Character Analysis Of Winston In 1984

Believing that O’Brien is a member of the Brotherhood and he too is opposed to the Party, Julia and Winston pay him a visit at his apartment. O’Brien tells the two that they must be willing to lose their own lives in order to take down Big Brother; however, when he asks if they would be willing to betray one another, they refuse. Winston’s hatred for Big Brother has accumulated so much that he is now willing to die solely for the sake of taking down the Party. At the start of the novel, Winston could not stand the thought of his own death. The thought haunted him, and he was not prepared for that to happen. As the story progresses and Winston is being oppressed in more and more ways, he despises the Party more than ever, and eventually is

Failure, a concept most people are familiar of, often refers to the inability to perform a particular action or finish a certain task. In the novel 1984 by George Orwell, the protagonist Winston Smith dreams to overthrow “The Party” and live in “the place without darkness”. However, he suffered the fate of being tortured and brainwashed eventually. Many readers perceive Winston as a tragic hero who valiantly tries but fails to rebel against the “Big Brother”. However, in fact, Winston Smith’s fate was set the moment he wrote his rebellious speech on the journal. Winston is doomed to be unsuccessful due to his weak willpower, unorganized planning style, and indulgent nature.

Throughout the whole book Winston has been keeping a diary. He writes his diary in a hidden corner of his home where Big Brother’s huge telescreen cannot detect him. Winston needs to keep this as a secret because expression is a deathly crime in Oceania. Winston’s main purpose while writing in his diary is reflecting his hopes for a future world where humans do not lack humanity. Winston writes his desires, angsts and memories, but most importantly, he writes about the truth; for example: “ Freedom is the freedom to say two plus two equals four. If that is granted all else will follow”(). The reader is able to see how Winston uses his diary as a source of rebellion towards a government that decides to deny reality. By finally expressing these thoughts he loses a lot of weight from his shoulders. The diary is a very important symbol in 1984 because Orwell is really representing his own thoughts and warnings about the future through Winston’s

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.

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

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.

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

Lastly, when O’Brien came in contact with Winston, he asked about Big Brother and asked to join their party. “We believe that there is some kind of conspiracy, some/ kind of secret organization working against the Party, and/ that you are involved in it. We want to join it and work for/ it. “(177) In this quotation, Winston clearly exposes the fact that he is against Big Brother and he wants to join O’Brien’s group, and that he doesn’t care about the fact that O’Brien may be just pretending to be an ally, or the fact that even thinking of going against Big Brother can kill him. This clearly shows how brave Winston is compared to all the other people in Oceania who have yet to dare such a thing.

He ultimately feels alienated by her. He also has no family left. The disappearance of his parents and sister were most likely caused by the “Party”. This fuels his hatred for the “Party”, and pushes him away from the thought of having a “Big Brother”. Having no close family of friends causes Winston to believe that he is different from everyone which is alienation.

Throughout the novel, Winston is always hiding his thoughts about the Party and about Big Brother, although he is completely against it. However, in order to ensure that he does not get caught, he must act as though he loves them and agrees with their power over society. Surveillance is shaping these characters to be a perfect representation of what they are expected to be, instead of being who they are.

What role does big brother play in the novel and what effect does he have on Winston?

In 1984 Winston is described as a major, protagonist, and dynamic character. Winston is the main character in the novel, Orwell creates an atmosphere where the reader is in Winston’s mind which helps the reader to better understand him and the world of Oceania in his eyes. In the

“I love you” would be said to Winston by a girl he did not know at all. His impression of her had been one of uneasiness and animosity; he questioned why she seemed to follow him around and believed her to be a member of the Thought Police or an “amateur spy.” Though he lacked any actual knowledge about the girl, Julia, he immediately accepted her initiation of a relationship. This relationship looked to be one of physical intimacy rather than any sort of emotional dependency; Winston’s fornication with Julia seemed to be his personal way of rebelling against the anti-sex policies. He would feel as though he were revolting against the Party and Big Brother and this appeared to be the only rebelling Winston would do. This type of sudden acceptance of an anti-Party offer, regardless of any evidence from the character, would not be Winston’s first. He had made eye contact with a member of the Inner Party, O’Brien, and decided “he knew...that O’Brien was thinking the same thing as himself. An unmistakable message had passed. It was as though their two minds had opened and the thoughts were flowing from one into the other through their eyes. ‘I am with you,’ O’Brien seemed to be saying to [Winston]. ‘I know precisely what [Winston is] feeling. I know all about

The definition of doublethink is believing what the government says, no matter how absurd. If Big Brother says 2+2=5, than that is true. Winston does not understand how he will ever be able to think mindlessly. After an unknown amount of time, Winston is sent to Room 101. This is the room where they use individual fears to torture people. Winston's fear is rats. They take a cage full of ravenous rats and put it next to his face. Right before they open the cage door, Winston screams for them to torture Julia instead of him. This is the breaking point for Winston. The last scene of the book is him living out in the world again, a complete follower of Big Brother.

Yet, Winston rebels against Big Brother and wont let the government control him in such a way. Winston is viewed as the last humanist. He is interested with the basic God given rights of humans. Whether it is, keeping a secret diary to preserve "the truth," having forbidden sexual affairs or denouncing the party by refusing to adhere to their false facts, Winston stands up for his beliefs until he can take no more.