Winston Smith

"Winston was gelatinous with fatigue"

- Book 2, Chapter 9

Winston Smith is the main protagonist from George Orwell's 1984. He is the love interest of Julia and a member of the Party.

Living as a citizen in Airstrip One, Oceania and being surrounded by the Party's totalitarian regime, Winston attempts his rebellion by hating the Party and being part of the government's opposing group The Brotherhood; even if he knows he would end up being manipulated or nearly vaporized by the Party.

Description
Winston Smith is a character and a civilian who witnesses the totalitarian regime in his point of view. He is an ordinary person who uses his strength to achieve his goal and circumstances. He is simple as Orwell uses his name to define his ordinariness: his first name Winston is inspired by British Prime Minister Sir Winston Churchill, who was PM during WWII and praised for his bravery and leadership; and his last name Smith is the most common surname in the English language. This allows readers to identify with him during his actions in the novel and could think of themselves being in his place to see the regime for themselves.

He is also a man of the future; except the time he lives in is dehumanized and bleak. He lives in a section in Airstrip One that is infected by poverty and eats food that is awful and bitter. Even if he finds himself living in a harsh reality that is imagined by Orwell in the year 1984, he thinks there is still hope and would come up with something to express his feelings and past experiences to the Party by a secret rebellion. No one else would have the strength and courage to stand up against the regime, and Winston could be the first of his kind to attempt his heroic acts; even if it meant placing his life at risk.

Winston believes that everyone deserves to live the life he used to have from his early years before the regime. He thinks that people can still fall in love and have sexual relationships, as well as having free thoughts of themselves and those part of their everyday lives. He even hopes once he becomes a member of the Brotherhood, he would successfully defeat the Party and be hailed as a hero. However, none of this can come to fruition for the Party government is very powerful and manipulative; and no matter how much he tries, he is among the opposers who risk themselves being brainwashed or vaporized.

Childhood
Winston Smith was born around the year 1944 and some years after his birth, his father disappeared. When he was around 10-11 years old, he lived in the underground London tubes with his mother and infant sister to hide themselves during the revolutionary war in Oceania.

The family lived in poverty and are constantly starving. Winston and the other local children would scrounge around the city finding scraps of food in trash piles and dustbins. Some trucks would pass by carrying livestock, and would sometimes drop fragments of animal feed for the children to eat.

Shortly after his father's disappearance, his mother wasn't shocked or grief-stricken but becomes more passive and weak. She did many of the daily chores, such as cooking and cleaning, but was generally a slow, quiet woman. She would also nurse her young daughter aged around 2-3 years old and embrace her son.

Winston, his mother and sister lived in a dark, enclosed room that included a bed that filled half of the room, a gas ring and a shelf that contained all the food they had. He was so hungry that during meals, he would demand his mother why they don't have enough food and would get angry at her, even wanting to do anything to have his share. His mother assumes he wants a bigger portion, but when he does, she begs him to not be selfish and save some food for his sickly sister. He would have angry outbursts and try to take some food from the saucepan or from his sister's plate, since he was starving more than them and couldn't control himself.

One day, a chocolate ration was being issued, and the family were given a two-ounce slab and was to be divided in three pieces for each of them. However, Winston demands to have the biggest piece and his mother told him not to be greedy, which led to an argument between them. When she broke off three quarters of the chocolate and giving them to her children and herself, Winston snatches the chocolate piece from his sister and runs for the door, with his mother begging him to come back. He looks back to see her staring at him anxiously and his sister crying. He runs away and ends up on the streets where he eats the chocolate. He later felt bad for what he did and several hours later, he returns home but his mother and sister were gone. He never saw them again, and ends up growing up in a homeless child colony. He never knew what had happened to his mother, and assumes she was sent to a forced-labour camp. As for his sister, he assumes that she ended up in a colony for homeless children like him, went to the labour camp with his mother, or left to die.

