Is Winston A Reliable Narrator Essay

Is Winston a reliable or unreliable narrator?Choose one side. Use 2 examples from the text to prove your POV: In the book 1984, the narrator and of course the main character is Winston Smith. Through the book, Winston proves to all of us, the readers, that he is not reliable. On the Purdue website it states that an unreliable narrator is “A narrator that is not trustworthy, whose rendition of events must be taken with a grain of salt. We tend to see such narrators especially in first-person narration, since that form of narration tends to underline the motives behind the transmission of a given story.” This definition highly defines not only the term unreliable narrator but in fact defines Mr. Smith because it basically says that if you contradict

The most important symbol is the glass paperweight symbol. This symbol is important because something that he finds to be precious and of value to him. While Winston is in the midst of a deep sleep the author of this book, George Orwell mentions “It had all occurred inside the glass paperweight, but the surface of the glass was the dome of the sky, and inside the dome everything was flooded with clear soft light in which one could see into indeterminable distances”. (Orwell 160) This quote shows his gratitude for such an important object. In the book, for as long as Winston can remember he has not really been able to admire anything, now he is choosing without permission to admire the paperweight. The special paperweight represents the main characters revolt against the party. By doing such an attack against the party, it reminds him of how his upbringing was before the party was in power. Winston really does appreciate and holds the paperweight to a high regard just like his relationship with Julia. For the majority of the book, Winston has a relationship with Julia and that is why the glass paperweight as a symbol really does have an impact on this