Winston's Fatal Flaw In 1984

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, the protagonist Winston’s one weakness is the rats that lie in Room 101. However, in my essay, I will show that his fatal flaw is actually his need to betray his lover Julia. His need to betray her stems from a need for survival in a world where the only way to survive is to allow himself to abandon the moral aspect of his psyche and fully commit himself to The Party. This would allow him 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.
On the surface, Winston and Julia are the perfect love story. Two rebellious free-thinkers, sneaking off to hidden rendezvous and pledging their love to each other as the thing that The Party could never take away from them. They believed that by finding love, they had become invincible. Love was what allowed them to drop their facades, beginning with Julia “ripping off the scarlet sash of the Junior Anti-Sex League” (121). They lost the sterile, mechanised way of carrying themselves that The Party had instilled in them and became organic, natural beings who allowed love to intertwine them. And through this relationship, they were able to become accomplices in rebellion. They pledged to do whatever it took to better the world they live in as long as they do not betray their love. Julia tells Winston that when subjected to torture, they would confess, but never betray each other. In their minds, “only feelings matter” (166). They allowed their love to be the one thing that The Party could never take away from them.
But in all actuality, it was a relationship masquerading as love in a time where love could no longer be conceptualized; this relationship of ‘love’ is revealed to be an older, timid man looking for someone to validate his rebellious “thoughtcrime”, and a young, sexually promiscuous woman who latches onto Winston like he is a vessel of another time.

Both believe they are in love, both take advantage of the others emotional and intellectual assets, and both consistently walk a fine line between romantic and inappropriate throughout their relationship. In the time after Winston has been tortured to submission, he meets again to Julia, both admitting they had betrayed each other. Julia justifies these dual betrayals by stating “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). This quote perfectly embodies their relationship. Throughout the entire story, they tangle love and benefit together until it is so knotted that they can no longer see the difference, or even care if there is one. The only time the two fully concepts fully separate is when there is a third element--torture--brought into the

equation.
Torture is what most people believe would bring a person to weakness, not enable their weaknesses.

While in the party, Winston is subject to extreme torture. He is stretched and questioned and shocked and beat until finally, he is taken to the infamous Room 101. It is here where his deepest tangible fear, rats, are laid upon him and at which point he finally breaks down and betrays Julia. In that moment, he thinks to himself that he “must interpose another human being, the body of another human being, between himself and the rats” (286). At the moment of the rats, it is assumed that the pain is too much for his body to handle and so he simply exerts a defense mechanism which he knows will work to save himself, by screaming out “do it to Julia!” (286). Perhaps, however, he had been waiting to betray Julia. Winston was a relatively smart man, who was aware enough to know that there was no way of escaping The Ministry of Love as the same man he was when he entered. He knew he would have to surrender his individuality to The Party. Julia was in his mind, the most important thing, and the one thing he had promised not to betray. It doesn’t matter how true their love was, he had glorified their relationship into something that could only be dishonored in an unfathomably extreme circumstance. The rats were, to him, extreme enough to justify the betrayal that would grant him serenity. At the end of the book, Winston gave his body over to The Party, in full willingness and

submissive obedience. But psychologically, what may have happened to the part of him that so deeply wanted a political reform, was that he simply compartmentalized it and allowed those parts of him to be left behind, similar to how a mother unable to care for her child might give that child up for adoption. He may have simply needed a reason extreme enough to break his loyalty to the one person who he believed was his soulmate, despite whether or not she actually was. The rats were such an extreme form of torture that he was able to justify betraying Julia, and so allow himself to let go of the parts of his psyche that were putting him at risk. He allowed his body to continue to live on, despite no longer having the uniqueness that made him Winston.
Winston and Julia make the perfect couple to our idealistic, romantic minds. Yet 1984 is not a romance novel. It is 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 Julia.