Winston exists under a brutal, oppressive regime in Oceania, a totalitarian super-state. He works in the Ministry of Truth, rewriting historical documents for the Party, which is led by Big Brother. In defiance of the Party's directives, he begins to have revolutionary ideas, making him guilty of thoughtcrime. He takes further risk by beginning a forbidden secret affair with Julia, a fellow worker. The affair is eventually discovered and they are arrested by the Thought Police.
Weak, unattractive and self-pitying, Winston is a flawed hero, but has been described by critics as one of the most unconventional and compelling protagonists. He has been portrayed in numerous adaptations of the novel in film, television, radio and theatre, including Peter Cushing in the 1954 television adaptation and John Hurt in the 1984 film.
Role in Nineteen Eighty-Four
Winston Smith works in the Records Department of the Ministry of Truth, where his job is to rewrite historical documents so they match the continually shifting party line. He revises newspaper articles and doctors photographs—mostly to remove "unpersons", people who have fallen afoul of the party. Because of his proximity to the mechanics of rewriting history, Winston Smith nurses doubts about the Party and its monopoly on truth.
Winston meets a mysterious woman named Julia, a fellow member of the Outer Party who also bears resentment toward the party's ways; the two become lovers. Winston encounters O'Brien, a member of the Inner Party who Winston believes is secretly a member of The Brotherhood, a resistance organisation dedicated to overthrowing the Party's dictatorship. Believing they have met a kindred spirit, Winston and Julia meet him privately and are given The Theory and Practice of Oligarchical Collectivism, a book written by Emmanuel Goldstein – the leader of the Brotherhood and principal enemy of the state of Oceania – under the requirement that only after they have read it will they be full-fledged members of the Brotherhood.
O'Brien is really an agent of the Thought Police, which had Winston under surveillance. Winston and Julia are captured and imprisoned in the Ministry of Love, but Winston remains defiant and endures several months of extreme torture at O'Brien's hands. His spirit finally breaks when he is taken into Room 101 and confronted by his worst fear: the horror of being eaten alive by rats. He denounces Julia and pledges his loyalty to the Party. Any possibility of resistance or independent thought is destroyed when he is forced to accept that 2 + 2 = 5. By the end of the novel, Winston has been converted to an obedient, unquestioning party member who loves Big Brother.
Characteristics
Winston exists under a brutal regime that demands complete loyalty to its leader Big Brother and controls its population by promoting fear and hatred. He lives under the threat of constant surveillance, language distortion and the rewriting of historical fact.[1] Within a depressing, decaying London, the principal city of Airstrip One, his home is a dilapidated apartment building named Victory Mansions that contrasts with the enormous white concrete structures of the four ministries. His personal privacy is constantly invaded by the telescreen in his apartment, which transmits Party information but is also a tool of surveillance, giving him a persistent sense of anxiety.[2]
Winston is an unconventional and flawed hero. He is 39 years old and has various health conditions including varicose veins and false teeth.[3] He has a violent recurring cough that leaves him gasping for air.[4] He is tortured by the possibility that he killed his mother. Winston also has misogynist views about women. After noticing Julia, he imagines beating her with a rubber truncheon in a moment of hatred.[3] Rob Hastings wrote in The Guardian that Winston's characterisation is compelling. He is small and frail, unattractive and self-pitying. His response to Julia's interest in him is self-aware: "I'm thirty-nine years old. I've got a wife that I can't get rid of. I've got varicose veins. I've got five false teeth." He later asks, "What could you see to attract you in a man like me?" Hastings noted that this characterisation was necessary for the purposes of expressing repression within Orwell's political writing.[5]
Due to amnesia he has only fleeting memories of his past life. He knows that he was born in 1944 or 1945. He remembers significant events, including an air raid, an atomic bomb dropped on Colchester and several wars. He recalls being in a crowded tube station with his mother and younger sister. His fractured perspective of his life eventually leads to a midlife crisis.[6]Tom Shippey highlighted the significance of Winston writing a diary. Its function is to record the past but also gives Winston physical evidence that past events took place, athough its author struggles to write. Material objects such as a glass paperweight, photographs and the song "Oranges and lemons" provide further fragments of a forgotten past.[7]
