Note that the couple was caught at their happiest moment, the moment where they let down their guard and felt like an ordinary couple. When Julia and Winston fall in love, they commit the ultimate offense against the Party. Julia uses sex to attack the Party, but it is far less effective a weapon than love. She busies herself with getting around the Party, unlike Winston, who wishes to attack the Party at its center. While Winston is emotional about the Party and its potential downfall, Julia feels his wishes are merely fantasy and is apathetic to the Party’s dogma. She understands the Party better than he does and is more cunning in the ways that she defies Party doctrine. Julia is far more intuitive and realistic than Winston. His rebellion is as much for future generations as it is for himself her rebellion is purely incidental to her own desires. She does not do this to destroy the Party but to quench her own desires, and that is the fundamental difference between Winston and Julia. While Winston enjoys sex and intimacy, Julia is an outwardly sexual being and sleeps with Party members regularly-at least before she meets Winston. Her demeanor is that of a zealous Party follower, but just under that thin surface is an individual with unchecked human desires and a willful spirit, which ultimately results in her capture. While Winston simply manages to survive, Julia is a true survivalist, using any means necessary to conduct her self-centered rebellion. She represents the elements of humanity that Winston does not: pure sexuality, cunning, and survival. Julia is Winston’s love-interest and his ally in the struggle against Big Brother. Orwell insists that Winston’s fate could happen to anyone, and it is for this reason that Orwell destroys Winston in the end, so that the reader may understand Orwell’s warning and see that the society of 1984 never come to pass. Ultimately, Winston loses his spirit and his humanity, the two characteristics that he fought so hard to keep. Winston represents the struggle between good and bad forces, and there is no mistaking where the lines are drawn. When Winston is destroyed, these things are destroyed with him, and so goes the reader’s faith that these values are undying and a natural part of being human. Winston embodies the values of a civilized society: democracy, peace, freedom, love, and decency. Readers identify so closely with Winston because he has individuality and undying self-determination. If Winston were to escape, Orwell’s agenda of showing the true nature of totalitarianism would have been lost. Totalitarianism does not permit such an ending Winston must be crushed. But Orwell makes certain that there is no happy ending. During this time, there is hope for Winston, and subsequently, hope for the future. Perhaps Winston carries even more weight for today’s reader, who can imagine the possibility of a society like Winston’s, the value of technology over humanity.Įven though Winston’s life is replete with misery and pain, Orwell allows him a brief time of happiness and love. Orwell characterizes Winston as a complete, sympathetic human being, and in doing so gives the reader a stake in the outcome of the novel.īecause Winston is so real, so common, it is easy for readers to identify with him and to imagine themselves in his place. He represents the feelings in every human being, and it is for this reason that a reader hopes that things will change. A reader cannot resist identifying with Winston: He is ordinary, yet he finds the strength to try and make his circumstances better. Winston is taken from Winston Churchill, the exalted leader of wartime England, and Smith is the most common last name in the English language, thus allowing readers to see him as Orwell intended: an ordinary man who makes a valiant effort in extraordinary circumstances. Winston is a kind of innocent in a world gone wrong, and it is through him that the reader is able to understand and feel the suffering that exists in the totalitarian society of Oceania.Įven Winston’s name is suggestive. He is the character that the reader most identifies with, and the reader sees the world from his point of view. Winston Smith is the protagonist of 1984.
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