Karakterler

Mr. Charrington

Mr. Charrington is the seemingly elderly, kind proprietor of the antique shop in the proleterian district where Winston buys his empty diary, pens, and a glass paperweight. Because he keeps mementos of Old England and snippets of poetry in his shop, Winston feels a great sense of trust and curiosity toward him. When he rents out the room above his shop as a secret meeting place, he convinces Winston that he is offering a safe haven of nostalgia, isolated from Oceanian society. However, in the middle of the novel, he reappears on the scene as an officer of the Thought Police. All his feigned shyness, gentle accent, and elderly persona were merely a performance played flawlessly to trap secret rebels like Winston. Upon the moment of capture, he emerges with his true identity and completes his duty without showing any sign of pity for his victims.

Julia

Julia is a 26-year-old, lively, and cunning Outer Party member responsible for the novel-writing machines in the Fiction Department of the Ministry of Truth. From the outside, she looks like a perfectly loyal Party supporter; she is a huge advocate for its activities and a volunteer for the Junior Anti-Sex League. However, this is a complete and perfect performance. With strong instincts and experience in breaking rules, Julia rebels against the system not out of political philosophy, but out of a desire to satisfy her own pleasures. She chooses to secretly violate Party rules solely to satisfy her individual desires and sexuality. Her encounter with Winston brings out the suppressed rebellion in both. In the forests and the secret room above the antique shop, she offers Winston love, a false sense of freedom, and comfort. She has an indifferent political apathy toward the Party and secret organizations like the Brotherhood. However, when the Thought Police catch them, this false insouciance does not save her. Under brutal torture in the dungeons of the Ministry of Love, she is drained, sells out Winston immediately, and is transformed into a hollow shell of a person with her spirit destroyed.

O'Brien

O'Brien is a mysterious, powerful, and high-ranking despot of the Inner Party, the absolute ruler of Oceania. In the early parts of the novel, he is imagined by Winston as part of the legendary secret organization, the Brotherhood, and a hope for rebellion. With his large and reassuring physique, and the antique elegance with which he puts on his glasses, he draws Winston into a philosophical bond. Yet, O'Brien's real duty is to trap and identify rebels and crush them with torture in the dungeons of the Ministry of Love, turning them back into an inseparable cell of the Party. O'Brien not only deceived Winston; he observed him silently for 7 years, studied his psychology, and offered him a false salvation in a language Winston would fully understand. In the dungeons, even while inflicting physical pain on Winston by dismantling his thoughts, he does not lose Winston's respect. He is a terrifying master of Doublethink as he explains that power is sought for its own sake and that the future is a boot stamping on a human face forever.

Parsons

Parsons is Winston's next-door neighbor at Victory Mansions and also a colleague at the Ministry of Truth. Throughout the novel, he embodies the stereotype of the 'ideal Party member': stupid, thick-headed, cheerful, sweaty, and never questioning the system. He blindly jumps into all of the Outer Party's vapid campaigns (Hate Week, fundraising, etc.) and prides himself on raising his children as fanatical spies. He is an empty vessel who cannot think and harbors no spark of rebellion. Ironically and tragically, he ends up in prison after being turned in by one of his children—whom he boasted about—for muttering 'Down with Big Brother' in his sleep.

Syme

Syme is a highly intelligent philologist working on the 11th edition of the Newspeak dictionary at the Research Department of the Ministry of Truth. His job is to destroy words. He has perfectly understood the goal of the Party—the philosophy of narrowing thought—and has carried out this task with great passion. He is a colleague whom Winston encounters and converses with in the canteen, where he hears the chilling nature of the Party's ideology straight from the source. However, Syme's problem is that he is too intelligent for the system and expresses his thoughts too openly. Simply because he is 'honest' and conspicuous, he is one day 'vaporized' and completely erased from historical records. No matter how useful one is to the Party, intelligence is an element that must be controlled, and Syme is a victim of this rule.

Winston Smith

Winston Smith is a 39-year-old, average Outer Party member working in the Records Department of the Ministry of Truth in the totalitarian state of Oceania. His job is to alter past magazines and newspapers according to the Party's current interests and systematically destroy the truth. Despite this, he harbors a deep suspicion and hatred for the Party and its false illusion of absolute reality. His life takes an irreversible turn toward rebellion when he finds an old, empty diary and begins to write in it. Remembering the past and humanity, and seeking a way to keep his own consciousness alive in an age of loneliness, is his most important goal. He turns his rebellion into action by having a dangerous romantic relationship with a young, lively woman named Julia. He is mistaken in thinking that O'Brien, a mysterious representative of the Inner Party, is a leader of the legendary resistance organization called the Brotherhood. Captured by the Thought Police, Winston is subjected to literal physical and mental destruction in the Ministry of Love. By the end of the questioning and torture, all his human dignity is stripped away, he betrays Julia, and by the end of the novel, he becomes a man whose will has been destroyed and who has begun to love Big Brother, the leader of the corrupt system.