# My take on 1984's Winston Smith **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [June 8, 2005, 9:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-take-on-1984s-winston-smith/307506 "2005-06-08T21:04:54Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Lemur866](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lemur866/32/434_2.png) [@Lemur866](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lemur866)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2012, 4:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-take-on-1984s-winston-smith/307506/41 "2012-11-05T16:10:19Z")
> [@Grumman](#): > > Cowards and collaborators turn society totalitarian. It is only because of the assistance of people like Smith that the Party can survive. Yes. Everyone collaborates, and so everyone must collaborate, or the collaborators will tear him to pieces. That is why there are no heroes in totalitarian societies. Yes, there are heroes such as yourself who refuse to go along with the program. Those people end up in prison or shot in the back of the head. There aren’t very many of them. Most people would rather live, and so they cooperate in all the small ways that create the totalitarian society. Even the prison guards and secret police are usually not monsters, just ordinary people doing a job that requires them to do monstrous things. And so, Winston Smith grabs the food from his mother and sister, and survives. I’m sure there were plenty of children who didn’t grab food from other people, and those children starved to death. ---
**Author:** ![Quercus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/7ab992/32.png) [@Quercus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quercus)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2012, 4:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-take-on-1984s-winston-smith/307506/42 "2012-11-05T16:27:08Z")
(since someone else re-animated this..) > [@Walton\_Firm](#): > > What I always found the most fascination part of _1984_ is the enormous amount of effort that is expended on a single, rather small-fry little rebel. > … > Apparently, then, getting Winston back into the fold is an end in itself. Even a single individual rebelling against the Party cannot be tolerated. That individual must be brought back into line before being destroyed, even after you have already made sure that he can never influence anybody else. > > For all its evilness, _1948_’s brand of totalitarianism really is an ideology, and its leaders believe in that ideology just as fanatically, and as _sincerely_, as any other ideologue. That’s the really scary part of the novel, even scarier than the rats. Or, the Ministry of Love goes after Winston because that’s what they do. Nobody with any long-term big-picture vision is deciding whether it’s worth spending the resources to break him, or if they are, it’s not ideological; their decision is along the lines of “If we don’t spend all of our surveillance and enhanced interrogation budget this year, it will be cut next year, and I might even end up supervising less people.” So the Ministry goes full break-mode on anyone (well, Party member, anyway) brought in, because that’s their job and that’s how they justify their existence. I personally find evil-by-beaurocracy much scarier than evil-by-ideology. I mean, that’s the point of the book, right? Nobody is an idealogue, but everyone (including Winston, when he’s airbrushing) goes along and does evil anyway. ---
**Author:** ![Grumman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/43a26b/32.png) [@Grumman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grumman)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2012, 4:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-take-on-1984s-winston-smith/307506/43 "2012-11-05T16:50:35Z")
> [@Lemur866](#): > > That is why there are no heroes in totalitarian societies. And yet there are people like Oskar Schindler and Raoul Wallenberg who did not merely refuse to assist in performing these crimes but actively hindered them. ---
**Author:** ![Alysa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/73ab20/32.png) [@Alysa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alysa)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2012, 5:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-take-on-1984s-winston-smith/307506/44 "2012-11-05T17:08:27Z")
Society was already turned into a totalitarian one, at the start of the novel (it started to form itself in that way when Smith was just a boy, or maybe a teenager, so one couldn’t blame him for that!) when Smith worked in the Ministry of Truth, at least, that wasn’t his fault, alright he collaborated with that state he lived in, but later on he started to think more and more on how that system worked and that he didn’t like it, so he started with the thoughtcrime and he went on with it almost till the end of the novel, alright he gave in with the rats, but that to my opinion that isn’t proof enough that he was a coward! (that’s my answer to Grumman) What I dislike is yet indeed what almost everyone else in general should from out of their ‘comfort positions’ in their ‘comfort mansions’ should do or shouldn’t do in Smith’s place, none of us ever was in his place. Grude wrote: “Smith is the everyman”, yes I gather most readers could see him as ‘an’ ‘everyman’, though I never see him as ‘an everyman’, but I gues that comes because I really cannot figure good out what ‘an everyman’ is (please don’t try to explain that to me, I learn’t that in hight school!). So I neglect the thought of seeing ever someone an as everyman (or everwoman, for that part), I always ever see a person, as an individual, and to me Smith is a very good, nice gentle, friendly individual, Smith never wanted to become a hero, I gather, nor wanted he ever become a coward, I gather that too, certainly. I haven’t seen “Brazil” but I take it in my mind of ever seeing it! I haven’t really gave it much thought in what possible manner a state like Oceania should ever go rotten or collapse, maybe I shall there have to take my thoughts to. Kaylasdadd99 wrote: “And in point of fact “1984” is probably a more likely outcome of western civilization than say , a zombie apocalypse”, I pretty much agree with that! Best wishes to all of you! ---
