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Winston character analysis 1984
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Winston Smith: A hero of 1984
A hero is a person who stands out from the rest of society and tries to save others. A hero does not have to be in a cape and a mask and possess super powers. A hero has to be determined and brave and act as a leader. In the novel 1984, Winston Smith would be defined as a hero. Winston lives in a very controlled and strict country where they all believe in “Big Brother”. “Big Brother” is the icon of the country and everyone follows and believes each thing he says or does. But, if one decides to speak out and do the opposite, or even think the opposite of “Big Brother” they will be executed. Winston decides early on in the novel that he does not want to be a follower of “Big Brother”, and proves himself of a hero throughout the novel by acting out against “Big Brother”, the Thought Police, and the Party. In 1984 Winston first acts out against “Big Brother” by the reason that he writes in a diary five times down the page, “DOWN WITH BIG BROTHER” (Orwell 101). Even though he was risking being caught, he continued to commit thought crime against “Big Brother”. Winston knew he was being watched all the time by the telescreens, but he did it anyway. In this novel when you act out against the party or “Big
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He took the beatings, the torture, and the starvation in order to still have hate for “Big Brother” and resent them, and also to still believe in the anti-Party Brotherhood. But, after some time he was tortured enough and brainwashed into loving “Big Brother”. But, it was not Winston’s true mind; it was a brainwashed figured that O’Brien, the torturer, turned him into. For the majority of the people who were captured and tortured gave in right away to the love of “Big Brother”. Unlike Winston, who fought and bared the pain and torture given to him by the Party. Even though he could not defeat the Party, he lashed out against it and made an effort to change
From the beginning of the novel, it was inevitable that Big brother would eventually win, and Winston would be caught by the thought police. He could never have an immediate affect on the Party. His long and pointless struggle achieved no result in the end, and finally was brainwashed and lost any freedom of thought he once had.
He has a decent job and doesn’t look very powerful. Compared to the strong and powerful Big Brother and O’Brien, Winston looks rather fragile and weak. However, his physical - - - - -appearance does not say all. Winston Smith is a very determined and rebellious - - - -citizen. He knows what he wants and he knows what he doesn’t want. He is ready to risk his life in order to beat external forces and defend his society. As the courageous man that he is, he is determined to change all that isn’t right. Unfortunately, his heroic approaches and tendencies are not very stable and resemble more of a brave human -being rather than hero. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Tired of his constricted life, Winston decides to take part in rebellious acts against the Party and attempts to overthrow the government that rules over him. As one could imagine, Winston’s personality does not conform to the rest of the population, because he possesses original characteristics that make him different. For example, within the first few pages of the novel, Winston wrote down the words “DOWN WITH BIG BROTHER” several times in his journal (Orwell 16). “Big Brother” stands for the leader of the Party who supposedly watches over everybody.
Firstly, O’Brien, a member of the inner party, uses technology to accomplish complete control over the public through the means of telescreens, hidden microphones and torture machines, ‘Any sound that Winston made… could be picked up by [the telescreen]. [Winston] could be seen as well as heard’. This emphasises to the reader the extent of control that the party can exercise over the public, enabling them to eliminate any potential rebels. Furthermore, this loss of freedom and individuality exterminates any real friendship, family or love forcing the public to turn to Big Brother for companionship. This in turn minimises the chance of rebellion as everyone views Big Brother as a figure of comfort and security, ‘As he seemed to tower up, an invincible, fearless protector…’ O’Brien also uses a torture machine on Winston, ‘[He] had never loved [O’Brien] so deeply as at this moment’. This machine enables O’Brien to manipulate Winston’s views, personal opinions and even feelings. O’Brien is able to make Winston view the world as he wants him to, even to the extent of making Winston love him, his tormentor, the person inflicting the pain. ...
Orwell explores the social impact of government through the means of Big Brother and how it affects social conformity. Big Brother is a character presented in the novel which exercises restriction and maximum control of the mass. Winston writes, “Down with the Big Brother” (Orwell 19). From the beginning of the novel, readers see Winston’s extreme disgust with the government.