Working in the Records Department of the Ministry of Truth, he regularly rewrites reports in line with Party propaganda and destroys evidence via a memory hole. Feeling utterly alone in his recognition of the Party's contradictions, he questions his own memories and is astonished when noticing that the Hate Week speaker publicly changes the enemy of Oceania from Eurasia to Eastasia in mid sentence without anyone questioning it.[7] James Connors noted the disparity between his commitment to his work and his secret hatred for the Party. Orwell writes that Winston's "greatest pleasure in life was his work" and that he is so skilled that "on occasion he had even been entrusted with the rectification of the Times leading articles". In addition, Winston is untroubled by the fact that every word he murmurs or writes in his work is a lie.[8]
At the Ministry of Truth, Winston regularly commits thoughtcrime by having revolutionary ideas. His defiance leads him to further rebel against its directives by engaging in a clandestine affair with Julia.[9] Murray Sperber commented that Orwell directs the reader's view of Oceania through Winston's closed point of view but manipulates both Winston and the reader into expecting a hopeful ending before O'Brien reveals that Winston has in reality been under close surveillance by the Thought Police for seven years.[10]
Winston's deep fear of rats is exploited by his tormentor O'Brien in Room 101 when he threatens to release a cage of ravenous rats on Winston to devour his face. D. J. Taylor wrote that this scene was characteristic of Orwell, by presenting Winston as a vulnerable human faced with vicious animal intelligence. Orwell studied rats throughout his life and his preoccupation with them recurs throughout his writing. Taylor noted that he would have gained knowledge of the ancient Chinese torture method of releasing rats onto victims while he was in the East.[11]
Themes
Power and historical revisionism
Orwell was preoccupied with the idea that "the very concept of objective truth is fading out of the world", having witnessed that during the Spanish Civil War historical accuracy had been made impossible due to propaganda. In the novel, Winston's work at the ironically-named Ministry of Truth involves rewriting historical documents in line with the Party's directives. The result of this revisionism is that Oceania's history is infinitely changeable so that objective truth no longer exists. Winston is even uncertain whether the events he records in his diary take place in the year 1984. One of Winston's tasks is to erase an Inner Party member who has become an "unperson" named Comrade Withers and replace him with a fake story about a war hero who never existed. In doing this, Winston is changing the past, which makes the Party infallible. Orwell recognised that history could be inaccurate and biased but wrote in his 1942 essay Looking Back on the Spanish War that the abandonment of historical truth could offer "a nightmare world in which the Leader, or some ruling clique, controls not only the future but the past."[12][13]
Reality and psychological resistance
Early in the novel Winston writes a secret diary of thoughts despite acknowledging that he is likely to be discovered and that his actions are punishable by death. Lillian Feder wrote that the novel centres around his psychological rejection of his oppression and charts his progression from awareness through to resistance, impulse, and finally a rejection of himself. Winston searches for truth through his own feelings, fragments of memory and dreams and attempts to make sense of his past. Being involved in the perpetual rewriting of historical fact in the Ministry of Truth, he relies on his memories and his senses as evidence of the reality of his existence. He recognises the dangers of unconscious thought or a bodily reaction revealing him under the Party's constant surveillance, yet risks writing "Down with Big Brother" as an act of rebellion and expression of his own sanity. Winston seeks physical evidence of the past at a junk shop owned by Charrington and begins an affair with Julia as a final expression of self. When Winston is finally caught and tortured by O'Brien, his torturer explains, "It is impossible to see reality except by looking through the eyes of the Party. That is the fact that you have got to relearn, Winston. It needs an act of self-destruction, an effort of the will. You must humble yourself before you can become sane." O'Brien continues to torture Winston in a psychological battle for his identity until rational thought is denied and his self destroyed.[14]
