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George Orwell 1984 Character Analyses Section: 1984 Chapter: Character Analyses Because of the satirical purpose which Orwell had in writing 1984, the characters in the book tend to be shadowy or two-dimensional stereotypes. Thus, only one character in the entire work is presented as a complete and believable human being; that is, of course, Winston Smith. Indeed, Winston is the only human character whose full name is given. |
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Winston Smith He is both Everyman, as symbolized by the most common English name, Smith, and the unusual man in his society, as witness the name Winston, which is the name of the man generally thought to have been the greatest Englishman of our age. There is an implied ironic contrast between Winston's first name and his last name, as though the heirs to the great tradition of Winston Churchill, the indomitable wartime Prime Minister of England, have been metamorphosed into frightened robots or sub-men who live in fear not only of their Government but even of their own children, who may denounce them to the Thought Police. Winston is a frail figure of a man, thirty-nine years old and suffering from a varicose ulcer on his ankle. He is not well nourished, though as a member of the Outer Party, the auxiliary to the ruling class, the elite Inner Party, Winston should have special privileges. But in the society of 1984, the special privileges of members like Winston seem to consist of the right to be watched for the slightest departure from political orthodoxy. Winston's fate is the book. We see Winston going to his ordinary day's work, which is by any rational standards, but not by the standards of a totalitarian state, sheer lunacy, and we see Winston's revolt, his fall, and his "reformation" ending in his death, literal or figurative. One of the most important aids to the understanding of the character and motivation of Winston Smith is the series of dreams which he has throughout the book, involving his mother and sister, O'Brien, Julia, "the place where there is no darkness," and the Golden Country. These may be considered in the light of elementary psychological theory, and Orwell quite probably so intended them to be considered-to provide a key to the state of Winston's unconscious or subconscious mind, under the repressions imposed upon him by the Party. |
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Julia Julia is Winston's mistress. We never learn her last name, but her name might just as well be Woman as anything more specific. There is a hint of antifeminism in Orwell's characterization of Julia; the women, beginning with Julia (who is herself a rebel against the system), seem less horrified by the brutality of the Party's policies and less concerned with ideology. At any rate, Julia, as a character, is not placed on the same plane as Winston. Her lack of a last name suggests this two-dimensional characterization. Julia's rebellion against the Party is physical only; she has no interest in what Winston learns of the intellectual basis of the system, which is another way of saying that though she is intelligent, Julia is no intellectual. Part of the discrepancy between Julia and Winston may involve simply their respective ages: she is only twenty-six. For Julia, the good is not necessarily freedom, it is physical pleasure, though of course in becoming Winston's mistress she is taking a great risk, as adultery between Party members is severely punished. Julia's downfall might have been predicted; when she is arrested by the Thought Police she immediately confesses everything, and was really a textbook case of torture and reformation. She has no inner strength and no understanding of politics and ideology, so that once the Party seizes her as a rebel it can easily break her to its will. |
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O'Brien Again, like Julia, known only by one name. He is a powerfully built man of about forty-five, an intellectual and a member of the Inner Party doing a job in the Ministry of Truth which is very important but is never identified or given a title. Probably O'Brien is one of the collective ruling oligarchy of Oceania. He has been one of the writers of the Book;-Goldstein's The Theory and Practice of Oligarchical Collectivism, which is the key to the way Oceania is actually ruled, - and he seems in a hidden way to be used to planning great activities. Apparently Winston is one of his projects, for O'Brien has studied and watched over him for seven years, prior to the opening of the action of 1984. What is so destructive to Winston Smith is the realization that O'Brien is much more intelligent than Winston himself; his mind comprehends Winston's mind. Yet even as O'Brien is more intelligent, he is also more fanatical and more prepared to accept everything the Party teaches. In fact, he does not merely believe in the system; he is the system. O'Brien is frightening precisely because, being so intelligent, he can by the principles of Doublethink accept the Party's absurd account of what constitutes reality. |
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Big Brother He is a man of about forty-five, "with a heavy black moustache and ruggedly handsome features." Rather, he is a picture of a man, and a point of focus for the emotions aroused by Party propaganda. Probably Big Brother does not exist, but when Winston, in the cellars of the Ministry of Love, asks his torturer O'Brien whether Big Brother exists, the answer he receives is: "You do not exist." Winston has been placed outside the stream of history; though he has an objective existence, he is to become an "unperson" and to be vaporized. On the other hand, Big Brother may not exist except in posters and pictures and in the minds of the people, but he is all-powerful just the same, as an embodiment of the power of the Party. The title of the Book, with its the suggestion that 1984 is governed by an oligarchical collectivism, is a hint that Big Brother is simply a necessary figurehead. Several commentators on 1984 have suggested that Big Brother is representative of Stalin, but Orwell's satire was far more universal than simply an attack on Stalinism. |
