Winston
Smith
Orwell’s primary goal in 1984 is to demonstrate the
terrifying possibilities of totalitarianism. The reader experiences the
nightmarish world that Orwell envisions through the eyes of the protagonist,
Winston. His personal tendency to resist the stifling of his individuality, and
his intellectual ability to reason about his resistance, enables the reader to
observe and understand the harsh oppression that the Party, Big Brother, and
the Thought Police institute. Whereas Julia is untroubled and somewhat selfish,
interested in rebelling only for the pleasures to be gained, Winston is extremely
pensive and curious, desperate to understand how and why the Party exercises
such absolute power in Oceania. Winston’s long reflections give Orwell a chance
to explore the novel’s important themes, including language as mind control,
psychological and physical intimidation and manipulation, and the importance of
knowledge of the past.
Apart from his thoughtful nature, Winston’s main attributes
are his rebelliousness and his fatalism. Winston hates the Party passionately
and wants to test the limits of its power; he commits innumerable crimes
throughout the novel, ranging from writing “DOWN WITH BIG BROTHER” in his
diary, to having an illegal love affair with Julia, to getting himself secretly
indoctrinated into the anti-Party Brotherhood. The effort Winston puts into his
attempt to achieve freedom and independence ultimately underscores the Party’s
devastating power. By the end of the novel, Winston’s rebellion is revealed as
playing into O’Brien’s campaign of physical and psychological torture, transforming
Winston into a loyal subject of Big Brother.
One reason for Winston’s rebellion, and eventual downfall,
is his sense of fatalism—his intense (though entirely justified) paranoia about
the Party and his overriding belief that the Party will eventually catch and
punish him. As soon as he writes “DOWN WITH BIG BROTHER” in his diary, Winston
is positive that the Thought Police will quickly capture him for committing a
thoughtcrime. Thinking that he is helpless to evade his doom, Winston 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 must continue to rebel.
Winston lives in a world in which legitimate optimism is an impossibility;
lacking any real hope, he gives himself false hope, fully aware that he is
doing so.
Julia
Julia is Winston’s lover and the only other person who
Winston can be sure hates the Party and wishes to rebel against it as he does.
Whereas Winston is restless, fatalistic, and concerned about large-scale social
issues, Julia is sensual, pragmatic, and generally content to live in the
moment and make the best of her life. Winston longs to join the Brotherhood and
read Emmanuel Goldstein’s abstract manifesto; Julia is more concerned with
enjoying sex and making practical plans to avoid getting caught by the Party.
Winston essentially sees their affair as temporary; his fatalistic attitude
makes him unable to imagine his relationship with Julia lasting very long.
Julia, on the other hand, is well adapted to her chosen forms of small-scale
rebellion. She claims to have had affairs with various Party members, and has
no intention of terminating her pleasure seeking, or of being caught (her
involvement with Winston is what leads to her capture). Julia is a striking
contrast to Winston: apart from their mutual sexual desire and hatred of the
Party, most of their traits are dissimilar, if not contradictory.
O’Brien
One of the most fascinating aspects of 1984 is the manner in
which Orwell shrouds an explicit portrayal of a totalitarian world in an
enigmatic aura. While Orwell gives the reader a close look into the personal
life of Winston Smith, the reader’s only glimpses of Party life are those that
Winston himself catches. As a result, many of the Party’s inner workings remain
unexplained, as do its origins, and the identities and motivations of its
leaders. This sense of mystery is centralized in the character of O’Brien, a
powerful member of the Inner Party who tricks Winston into believing that he is
a member of the revolutionary group called the Brotherhood. O’Brien inducts
Winston into the Brotherhood. Later, though, he appears at Winston’s jail cell
to abuse and brainwash him in the name of the Party. During the process of this
punishment, and perhaps as an act of psychological torture, O’Brien admits that
he pretended to be connected to the Brotherhood merely to trap Winston in an
act of open disloyalty to the Party.
This revelation raises more questions about O’Brien than it
answers. Rather than developing as a character throughout the novel, O’Brien
actually seems to un-develop: by the end of the book, the reader knows far less
about him than they previously had thought. When Winston asks O’Brien if he too
has been captured by the Party, O’Brien replies, “They got me long ago.” This
reply could signify that O’Brien himself was once rebellious, only to be
tortured into passive acceptance of the Party. One can also argue that O’Brien
pretends to sympathize with Winston merely to gain his trust. Similarly, one
cannot be sure whether the Brotherhood actually exists, or if it is simply a
Party invention used to trap the disloyal and give the rest of the populace a
common enemy. The novel does not answer these questions, but rather leaves
O’Brien as a shadowy, symbolic enigma on the fringes of the even more obscure
Inner Party.
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