Love as rebellion
Gorman Beauchamp argued that Winston's struggle is a re-enactment of Adam's disobedience against God, which is embodied in the state, and this represents the psychological battle between the individual and society proposed by Sigmund Freud. In Nineteen Eighty-Four, the figure head of the state is Big Brother and within Oceania's utopian concept of society all must love and serve him by exclaiming "I love Big Brother". Winston rebels even before engaging in an affair with Julia, due to his hatred of Big Brother. In order to control the population, the Party works to abolish all sexual relations, except for the procreation of children, so that no love exists except for love of Big Brother. Beauchamp commented that when Winston fully rebels against the Party with Julia, she is comparable with Eve luring him to sin against God. Winston's love for Julia is itself a rebellion and must be destroyed by the Party.[15] Orwell writes that their lovemaking is "a blow struck against the Party. It was a political act".[8] Winston initially believes that the state cannot destroy their love because it is impenetrable but O'Brien demonstrates the contrary during his torture. When asked by O'Brien if there is anything left of his humanity that has not been degraded, Winston replies "I have not betrayed Julia". O'Brien understands that Winston can only love Big Brother completely once his love for Julia has been expelled. Winston's terrifying experience finally ends with him betraying her by shouting "Do it to Julia!" to save himself. Beauchamp noted that after being released from prison, Winston is devoid of personality and upon encountering Julia, feels no love for her, signifying that disobedience against the state is now extinct.[15]
Individualism vs totalitarianism
Dr. Edmond van den Bossche wrote in The New York Times that Winston's story is a warning against a world where independent thought is banned. By questioning Big Brother, Winston looks for freedom but is the only Party member willing to rebel against the authority. He is the last man, the only character in the novel, who uses independent thought. After Winston is converted into a willing supporter of Big Brother, Bossche states that "another slave is born, another cog is placed in the machinery of the State".[16] Orwell asserted this warning in a press statement: "The moral to be drawn from this dangerous nightmare situation is a simple one. Don’t let it happen. It depends on you." Dorian Lynsky noted that Orwell intended this both as a prophecy for the future and a reminder of the totalitarian regimes that he had witnessed rising in Europe and considered Orwell's intention to alert his readers to the importance of retaining liberal democracy.[17]Margaret Atwood commented that Winston's surrender to Big Brother has been critically viewed as pessimistic due to his loss of individuality, but she considered that the novel's essay on Newspeak, which is written in standard English and in the past tense, is evidence that the regime reached an end and this showed Orwell's "faith in the resilience of the human spirit".[1]
Biographical context
Orwell's political ideas had been developing since the Spanish Civil War. He had volunteered in 1937 to fight against General Francisco Franco for the Republicans. While fighting in the POUM, a small Spanish communist party that opposed Stalin, Barcelona fell under control of the Stalinists and he was forced to flee for his life, giving him a personal experience of a police state.[12] His six months in Spain caused him to start believing in socialism and generated a lasting hatred for totalitarianism.[18] Additionally, Orwell gathered knowledge about life in the Soviet Union under Stalin and Germany under Hitler in the 1930s and 40s from accounts that he read in articles and pamphlets. Elements of these regimes, including a cult of personality, forced confessions, repressed speech and the rewriting of historical fact, later underlined the narrative of Nineteen Eighty-Four.[12] His only experience of imprisonment had occurred in London in 1931 when he orchestrated his own arrest for drunkenness, which was echoed in his description of Winston's incarceration in the Ministry of Love.[12] In his 1946 essay titled "Why I Write", he stated, "Every line of serious work that I have written since 1936 has been written, directly or indirectly, against totalitarianism and for democratic socialism, as I understand it."[19]
