Winston Smith is the main character of the against-utopian novel 1984 of George Orwell (published in 1949). Its name became a Métaphore for the victim incrédule and innocent of a political machination. In the book, Winston is an employee of the Ministry for the Truth ( Miniver ) whose work is to rewrite the historical documents in such a way that they correspond to the current line of the Party which changes day into day.

Its work

Winston is employed with the Ministry for the Truth ( Miniver ), in the Commission of the Files ( Commarch ), and takes part, in spite of its reserve as for the practices of the Angsoc, in the foreground of the permanent falsification of the history imposed by the alleged omniscience of the Party and of its chief Big Brother. He attends in his Ministry for the characters representing each one a vision of the Party.

Characters what knows or attends Winston Smith

• Syme , his/her friend, which worked with eleventh and last edition of dictionary Novlangue before to be “vaporized” (i.e. stopped by the Police force of the Thought which goes until destroying each proof of its former existence), was a man known as right-thinking person , which approved with a quasi-sadism all the atrocities made by Angsoc as long as they appeared to him justified, but which was too conscious of the phenomenon of the Doublepensée to remain in life.
• Parsons , its neighbor and colleague, is a man who dedicates body and heart with the will of Angsoc, too credulous to have the least suspicion with regard to the Party, even after being stopped (for crime by the thought, because he shouted “ has Big Brother low” while sleeping, before being denounced by his own daughter, makes that he evokes with a certain pride). Parsons is in favor of the will of the Party to turn over the children against their parents by encouraging them to denounce them with the least variation, even after of having been him even victim.
• Julia , the woman with whom Winston will lay down several times before her arrest, is an actress, which plays her part to perfection, making accept her love of the Party, as a practitioner the most possible activities, although it is actually not agreement with the fundamental rules, at least those which what he it prevents it from doing likes (like sleeping with a member of the external Party, which she acknowledges to have done of many times before meeting Winston).
• Catherine , the legitimate woman of Winston, which it could not divorce, is like Parsons a person perfectly conditioned in the worship of Angsoc, and went until making procreation a duty towards the Party, which strongly displeased with her husband. She wished at all costs to make a child to offer it to the Party, going until imposing a sexual relationship on her husband with regular intervals to achieve this so-called duty.
• O' Brien , member of the interior Party, and thus character placed very high, who is particularly interested in the case of Winston Smith, comparing it even with him, the “disease” of Smith put aside, and which severely tortures it at the time of its rehabilitation to the Ministry for the Love ( Miniam ), while keeping an air of professor and often a didactic tone aiming at putting Winston in confidence. It is perfectly conscious of the deception of Angsoc, with the current of the non-existence of Big Brother (which is only one personification of Angsoc), but it seems despite everything to accept all these lies, while following the concept of Doublepensée.

The delivers

After being itself committed in Fraternity (it is only one masquerade to lead it to lend terrorist oaths and to reveal its truths inclinations), Winston receives a specimen of the delivers of the natural Enemy of the Angsoc and thus of Océania: Emmanuel Goldstein . In this book the principal lines of the slogan of the Party are explained, namely:

“ freedom, it is slavery.

ignorance, it is the force.

the war, it is peace. ”

Winston does not have the feeling to learn anything with the reading from this book, but simply to see its own ideas ordered by a spirit which would have thought more maturely of these questions. The fact that O' Brien took part in the drafting of this book can be one of the elements leading it to compare its spirit with that of Smith. By learning that the book is not Goldstein, but a work of the Party him even, one can suspect that Goldstein east can be like Big Brother, a personification, but this time of treachery, of the enemy, sabotage and especially, where Big Brother is the character towards which is supposed to channel the love of the people, Goldstein is that towards which must go hatred. One sees it at the time of the Two minutes of Hatred, which contain a whole an image of Goldstein.

A criminal by the thought

According to the doctrines defined by the Angsoc, Smith is a criminal by the thought, but especially a patient, who should be cured, and this cure passes by a complete rehabilitation. In the dark cells of the Ministry for the Love ( Miniamour ), it will undergo cruel tests aiming at conditioning it with the thought of the party, and following to make him accept any concept, such as 2+2=5, while making him include/understand the concept of Doublepensée, which is that the Party can make accept people that 2+2=5 in theory, but which it is in practice obliged to use the truth to make use of it in a serious way (for the military development for example). The crime of Winston is to have a memory, supposed madness for the Party, which claims to him at the time of its “rehabilitation” that it does not make the distinction between reality and the dream.

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