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Winston character analysis 1984
Winston smith in 1984 character analysis
Winston smith in 1984 character analysis
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This is another connection to the ideology found in “1984”. It is the concept that Winston happens upon while reading the manifesto of the Brotherhood; “…the key lies in the proles.” This is the response the Winston finds after reading the book, and it is an answer that he believes unequivocally. However, Winston also considers that there is a strong unlikeliness of the proles ever rebelling, (potentially due to the instilling of “doublethink”). The proles are distracted by the everyday struggle to survive; they can never be bothered or take the necessary time to organize.
Winston conveys the clear message to beware of the ‘eyes’ of the party, enforcing the slogan “big brother is watching you. Winston promotes this awareness towards the other rebels of the party and general people to overall spread his knowledge and hopefully influence revolt. While
In the book, the proles are seen as the hope that has the power to overthrow the Party. An example of this is “If there was hope, it must lie in the proles, because only there, in those swarming disregarded masses, eighty-five percent of the population of Oceania, could force to destroy the Party ever be generated” (Orwell 69). This evidence shows that this disregarded minority that is seen as subhuman is the hope to change their society as they know it. To further emphasize this, Winston follows up by saying that the party wouldn’t have the chance to build themselves against the vast majority of the proles. In contrast to this, a dark reality kills this hope and this is shown in the quote, “Until they become conscious they will never rebel, and until after they have rebelled they cannot become conscious” (70).
This idea is demonstrated when Winston walks among the proles and thinks about them. During this period, Winston meets with an old man in a bar and talks with him about Oceania before the Revolution, during this time, he learns more about the proles and their activity. For example, he notices that bombs are only shot at proles, not party members, but the proles seem to be aware of when the rockets are coming, even several seconds before they hit (pg. 87). This may mean that they may have the knowledge to figure out patterns and may be more intelligent that made out to be by the party. Winston also says that “the hope lies in the proles” due to the fact that the large numbers of the proles would be required to be capable of overthrowing the Party (pg. 72).
Winston sees the gravity of the situation and is genuinely curious about the Party and concerned about its ways of controlling people’s minds and bodies. He wants to rebel in a big and effective way that would put an end to the party. He wants to create a coup-d’etat and overthrow the party once and for all. He also stands up for the common good and tries to see a bigger picture. On the other hand, Julia puts herself and occasionally Winston First.
If we take a look at what Winston’s does in the Party, his job is to keep the people ignorant about true facts and statistics in order to keep everyone happy. This allows the party to keep everyone ignorant about everything and make them always feel strong in the progress. If the people were to find out the true facts and their manipulation, they would rebel against the Party. So, the people’s ignorance is the Party’s strength. Through the use of War is Peace, Freedom is Slavery, and Ignorance is Strength, the Party is able to distort people’s human nature and keep themselves in
It was not until O’Brien summoned Winston to Room 101, where he used the last string of hope Winston had—only able to function because of a vague feeling of trust—in order to finally and actually ostracize him. His initial “morbid self-isolation [comes] from shunning social contact due to anger toward the world,” (Diamond). When O’Brien speaks of essentially taking over the world through war and indoctrination as seen in the Ministry of Love, Winston simply refutes and expresses that alienation as such would eliminate the free will of mankind and is virtually impossible. The hope that Winston had for the Proles and the rest of humanity was obliterated time and time again with O’Brien’s torture. This repetitive destruction adds to the novels entirety as a desolate, dystopian novel.
He gives Winston the environment to speak freely, allowing the relationship between the two to strengthen into one where Winston looks up to O’Brien as a type of leader or mentor. “‘You will have heard rumors of the existence of the Brotherhood... We can only spread our knowledge outwards from individual to individual, generation after generation.’” (Orwell 175-176). O’Brien gives Winston all of the information that he has desired.
In 1984, George Orwell used characterization to illustrate the different reactions of people in an oppressed society. This can be seen on Page 21-22 where Orwell writes about Winston during the hate parade against Goldstein called the Two Minutes Hate. “In the Two Minutes Hate he could not help sharing in the general delirium, but this sub-human chanting of ‘B-B!...B-B!’ always filled him with horror. Of course he chanted with the rest: it was impossible to do otherwise. To dissemble your feelings, to control your face, to do what everyone else was doing, is an instinctive reaction.
Winston’s job in the Party is to rewrite history and change it to be just what the party wants it to be. In Winston’s individual mind, he paints his own ideas for the Party. He becomes aware that, “the birds sang, the proles sang, the Party did not sing.” (221) Winston often comes up
Demonstrating how the party’s ideals have caused Winston to automatically make the assumption that all proles are subhuman. In the text, Winston never actively challenges this presumption; consequently, displaying his unconscious superiority complex caused by the government's orthodoxical ideals. Correspondingly, the use of the third-person in the second quotation serves to distance Winston from the proles; further empathizing the class division between Winston and the proles, which distinguishes the likelihood of insurgency to
When I are being watched, I acted restricted. I am not allow to express my thought freely. Like me, Winston cannot express his thought freely because “BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING YOU” (Orwell, 4). In 1984, if anyone was detected “opening a diary”, they “would be punished by death, or at least by twenty-five years in a forced-labour camps”(Orwell, 8).Winston cannot write in his diary because he is being watched by BIG BROTHER and it is considered as an act of rebellion.
As mentioned in the text, “the Party taught that the proles were natural inferiors who must be kept in subjection, like animals...”, Winston along with other members of the party were embedded with the idea that it’s conventional for the members of the party to treat the proles in a degrading manner similar to the ways in which they would treat animals. This idea is reiterated as Winston remembers the party slogan that states: ‘Proles and animals are free’ and compares the behaviors of the proles with words like ‘work’ and ‘breed’. These words and phrases signify that Party members simply view the proles as a mere source of entertainment and a place in which it is justified for the party members to further contaminate and sabotage for its already
Winston also acknowledges the fact that the proles will remain ignorant to their power until they rebel but they will not rebel until they are aware of their power. This cyclic contradiction proves that the proles will never be able to overthrow the government. This ignorance of the people gives strength to the Party. The Ministry of Truth, where Winston works, has a big part in keeping the people ignorant. Winston’s job is to change the past.
They always conform by directing their contempt towards enemies of the Party and fear those conspiring against it. Through the threat of rebellion and sabotage, citizens are kept in fear and have their hate directed at the Party’s enemies and are manipulated to rely on it for protection. Winston, however, fears the Party and its total control on his life and on society. He secretly harbors dreams of a revolution and the destruction of the Party. His failure to be manipulated is later rectified through other tactics until he becomes a “perfect” member of society, relying on and loving the Party.