From the summer of 1941 to the autumn of 1943 Orwell worked as a "talks assistant" or producer for the BBC, which he described as "something halfway between a girls' school and a lunatic asylum". He was employed by its Eastern Service and produced commentaries on the news broadcast to India and the Far East. The work was often mundane and the daily schedule impacted on his damaged respiratory system, forcing him to take several leaves of absence. Orwell told his friend Tosco Fyvel that the work was tedious and the programmes were low quality. D. J. Taylor, a biographer of Orwell, considered this period in Orwell's life to be the origin of Nineteen Eighty Four's conception. Orwell was deeply frustrated working in the Corporation offices at 200 Oxford Street.[20] His work at the BBC contained elements of propaganda, which he believed to be morally justified. Taylor noted that this was ironic: "he was a propagandist for a regime at war with another regime - and in that surely we see the roots of Nineteen Eighty-Four."[21] Orwell reputedly took inspiration from rooms at the BBC, basing the canteen in the Ministry of Truth on the canteen at Bush House[22] and Room 101, the torture chamber in the novel, on a room at Broadcasting House at Portland Place where he attended tedious meetings.[23] Orwell resigned from the BBC stating that he was wasting his time as his broadcasts were not influencing the intended Indian audience. Critics have commonly cited Broadcasting House as a model for the Ministry of Truth and Newspeak as a reflection of the BBC's bureaucratic language. Journalist Mark Lawson considered Orwell's broadcasting experience to be influential on his creation of Winston, as a character who resists the persuasive language of the state.[24]
The concept for the novel began to take shape around 1943 to 1944, when he and his first wife, Eileen, adopted their son Richard Blair. Orwell was influenced by the Tehran Conference, being of the conviction that the Allied leaders, Joseph Stalin, Winston Churchill and Franklin D. Roosevelt were planning to divide up the world.[25] Winston's name is usually taken to come from Winston Churchill and the common surname Smith.[26] Orwell had experienced wartime terror and loss prior to writing the novel. After adopting Richard, his London flat had been hit by a doodlebug. In March 1945, while in Europe, he received news of the premature death of Eileen.[25]
At the time of writing the novel, Orwell was, like Winston, in poor health, struggling with the effects of tuberculosis. In May 1946, he travelled to Barnhill, an isolated farmhouse on the island of Jura in the Hebrides, which was owned by his friend David Astor.[25] There he began working on the novel in a damp climate that worsened his condition. He was forced to type up his illegible manuscript himself due to the isolation and produced 4,000 words per day, mainly sitting ill in bed. He complained to his friends that his illness had caused him to spend 18 months working on the "wretched book", describing it as a "ghastly mess". By the time of the novel's publication he had transferred to a sanatorium near Stroud in Gloucestershire, and then removed to University College Hospital in London. At the hospital bed, he married his second wife, Sonia Brownell on 13 October 1949. His condition grew progressively worse and he died on 21 January 1950 at the age of 46.[4][27]
Literary influences
Orwell was an avid reader throughout his life and by 1946 had accumulated an estimated nine hundred books. Amongst the books that influenced his final novel were Arthur Koestler’s Darkness at Noon, Assignment in Utopia by Eugene Lyons, and Foxe’s Book of Martyrs.[28] Koestler's novel was based on the real events of the Great Purge.[12] In his essay on Koestler, written in September 1944, Orwell analysed the motivations of its protagonist, Rubashov, an Old Bolshevik who is imprisoned, interrogated and eventually confesses to crimes he did not commit.[29] Lyon's Assignment in Utopia (1937) was influential on Orwell's description of the psychological battle between Winston and O'Brien in his acceptance of the illogical statement that 2 + 2 = 5. Lyons, an American journalist in Moscow, was preoccupied with the way that Stalinist posters promoted its Five Year Plan and used this paradox to influence workers to complete the plan in four years. Orwell also took details from The Woman Who Could Not Die (1938) a memoir by Iulia de Beausobre, who was imprisoned for two years in a Soviet prison.[12]
