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Winston Smith 1984

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Literary Analysis A dystopian protagonist usually never succeeds in beating the dystopian society that they live in. In the book 1984 by George Orwell, our protagonist Winston Smith lives in a dystopian society and has rebellious intentions. He hopes that there will be a revolution and the oppression will be gone, so he tries to fight back against the system in secret, but he eventually gets caught and punished. A dystopian protagonist possesses the defining traits of believing/feeling that something is terribly wrong with the society in which he lives and typically does not win the battle over the evils within his society, as seen through the characterization of Winston Smith in 1984. Winston Smith shows characteristics of a dystopian protagonist …show more content…

Even though he longs to have the freedom to do any thing as he wishes, he never makes that dream come true. He rebels and attempts to join the brotherhood to take action against the oppression, but it turns out that the brotherhood was a made up thing after all. After Winston learns that, he loses all hope and submits to the party’s demands. He ended up being brainwashed and manipulated to be under the party’s control and to truly love Big Brother. Winston’s defeat is shown when it is revealed that Mr. Charrington was a thought police and that he was secretly spying on them. “‘You are the dead,’ said an iron voice behind them. They sprang apart. Winston’s entrails seemed to have turned into ice. He could see the white all round the irises of Julia’s eyes. Her face had turned a milky yellow. The smear of rouge that was still on each cheekbone stood out sharply, almost as though unconnected with the skin beneath” (Orwell 221). When Winston realized that he had been caught, he turned ice cold, since it was such a big surprise to him. All of his actions have been monitored and it all served as evidence for committing thoughtcrime. To learn that Mr. Charrington wasn’t actually who he said he was broke Winston because of the bond they had. Even though Winston is smart and strategic, the party eventually prevailed through their extreme precautions and measures. This goes to show just how determined and courageous Winston really is, at least compared to everyone else in his society. This also shows that defeating the party is seemingly impossible to do. Even though Winston took many precautions and was very cautious, he eventually got caught and was forced to truly love Big

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