1984 Analytical Essay

Imagine this: Every thought you are thinking right now could get you arrested. Keeping secrets is impossible and deadly. You are no longer yourself, rather a robot controlled by the government. For Winston, Julia, and O’Brien, this is their everyday lives. They are constantly being monitored. They never have the chance to be themselves. In George Orwell’s 1984, the characters Winston, Julia, and O’Brien display the aspects that a totalitarian society inspires.

Living in a life of hate towards the Inner Party, Winston Smith takes the role of the protagonist in this story. Winston is extremely intelligent, but he is also a little shy. He likes to keep to himself. He doesn’t like to stand out. With being smart, he gets very curious about things

that he doesn’t understand. If something doesn’t make sense to him, he always questions it. Winston is also very frail and weak. Even though he is thirty-nine, doesn’t like to stand up for himself, when it means that he will get ridiculed. Winston works in the Ministry of Truth, where he has to wear a uniform. His light, frail hair stands out against the bright blue overalls that he has to wear for his job. The harsh fabric rubs up against his rough skin. Winston acts scared a lot. He is afraid to say things, even when he knows that it is wrong. Yet, he has so much built up anger towards the government. He wants to rebel, but is afraid of the repercussions. He likes his job, and wants to keep it. Overall, he likes his life, except the fact that he can’t love. He daydreams all the time about what his life would be like if the government wasn’t there. Although, he is always careful about where he daydreams because he could always get caught. He likes to live a life of danger. Winston is a very complex guy. He has a lot of built up anger, but he is afraid to show it.
Along with being the protagonist, Winston is also the main character.

The reader views the book through the eyes of him. Without him, the reader would have to view the book through someone else’s eyes. What makes this book so interesting is that the reader gets to see how the government, also known as the Inner Party, tears down Winston to where there is nothing left for him to do but rebel. The reader sees how much a he can take before he reaches rock bottom. He is torn down by the government daily, but he doesn’t react to it, until he’s had enough. The book is also interesting because Winston is the only one who is brave enough to disobey the Inner Party, in front of them. He is constantly monitored through telescreens inside his home and around the city. He disobeys the government by writing in a journal. (Orwell 6) Having private thoughts is very illegal, especially when it is about the government being wrong. Winston is the only one who is brave enough to challenge the government. Everyone else is too scared and cowardly to challenge the Inner Party. Winston shows that the government has broken him and has turned him into a depressed mess who is desperate to find something that will make him feel happy. The theme of this story is taking over the mind. The government makes the citizens believe everything that they want them to like, 2 + 2 = 5 (Orwell 277). Winston helps the reader to understand how the government controls everyone. He has a big role in this book. Without him, the book 1984 would not be the same as it

is.
When Winston rebels, he decides to do the one thing that is not allowed, to be in love. He gets together with Julia. Julia is mainly a supporting character in this story. She is very easy going. She likes to have a good time. Optimism and pragmatism are always flowing from her. She also is very sneaky. She likes to keep secrets. She knows how to cover up those secrets. Working in the Ministry of Truth, just like Winston, she has picked up on how to be skillful. She knows how to get what she wants, even though she is small and petite. Julia has dark hair that moves when she walks. According to Winston, she is extremely beautiful. Her rebellious ways make her even more attractive. She is quick and to the point. She doesn’t like to play games with people. Julia loves to be in love. She enjoys the attention that it gets her. She tells Winston that she has been in love with a ton of guys. She doesn’t like to feel abandoned. Julia, as mentioned, is rebellious. Although, her rebellions are small and are for her own personal enjoyment, unlike Winston’s, whose is for the good of the people. Julia gives Winston the push to be able to rebel against the government.
A supporting character’s role is to support the main character. Julia is almost always there for Winston. She even gives him the push to rebel, just like he wanted. Without her in the story, there would be no one to give Winston the bravery to rebel. To be honest, there could be other things that could inspire him to challenge the government, but there is nothing stronger than the power of love. While Winston rebels in a big and over the top way, Julia rebels in small ways. No one else dares to put even the smallest of incidents on the line. Julia helps the reader understand the theme of controlling someone through the mind by showing that when someone breaks, they have so much built up anger from being treated like a puppet, that they just want to destroy the force that caused it. She was broken along time ago. Even though she was broken, the government still tries to control her. She does everything that she can to avoid being controlled. She may act like she is, but deep down, she is resisting with all her might. Without Julia, there would be no one to support Winston and push him into rebellion.
After Winston goes into rebellion mode, he tries to find others that he can recruit. He notices a man that he believes is on his side. But, he was dead wrong. O’Brien is on the side of the Inner Party, making him the antagonist. His attitude is mainly neutral. He almost never shows emotion, making him very mysterious to Winston. He almost always has a stone face. His large and sturdy structure makes him seem very mean. O’Brien also likes to sneak around a lot and keeps secrets. He is the opposite of an open book. The way he acts inspires Winston to think that he was once broken by the government and is now an emotionless shell.
With O’Brien being the antagonist, he likes to torture Winston. He does this by getting in real close with him and Julia, but then stabs them in the back by turning them into the government for rebelling. (Orwell 174) Without him, there would be no one for Winston to trust, then be betrayed by. O’Brien is the only one who would think about tricking people. He helps the reader understand the theme of mind control by showing that the government can brainwash someone to the extent to where they are used as an advocate for them. Whatever the government tells him to do, he will, just because he was been brainwashed to believe that what they tell him is true. O’Brien is seen as the real devil in this story.
When someone lives in a totalitaristic society, they start to pick up the aspects that it inspires, just like Winston, Julia, and O’Brien did in George Orwell’s 1984. Winston, the main character and protagonist, is affected by his society because he has so much anger built up against the government, yet he is afraid to let it show. Julia, a supporting character, is affected by her society because she refuses to be controlled and rebels in small, subtle ways. O’Brien, the antagonist, is affected by his society because he has been broken by the government to the extent where he is now emotionless and believes that anything that the government says is true. If we don’t do anything about our society, we could end up like these characters in this book: brainwashed, zombified, and dead emotionally. We have to change our ways. This world is nothing like what we want to live in.