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.
In his childhood (during the Great Revolution and the subsequent civil war and famine periods), he lived in malnutrition and poverty. As a child, he acted selfishly due to hunger, wanting the majority of a chocolate ration for himself, and on that last day when his mother and his small, sickly sister suddenly disappeared, he grabbed the chocolate from his mother's hand and ran away from home. When he returned, he could never find them again, and the possibility that his family had been vaporized created a lifelong, deep sense of guilt in him.
A 39-year-old, small, thin man. His frail body seems lost in the Outer Party's blue overalls. The color of his hair is very light and has begun to gray, and his face looks flushed. His skin is battered due to malnutrition, poor soap, and dull razor blades, and he has a prominent, unhealed varicose ulcer on his right ankle.
Julia
The deep love and physical passion he felt for her allowed Winston to hold onto life and became his greatest source of strength, yet she is the person he ultimately betrays.
O'Brien
An insidious and destructive guide whom he believes is the only person who understands his own mind.
Bay Charrington
The spy who prepared him for death, even though he saw him as a safe harbor.