1894 essay

Christina DeSario
Mr. George- Honors English 10
3•17•09
1984 Essay

How Winston is Supposed to be Perceived

It is easy to give up when the force you are fighting against seems far too powerful to overcome. It is more than easy, it is practical and sensible to give up when failure is imminent. However, does giving up mean the person is a failure? If someone is fighting an enemy who is controlling an entire country or more full of people, and the person gives up because the system tortures, starves, and terrifies him, is he still a hero for opposing the force knowing the outcome will only be pain? Or, is that someone simply a regular person with an ounce more courage than most of the population? Maybe fighting against the powerful enemy makes him an idiot and not a hero, because there is a fine line between bravery and idiocy. Winston, the main character from 1984, can be classified as either a hero, a failure, or an average Joe. With all that he went through and all that happened, it is clear that Winston is not a hero or failure, just an everyday man trying to free himself.
Winston Smith is an average man in the beginning of the book. He works for the Outer Party and does his job with the bare minimum amount of emotion necessary on his face. He is always suspicious and skeptical of what is announced over the telescreen, but he always rejoices with the crowd. This is more than just a little peer pressure, it is a matter of life and death.
Alone, however, Winston is very different. He has a heretical mind that made him go out and buy a diary at an antique shop. “For whom, it suddenly occurred to him to wonder, was he writing this diary? For the future, for the unborn” (7). He decided to write a note to another time from the time of The Party to inform them of their lives under the strict dictatorship of Big Brother- or so he believed. Honestly, he wrote things down for himself and only himself. He committed heresy because the telescreen could not see him and did not suspect him. Most importantly, he wrote in his diary because he could, and he wanted to. It was something that he could do that the Party would not detect for at least a while, and it was an act of freedom. He took his first step to personal liberty when he bought the diary, and he took another step when he decided to write in it.
Winston is not a hero, nor is he a failure. He is not a hero because, in his heart, he only rebelled for himself. He did not have the greater good as his motivation. “’Do it to Julia! Do it to Julia! Not me! Julia! I don’t care what you do to her! Tear her face off, strip her to the bones. Not me! Julia! Not me!’” (286). Apparently, he loved Julia. He was supposed to love Julia more than himself, but when worse came to worst, he betrayed even her. If it is possible to betray your love like that, then it would be even easier to do so to a random stranger, or even a large group of people. Meaning, Winston would have sacrificed the whole of Oceania if he were placed in the situation with the rats again. A hero would not sacrifice the people he tries to save. A hero would have endured for the sake of his cause. Fighting does not make him a hero.
Seeing that he went against the Party may make it seem as though he really is a hero, but that is untrue. A hero does what he needs to and isn’t willing to pretend or hurt the innocent: “‘Are you prepared to commit murder?... To commit acts of sabotage which may cause the death of hundreds of innocent people?... If, for example, it would somehow serve our interests, to throw sulphuric acid in a child’s face- are you prepared to do that?’ ‘Yes’” (172). Winston, for years and years, was feigning loyalty to Big Brother. He pretended he was good at doublethink, when in fact he remembered those who had been vaporized. He made it seem like he hated Goldstein when he really hoped for his existence. Winston played the part of a follower to save himself. Had he not met Julia, he would never have tried to get into the Brotherhood. He needed someone to get him started and be by his side. He didn’t do it himself; he couldn’t do it himself. Most importantly, if Julia had never told him she loved him, he would never have done anything other than live a lie and write in his diary. A real hero would not have needed the extra push. Although it seems so, Winston was not a failure.
A failure is a term that can not even be applied to Winston. To call Winston a failure would be a lie. He held out for a long time, doing things that others would be literally too terrified to even think about. He might not have finished to meet his goal, and he might have given in out of fear, but, as one passage says, he held out through physical torture: “Sometimes he was beaten till he could hardly stand, then flung like a sack of potatoes onto the stone floor of the cell, left to recuperate for a few hours, then taken out and beaten again” (241). To go through that and still say with certainty: “‘Four! Four! What else can I say? Four!’ The needle must have risen again, but he did not look at it” (250). to the face of someone who wants to hear five means Winston had a lot of guts- or he was just very stubborn. Winston could not lose until he saw what the Party saw. He eventually did lose, but he did not fail because he had gone as far as he could.
Eventually, when threatened with his greatest fear, Winston lost the battle against the Party. His vision changed into the vision of the Party. He became a follower of Big Brother, a master at doublethink, and a goodthinker. Fear had made him that way. That fear shows that he is nothing more than an average human; a normal man trying to liberate himself so that he could live the way he wanted without the chain restraints forced on him by the Party. Winston and another man in the book are very different in the way they view the Party. That other man is Parsons. When comparing the characters Parsons and Winston, their differences are pathetically obvious. Parsons followed the rules of the Party very closely and even did extra for the community out of fear. Parsons, as loyal as he tried to be, was eventually found out: “‘Do you know how it got hold of me? In my sleep... ‘Down with Big Brother!’ Yes, I said that!’” (233). In that way, Winston and Parsons are very much alike. The only difference? Winston had the conscious understanding that he hated the Party, while Parsons was only aware in his sleep. They both know they are being oppressed, but Winston is willing to make a change while Parsons is not. Apart from that difference, their beliefs are the same. This shows that Winston was a normal man in his hatred of Big Brother. Even a man so loyal and fervent to the Party as Parsons truly hates it. Winston is different only because he had the courage and opportunity to try to retaliate to make his world better.
Winston fought for himself next to Julia, who fought for herself. After their experiences in the Ministry of Love, Julia says, “You want it to happen to the other person. You don’t give a damn what they suffer. All you care about is yourself” (292). When faced with her greatest fear, she betrayed Winston. And when Winston says that he abandoned her, “she gave him another quick look of dislike” (292). It is as if she expected Winston to be stronger than her and that it is all right for her to betray him, but it is some mortal sin for him to do the same to her. Winston did better than she had! He had held on and done his best not to betray her, but he could not help it. Winston lasted much, much longer than Julia without betraying her, but he eventually gave in from fear. This is how Winston is more of a normal man than a hero or a failure.
With all that he went through and all that happened, it is clear that Winston is not a hero or failure, just an everyday man trying to free himself. Winston, although he did not win against the Party, did not lose either. For an ordinary man to face his death head on is an admirable thing. When people see things wrong in the government, even in the democratic government of America, many people will ignore it and let it go, or leave it to others. Winston saw what was wrong and, with the help of Julia, prepared to fight with the possible price of their lives.