The character I chose to respond to in 1984 was Winston Smith. I chose Winston because naturally as the protagonist of the novel he is the one with the widest range of relevant conflicts with his society, in this case a dystopia. George Orwell reveals many of his elements of his dystopia such as when he reveals Winston's ignorance on the death of his parents "He must, he thought, have been ten or eleven years old when his mother had disappeared" (29). Orwell isolates Winston as the protagonist beyond all doubt because he exclusively reveals the negative aspect of his dystopian world; the fact that the character Winston does not know when his parents died and has to assume a cause indicated that in his society individuality and dissent are bad.
Another prime example of Winston revealing the nature of his society is when the character Winston writes in his journal "If there is hope [wrote Winston] it lies in the proles" (69). Winston simultaneously questions the political systems and feels that there is something terrible wrong with his society. He also surfaces another critical element of dystopias: power density. 85% of the population lies in the proles, yet they have no power whatsoever. Citizens are under constant surveillance and worship big brother; under this system, power is focused to less than 2% of the population. In this sense, Orwell provides the reader with insight on truly how corrupt his society is. Winston and the society believe that free thought is punishable by death and as a result live under a reign of fear/love comparable to a God, which allows The Party to maintain control over a force significantly larger than them.
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