George Orwell’s dystopian novel 1984 follows the psychological journey of main character Winston. Winston lives in a utopian society called Oceania. There, the citizens are constantly monitored by their government coined “Big Brother” or “The Party”. In Oceania, there is no form of individuality or privacy. Citizens are also coerced to believe everything and anything the government tells them, even if it contradicts reality and memory. The goal of Big Brother is to destroy individual loyalties and make its citizenry only loyal to the government. In Orwell's novel 1984, he uses Winston's psychological journey to stress the dangers of individuality in a totalitarian regime because it can result in death. Winston’s overwhelming desire to rebel
Winston Smith, the main character, was a man that reviled the way Big Brother governed. He broke various rules; such has having a diary and having sex with a person he loved. Winston didn’t have friends, lived isolated, and felt miserable. Winston was a man that hankered freedom and a rebellion against Big Brother, but was too afraid that the Ministry would send him to a forced labor camp. Also, other people were too frightened of doing illegal activities because they knew that the consequences were horrifying. If Big Brother found any illegal activities being done, then the Thought Police would go acquire the people and put them through numerous stages of pain until he had total mental power over them. Big Brother
The book, 1984 by George Orwell, is about the external conflict between Winston Smith and Big Brother; and the internal conflict between the two ideas, democracy and totalitarianism. Orwell wrote the novel to show society what it could become if things kept getting worse: he sensed of the expansion of communism when he wrote the novel. The conflict between democracy and totalitarianism at the year of 1945 created two characters, Winston Smith and Big Brother, in orwell's mind. Big Brother is the embodiment of all the ideals of the totalitarian party. In contrast to Big Brother, Winston Smith keeps the idea of democracy emphasizes freedom, he has to hide his own thought because the Big Brother's party will punish him by death if the party finds it out. George orwell criticizes of Big Brother's society by describing it as a dark and a gloomy place. It warns that people might believe that everyone must become slaves to the government in order to have an orderly society, but at the expense of the freedom of the people.
George Orwell creates a dark, depressing and pessimistic world where the government has full control over the masses in the novel 1984. The protagonist, Winston, is low-level Party member who has grown to resent the society that he lives in. Orwell portrays him as a individual that begins to lose his sanity due to the constrictions of society. There are only two possible outcomes, either he becomes more effectively assimilated or he brings about the change he desires. Winston starts a journey towards his own self-destruction. His first defiant act is the diary where he writes “DOWN WITH BIG BROTHER.” But he goes further by having an affair with Julia, another party member, renting a room over Mr. Carrington’s antique shop where Winston conducts this affair with Julia, and by following O’Brien who claims to have connections with the Brotherhood, the anti-Party movement led my Emmanuel Goldstein. Winston and Julia are both eventually arrested by the Thought Police when Mr. Carrington turns out to be a undercover officer. They both eventually betray each other when O’Brien conducts torture upon them at the Ministry of Love. Orwell conveys the limitations of the individual when it comes to doing something monumental like overthrowing the established hierarchy which is seen through the futility of Winston Smith’s actions that end with his failure instead of the end of Big Brother. Winston’s goal of liberating himself turns out to be hopeless when the people he trusted end up betraying him and how he was arbitrarily manipulated. It can be perceived that Winston was in fact concerned more about his own sanity and physical well-being because he gives into Big Brother after he is tortured and becomes content to live in the society he hated so much. Winston witnesses the weakness within the prole community because of their inability to understand the Party’s workings but he himself embodies weakness by sabotaging himself by associating with all the wrong people and by simply falling into the arms of Big Brother. Orwell created a world where there is no use but to assimilate from Winston’s perspective making his struggle utterly hopeless.
