Character Analysis of Winston Smith in 1984

“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 carnal relationship with a woman he barely knows, and when given the chance to show the strength of his willpower despite being battered down into his weakest state, he betrays the person to whom he promised to always love. Winston Smith is not a hero.
His purchase of the diary was a bold move on his part, but he recorded nothing of importance. He even admits that he had “pour[ed] out...[a] stream of rubbish.” One who writes for a living should be able to write with some eloquence. His job, in fact, was to rewrite history to suit the whims of the Party, which was strange for one who claimed to immensely dislike the principles of Big Brother and who wanted the right to individuality and freedom of speech. Even stranger was though Winston constantly worried about changing history and aspired to know what really happened, he never even dared to contemplate any form of keeping a personal record of actual events. Winston knew that “every record ha[d] been destroyed or falsified, every book ha[d] been...

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...y hating Big Brother would be his greatest revenge; this would become another broken promise. Winston would also break the trust of Julia, to whom he had previously promised to never betray.
Winston’s poor choice in relationships, weakening of will, and hypocritical view on history would be the greatest factors that would lead to his demise. He had initially seemed to be someone that a reader could cheer on, a person who would be brave enough to start a revolution, but he would turn out to be extraordinarily weak. Winston Smith portrays no qualities of a hero; he shows no strength to rise out of his journey from strength to weakness, never goes above and beyond what is expected of him, and never risks his life for the chance of helping others. Winston would be conquered by his fear and would metamorphose into the person he had claimed to hate, a lover of Big Brother.