The dystopian novel We by the Russian author Yevgeny Zamyatin has been cited as a significant influence on Orwell's novel, due to its comparable plot and characters. In 1946, he wrote a review of We for the Tribune three years prior to the publication of Nineteen Eighty-Four. We had been published several years earlier in English in 1924. In his review, Orwell described it as "a study of the Machine" and considered it to be a "book to look out for". In We the protagonist D-503 lives in One State, a futuristic totalitarian society. Like Winston, D-503 rebels against its dictator, the Benefactor, and falls in love with a woman named I-330, who is a member of the resistance movement. After interrogation and torture, D-503, like Winston, capitulates to the state. Orwell also found similarities between We and Aldous Huxley's dystopian novel Brave New World, describing both works as "the rebellion of the primitive human spirit against a rationalised, mechanised, painless world".[30][31]
In the BBC Two series Faulks on Fiction, Robert Harris discussed the effectiveness of Winston as a character. Noting that Orwell had originally intended to call the novel "The Last Man in Europe", Harris emphasised that Winston is the last survivor of a previous world who has a vague notion of what existed before the Party and this makes him a relatable character. In addition, Harris felt that there was no difference between Winston and Orwell, particularly as Winston displays similarities to the author in his physical ailments and his views on women.[34] In his BBC book Faulks on fiction: great British characters and the secret life of the novel, Sebastian Faulks said that Orwell's skill was to give the reader the impression that Winston is not heroic. He is brave without knowing it and his small act of defiance in writing his diary appears hopeless, which makes him an everyman character. Orwell then shows that even a small, powerless person like Winston can fight an oppressive regime. Faulks considered Winston to be a different kind of hero, because he dares to have individual thought and love in the face of certain death.[35]Christopher Eccleston, who portrayed Winston in the BBC Radio 4 adaptation, considered Winston to be the human element that gives the story its power by resisting the nightmarish state oppression of Oceania and retaining his humanity within a dehumanised society.[36]
75th anniversary edition controversy
A preface written by American novelist Dolen Perkins-Valdez, which was added to the 75th anniversary edition published in the US in 2024 by Berkley Books and approved by The Orwell Estate, was criticised for acting as a trigger warning to readers over Winston's views of women. In the edition's introductory essay, Perkins-Valdez described Winston as a "problematic character", highlighting a passage in which Orwell wrote, "He disliked nearly all women, and especially the young and pretty ones." Her essay concluded that Orwell was expressing that Winston's misogyny was a symptom of totalitarian society. Novelist and critic Walter Kirn criticised the preface on the podcast America This Week, describing it as "the most 1984-ish thing I’ve ever f---ing read" and commented, "We’re getting somebody to actually convict George Orwell himself of thought crime in the introduction to his book about thought crime".[37]
Impact and influence
When the novel was published on 8 June 1949, it achieved phenomenal sales, with 50,000 copies sold in the UK and one third of a million sold in the US. In the following decades, millions of copies have been sold. Additionally, its language, such as "newspeak", "Big Brother", "Thought Police" and "doublethink", has been adopted in published media to discuss contemporary issues. Richard Harris considered Nineteen Eighty-Four to be the most influential novel of its time and described Winston as the most unlikely hero but the most compelling. He attributed the success of the novel to its protagonist, stating that by creating Winston as a believable character, Orwell makes the reader believe in his dystopian world.[4]
Margaret Atwood was heavily influenced by Nineteen Eighty-Four after reading it in high school a couple of years after it was published in 1949. She expressed an affinity with Winston Smith, as "a skinny person who got tired a lot" and being "silently at odds with the ideas and the manner of life proposed for him". Winston's diary of forbidden thoughts encouraged her to take up writing herself as a teenager. Later in life, she used Orwell as a model when, in 1984, she began writing the dystopian novel titled The Handmaid's Tale.[1]
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