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Emmanual Goldstein The "Enemy of the People" and the converse of Big Brother. He is probably a creation of the Party also, and serves as a focus for the hatred generated by the Party against enemies, whether real or imagined, whom the Party can blame for whatever shortages, bombings, and other occurrences are suffered by the people of Oceania. He appears on the telescreens during the Two Minutes Hate. As Big Brother at least suggests Stalin, so Goldstein suggests a leader of the Russian Revolution whom Stalin subsequently disgraced and had assassinated: Leon Trotsky. The fact of Goldstein's Jewish name, alluded to by Orwell, in no way indicates that Orwell was being anti-Semitic; quite the reverse. For Emmanuel Goldstein, by being "against" Big Brother, represents those who are against the iron system of Oceania. Whether the Brotherhood which he leads really exists, having as its object the overthrow of Big Brother, is never made clear: O'Brien tells Winston Smith that he will never know for certain whether it exists. Orwell leaves this point ambiguous, but the probability is that neither Goldstein nor the Brotherhood exist. |
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Comrade Ogilvy A "war hero" of Oceania who allegedly died gloriously at age twenty-three. Actually he is a completely fictitious person who has been invented by Winston Smith in the course of his falsifying of history for the Party. (See discussion in the Analysis and Commentary on Part One: Section Four, above.) |
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Syme A little man, an editor of the Eleventh Newspeak Dictionary, whom Winston Smith meets at work. While an orthodox member of the Outer Party, there is something not quite right about Syme in Winston's view; he is right, for Syme suddenly disappears; he has become an "unperson." We never learn his first name, and this is true of the other characters. |
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Mr. And Mrs. Parsons With their children, Winston's neighbors in Victory Mansions. Mr. Parsons is an enthusiast for all things approved of by the Party, while his wife is a beaten-down, terrified woman, prematurely old. But Parsons is denounced by his own children as a Thoughtcriminal, for saying in his sleep, "Down with Big Brother!" Winston meets Parsons again in "the place where there is no darkness" the cellars of the Ministry of Love. |
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Ampleforth A poet, whom Winston also meets in the cellars of the Ministry of Love; he is there for Thoughtcrime, because he had racked his brains for a rhyme to the word "rod," and ended up using the word "God," which of course was suspect to the Party. |
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Jones, Aaronson, And Rutherford Three men, formerly high up in the Party, who were convicted as traitors, confessed after an elaborate show trial (reminiscent of the Russian purge trials in 1937) were released, re-arrested, and executed as a warning to other prospective traitors and Thoughtcriminals. What is particularly important about them is that after their torture Winston Smith had seen them at the Chestnut Tree Cafe. More to the point, Winston has had in his possession at one time documentary evidence that what the Party had said about them, and their own confessions, were lies. Rightly explained to the people of Oceania, the significance of the evidence Winston has (perhaps unknown to himself with the connivance of the Party, which seeks to entrap Winston still further) could "blow the Party to atoms." But, as O'Brien points out to Winston while torturing him, who would listen? Anyway, it has been Winston who was wrong about the three men, through a failure in Crimestop. |
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Katharine Winston Smith's beautiful, but fanatical and brainless wife, whom he considers murdering on one occasion. She does not actually appear in 1984 except as a symbolic presence: symbolic, that is, of what the Party has been able to do to the normal instincts of men and women. Winston and she had only been married fifteen months when they separated, which the Party allowed because there were no children. Katharine is contrasted with Julia, who has managed to remain relatively uncorrupted by the conditioning of the Party, at least until the time of Julia's capture and torture by the Thought Police. Katharine is still alive during the action of 1984, but as divorce is forbidden by the Party, Winston is technically still married to her. |
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The Proles The faceless masses, some 85 per cent of the population of Oceania. The Revolution had allegedly been made for them, but as is explained in Goldstein's The Theory and Practice of Oligarchical Collectivism, the lower classes, or Proles, will not benefit from the Revolution at all. Far from establishing, in Marxist terms, "the dictatorship of the Proletariat," and the gradual "withering away of the State," the Revolution has imposed the most extreme form of tyranny on everybody. The Proles are contemptuously dismissed by the Party as subhuman. The Party rather encourages their moral corruption to make them easier to handle. But Winston believes that if there is any hope for the future, it lies in the Proles. O'Brien is at pains to explain to him, as he is being tortured, why this hope is futile: the Proles cannot become self-aware until they revolt, and vice versa. Copyright © 1993 Bureau of Electronic Publishing, Inc. |
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