The Diary
Winston returns home to his home, a dilapidated apartment called Victory Mansions, on a cold April day. He struggles against the wind as he enters the building. Inside the heavy scented hallway is a portrait of Big Brother, and Winston made his way to the stairs instead of using the elevator; at times it would operate but now the electricity was turned off during the day as preparations for Hate Week were going underway.

Winston struggles going up the stairs due to having a varicose ulcer on his right ankle. He would walk slowly and then stop to rest for a few minutes. Every landing he is on, the poster of Big Brother stares at him. He goes into his apartment where a voice speaks from a telescreen in his home. Outside torn paper and dust blew through the streets and posters were planted everywhere with one of Big Brother across the street from Victory Mansions and the poster’s eyes gazing at Winston. A flapping poster is printed with INGSOC and a Thoughtpolice’s helicopter patrolled the city and searched through windows.

The voice in the telescreen continued talking, including about the Ninth Three-Year Plan. The telescreen is able to pick up any sounds Winston makes. He is also being secretly watched by the Thoughtpolice through the telescreen of every movement or sound he makes.

Winston turns his back to the telescreen, knowing he is still safe when he is being spied. His workplace, the Ministry of Truth, is a giant, pyramid structure that towers over the city of London. He cannot remembered if London had always looked like this, from the rotting 19th-century houses to areas destroyed by bombs. From where he is, Winston is able to read the official slogan of the Party at the Ministry of Truth, “War is Peace. Freedom is Slavery. Ignorance of Strength.”

There were 3 other buildings in the city whose structures are similar to the Ministry of Truth. They are the locations of the 4 Ministries that are part of the government’s apparatus: The Ministry of Truth controls news, education and entertainment; the Ministry of Peace conducts itself with war; the Ministry of Love maintains law and order; and the Ministry of Plenty is responsible for the economy. In Newspeak, they are called Minitrue, Minipax, Miniluv, and Miniplenty.

The Ministry of Love is the most ominous and fearful, as there are no windows and Winston has never been inside it or had been near it. It is impossible to enter and is surrounded by barbed wire, steel doors and hidden machine guns. The exterior of the Ministry of Love is heavily guarded.

Winston turns around abruptly while changing his facial expression toward the telescreen and goes into the tiny kitchen. He had missed the opportunity to have lunch at the canteen when he left the Ministry of Truth early and despite his hunger, he has to save a hunk of dark bread for breakfast tomorrow. He takes down from the shelf a bottle of Victory Gin that had an oily smell, pours a teacupful, and drinks it. After his body reacts to the foul taste, he takes out a Victory Cigarette and smokes it. He goes to the living room and sits down at a small table left of the telescreen, where he takes out a penholder, a bottle of ink, a blank diary and a marbled covering.

The telescreen is located on a wall opposite the window instead of being on the end wall where it monitors the whole room, rand Winston is sitting in an alcove; as long as he is sitting in the alcove, the telescreen cannot see him, although it may still hear him. Winston remembers that he had found the lovely, old book in a window at a secondhand store in a quarter of London he doesn’t know. He becomes fascinated about owning the book, even though Party aren’t usually supposed to be shopping in ordinary stores. But there is no strict rule of it, and stores may include various things that are impossible to find anywhere.

After a quick glance around him on the street, he enters the store and buys the book for two dollars fifty. He initially doesn’t know what he was going to do with him, but is racked with guilt as he takes it home in his briefcase, though he finds the blank book he bought interesting. He opens the page of the book; since there are no more laws, it wasn’t illegal to own a diary, but Winston knows if he’s caught with one, the punishment is either death or 25 years at a forced-labor camp. He fitted the nib into the penholder and sucked on it to get the grease out, as the pen was old-fashioned enough to be used for signatures, and Winston thinks the pages inside the diary deserve to be written by a real pen nib instead of an ink pencil. He wasn’t used to writing by hand, but knows he is risking his life to do so. He dips the pen into the ink, while slightly trembling and writes “April 4th, 1984”. He sits back, unsure if the actual date was in 1984, and knows he is 39 years old and born in 1944 or 1945. It was now impossible to track down any dates within a year or two.