Every part of life is regimented and controlled, but the only crime is ‘thought crime’: independent thinking and individualism. Big Brother is the figurehead of the Inner Party, and throughout the book, it is heavily implied that he may not really exist. The people are divided into Inner Party members, who control the government, Outer Party members, who make up the middle class, and Proletarians, or Proles, who make up the uneducated lower class. He utilizes strong but vague descriptions of the world around Winston to hint at the state of the world without directly saying it. He describes a bright cold day, which seems to perfectly depict the world's bleak state in a sort of indirect way (Orwell, 1948).
In 1984, George Orwell presents an overly controlled society that is run by Big Brother. The protagonist, Winston, attempts to “stay human” in the face of a dehumanizing, totalitarian regime. Big Brother possesses so much control over these people that even the most natural thoughts such as love and sex are considered taboo and are punishable. Big Brother has taken this society and turned each individual against one another. Parents distrust their own offspring, husband and wife turn on one another, and some people turn on their own selves entirely. The people of Oceania become brainwashed by Big Brother. Punishment for any uprising rebellions is punishable harshly.
In the First section of 1984 Winston doesn’t openly rebel, he starts a journal in which he writes how he remember the history that has been re-written. This is called thought crime, because it goes against what the party tells you to know. The Thought Police are in charge of arresting people who commit Thought Crime. That is the start of Winston’s rebellion against Big Brother and The Party.
In this case, the government has to use severe actions to ensure they will never act in this way again. Winston Smith, is a minor member of the ruling Party and is aware of some of these extreme tactics. Since Winston is not completely brainwashed by the propaganda like all the other citizens, he hates Big Brother passionately. Winston is one of the only who realize that Big Brother is wiping individual identity and is forcing collective identity. He is “conscious of [his] own identity”(40-41) . Winston continues to hold onto the concept of an independent external reality by constantly referring to his own existence. Aware of being watched, Winston still writes “DOWN WITH BIG BROTHER, DOWN WITH BIG BROTHER”(21) in his diary. Winston believes whether he writes in his diary or not, it is all the same because the Thought Police will get him either way. Orwell uses this as a foreshadow for Winston's capture later on in the novel. Fed up with the Party, Winston seeks out a man named O’Brien, who he believes is a member of the ‘Brotherhood’, a group of anti-Party rebels. When Winston is arrested for thought crime by his landlord, Mr.Charrington, who is a member of the Thought Police. Big Brother takes Winston to a dark holding cell, to use their extreme torture strategy to erase any signs of personal identity. Winston's torturer is O’Brien, the man he thought to be apart of the brotherhood. Winston asks
Winston is shown to be a modern hero, defined as an normal, everyday man with a sense of defiance. Even though a modern hero is trying to defy all odds by displaying his abilities, he is often caught up in human emotions. His weaknesses are shown and more than likely taken advantage of in the novel. In 1984, Winston is an average, outer party citizen with ambition to change his dystopian society. Fear is an emotion that often haunts Winston, but Winston also gets caught in a sense of complacency. Complacency and content are a major problem in the nonfictional world’s society and is put to the test by Winston as he settles in and gets comfortable in the attic of a storeroom. This flaw of Winston’s turns out to become fatal as he is found out for his crimes and thrown into a jail and eventually killed by the thought police after a transformation by the party and a brainwashing activity that lasts years and forced Winston into loving Big Brother. The struggle of love is also infused into Winston as he vows never to betray his true love, Julia. As Winston is being tortured, he gives Julia up for all of her crimes, but this isn’t the endgame for O’Brien, as O’Brien wants Winston to stop loving Julia. This all comes to a head as Winston’s love is broken at the prospect of Winston facing his largest
George Orwell uses Winston to represent truth in a deceptive world in his novel 1984. In Oceania, Big Brother is the omnipotent and all powerful leader. Everything the government dictates is unquestionably true, regardless of prior knowledge. Even thinking of ideas that go against Big Brother’s regime, or thoughtcrime, is punishable by death. Winston serves as the dystopian hero, longing for freedom and change. Orwell uses Winston to emphasize the importance of individual freedoms, as they give us the ability to fulfillingly lead our respective lives.