In the world of Oceania, this is true. The Party, led by Big Brother is a totalitarian government that controls every aspect of everyone's lives, through telescreens and even the language, Newspeak. Winston a thirty-nine-year-old who is described as; “...a smallish frail figure, the meagreness of his body merely emphasized by the blue overalls which were the uniform of the Party. His hair was very fair, his face naturally sanguine…” (Orwell 2). Winston is described as a thin, frail, and fearful of the Thought Police. Winston works in the Ministry of Truth or Minitrue in Newspeak, which deals with arts, education, and the media or entertainment. Winston lives in constant fear in Oceania due to the Thought Police; a group working for the Party who look for people with ideas that could be going against the Party and Big Brother. Throughout 1984 Winston becomes known as the protagonist in the story as he deals with many pressing issues and problems, Winston often gains levels and drops them on Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, and Winston parallels his everyday life to Bentham’s Panopticon.

“We are taught that the hero’s journey is the journey from weakness to strength. But...[this is] wrong. The real hero’s journey is the journey from strength to weakness.” The real hero shows the ability to rise above challenges, even in a state of weakness, and wind up victorious. The real hero is flawed, but his courage, selflessness, and sacrifices for the greater good will rise above all. Winston Smith of 1984 is described as a “small frail figure” with a “varicose ulcer above his right ankle.” This is evidently not the image conjured when one imagines a hero, but due to the deceiving nature of appearances, we must consider his actions. What does Winston do? He writes “DOWN WITH BIG BROTHER” repetitively in his diary, he engages in a

“ War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength,”. The following quote originates from the infamous novel, 1984 by George Orwell. The significance of this popular quote was to display an example of the action of doublethink. Doublethink is the act of having two contradictory thoughts at the same time and believing both are true. Doublethink plays an influential role in the novel, 1984. The novel takes place in a super-state by the name of Oceania which covers the entire continents of our America in reality. The main character of this novel is Winston Smith, a thirty-nine year-old Party member who works at the Ministry of Truth correcting “errors” in past publication who has a

Hopelessness, deep and gaping ever lasting hopelessness. If the course of humanity fails to change, to this everyone will succumb. That is the message that George Orwell has left for the future, and it would be in humanity's best interest to heed. Winston Smith of 1984 lived in a world that had been consumed by the everlasting abyss of injustice. Eventually this world became too much for our hopeful protagonist and thus, like the future that is bound to a horrific fate, he succumbed. “It was like swimming against a current that swept you backwards however hard you struggled, and then suddenly deciding to turn round and go with the current instead of opposing it” (Orwell 248). No one in this world is any different than Winston, they will follow his path like all of those before them, following the five stages of Kübler-Ross. Denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance make up the cycle that every feeble life will follow and that Winston grew to know all too well.