1984 George Orwell Character Analysis

A fatal flaw. An achilles heel. Hamartia. Vulnerability. A chink in one’s armor.
As readers, the discovery of our hero’s weakness is a moment that makes us gasp. The antagonist has found the one way to destroy the protagonist, the one object or idea that will lead to his or her ultimate demise. It’s the kryptonite to our Superman. In 1984, it is believed that the protagonist Winston’s one weakness is the rats that lie in Room 101. However, it might actually be that his fatal flaw is his need to betray his lover Julia in order to allow himself to abandon the moral aspect of his psyche and fully commit himself to The Part, as a way to no longer experience the physical and emotional pain that comes with being a renegade. In George Orwell’s novel 1984, some might argue that Winston’s weakness was simply the pain caused by the rats laid upon his flesh, yet i would argue that his weakness may actually have been his need to betray Julia. Winston and Julia were the perfect love story. Two rebellious free-thinkers, sneaking off to hidden rendezvous and pledging their love to each other as the one thing that The Party could never take away from them. But in all actuality, it was a relationship claiming to be love in a time where love could no longer be conceptualized; a ‘love’ consisting

Yet 1984 was not a romance novel. It was a novel that in the end, came down to a game of survival. And for Winston survival meant leaving behind all the thoughts and feelings that allowed him to be an individual. Julia was the last thing he was holding on to, as if he was looking for a reason so severe that it could justify this ultimate betrayal. He found that reason in the rats, for that was where everyone expected him to break, and so it finally allowed him to liberate his mind from his body. He allowed his personality to die so that his flesh could live, and the only way to do that was to finally betray