1984 Analysis of Winston Smith

Analysis of Winston Smith In the novel 1984 by George Orwell, Winston Smith is the protagonist. He is thirty-nine years old, frail, and thin. Winston is a common man that most of the readers can sympathize with. He is a man who wants to test the limits of the Party’s powers by seeing how many illegal things he can get away with. The reader’s feel as if they are experiencing the horrible events brought on by the Thought Police, the Party, and Big Brother with Winston and Julia, his love interest, throughout the book because of Orwell’s fantastic use of imagery. He hates the party because of how totalitarianistic it is. He also hates the Thought Police and Big Brother because of the harsh abuse they instill on the citizens. Winston is employed as a records editor and propaganda officer for the Ministry of Truth. He is a rebellious character who wants to breakdown the groups trying to control him and the people around him. Winston believes that the Party, Big Brother, and the Thought Police are corrupted and they are doing things behind the citizens backs. He is curious to understand why the Party uses such absolute power in Oceania. He does many illegal things to see how long it will take for him to get caught. One of these include writing “DOWN WITH BIG BROTHER,” (Orwell 21) in his diary. This is illegal on two major counts because he is writing down a thought in which the Thought Police can catch him and also the fact that he is going against Big Brother because everyone must love him. He is also living with Julia, a woman who he thought to be apart of the Thought Police when he first met her, in a room above Mr. Charrington’s shop and they were excited because “the absence of the telescreen,” (Orwell 151). Winston is having an illegal love affair with Julia. She wears a chastity belt, but sleeps with Party members to satisfy herself. Both of these characters want to watch Big Brother go down. One reason for Winston’s rebellion is his sense of acceptance. As soon as he writes “DOWN WITH BIG BROTHER” in his diary, he knew that “the Thought Police would get him,” because “he had committed…the essential crime,” (Orwell 22). Thinking that there is no way to avoid his death, he allows himself to take unnecessary risks, such as trusting O’Brien and renting the room above Mr. Charrington’s shop. Deep down, he knows that these risks will increase his chances of being caught by the Party; he even admits this to O’Brien while in prison but because he believes that he will be caught no matter what he does, he convinces himself that he should continue to rebel. More than anything, Winston seeks the truth – and the only way to figure it out is by rebelling against the totalitarian rule of the Party. In conclusion, Winston began as a man who had deep hatred towards the Party and only wanted to watch them go down. After he got taken by the Party, however, he became a subject of Big Brother and he loved him. It is astonishing to think that he accomplished so many illegal things in hatred of Big Brother, but he is so weak that he loved Big Brother after being imprisoned and tortured for so long. In the beginning he was a strong-hearted man who just wanted someone to love and help him break down Big Brother, the Party, etc.; in the end, he became a weak man who gave in to Big Brother just like the rest of his society.