**Author:** ![Lemur866](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lemur866/32/434_2.png) [@Lemur866](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lemur866)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2012, 7:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-take-on-1984s-winston-smith/307506/45 "2012-11-05T19:21:36Z")
> [@Grumman](#): > > And yet there are people like Oskar Schindler and Raoul Wallenberg who did not merely refuse to assist in performing these crimes but actively hindered them. Yes, except Oskar Schindler saved a lot of jews, but he was also a Nazi collaborator. You don’t get in the position of being a Nazi industrialist unless you’re a collaborator with the Nazi regime. Of course that didn’t stop him from also helping people. But the point about Oskar Schindler is that there weren’t that many Oskar Schindlers. If not collaborating with the Nazi regime was something that every person of average moral integrity would do, then there wouldn’t have been a Nazi regime in the first place. ---
**Author:** ![kaylasdad99](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kaylasdad99/32/3398_2.png) [@kaylasdad99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kaylasdad99)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2012, 7:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-take-on-1984s-winston-smith/307506/46 "2012-11-05T19:40:41Z")
> [@Alysa](#): > > Society was already turned into a totalitarian one, at the start of the novel (it started to form itself in that way when Smith was just a boy, or maybe a teenager, so one couldn’t blame him for that!) when Smith worked in the Ministry of Truth, at least, that wasn’t his fault, alright he collaborated with that state he lived in, but later on he started to think more and more on how that system worked and that he didn’t like it, so he started with the thoughtcrime and he went on with it almost till the end of the novel, alright he gave in with the rats, but that to my opinion that isn’t proof enough that he was a coward! (that’s my answer to Grumman) What I dislike is yet indeed what almost everyone else in general should from out of their ‘comfort positions’ in their ‘comfort mansions’ should do or shouldn’t do in Smith’s place, none of us ever was in his place. Grude wrote: “Smith is the everyman”, yes I gather most readers could see him as ‘an’ ‘everyman’, though I never see him as ‘an everyman’, but I gues that comes because I really cannot figure good out what ‘an everyman’ is (please don’t try to explain that to me, I learn’t that in hight school!). So I neglect the thought of seeing ever someone an as everyman (or everwoman, for that part), I always ever see a person, as an individual, and to me Smith is a very good, nice gentle, friendly individual, Smith never wanted to become a hero, I gather, nor wanted he ever become a coward, I gather that too, certainly. I haven’t seen “Brazil” but I take it in my mind of ever seeing it! I haven’t really gave it much thought in what possible manner a state like Oceania should ever go rotten or collapse, maybe I shall there have to take my thoughts to. Kaylasdadd99 wrote: “And in point of fact “1984” is probably a more likely outcome of western civilization than say , a zombie apocalypse”, I pretty much agree with that! Best wishes to all of you! Welcome to the SDMB, **Alysa**! I hope you enjoy the time you spend here. If I may, I’d like to make a few suggestions that, were you to follow them, could very well enhance the enjoyment you derive from that time. At the very least, following them would enhance everyone else’s enjoyment of what you post. 😉 First, learn to break your posts into paragraphs. This is not primarily a texting forum, and even if the only platform you have for participating is a cellphone, paragraphing is worthwhile, because it makes your posts easier to read (which in turn makes it more likely that people will be willing to read them). Learn to use the quote function (and eventually, even the multi-quote), and place your individual responses after each segment that you quote. Your post that I have quoted immediately above is what we call a “brick” of text, and it’s very difficult to distinguish your contributions from the snippets to which you are responding. [Learn to use the BB code.](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/misc.php?do=bbcode) It can enhance a post by allowing you to more concisely convey tone and emphasis. Again, welcome! We’re actually quite friendly, and the goat doesn’t really exist (even if it did, it’s already used up thirteen years of a goat’s expected fifteen-to-eighteen year lifespan. Anything the Initiators try to get the goat to do to you is largely a formality). ---
**Author:** ![JRDelirious](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jrdelirious/32/9531_2.png) [@JRDelirious](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JRDelirious)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2012, 10:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-take-on-1984s-winston-smith/307506/47 "2012-11-05T22:08:08Z")
By the time we read the story, this society has gone into full totalitarian mode _for totalitarianism’s own sake_(\*) as pointed out by O’Brien. The goal of the ongoing war is not victory but creating hardship; the goal of persistent hardship is to keep the population operating at basic survival-needs level, just at the threshold of bearable suffering, so the regime can control them by increasing the suffering. Even the apparent resistance is really a regime-baited trap to draw out those who remain alert enough to do crimethinking. Winston may not realize it but the whole environment that was created and sustained since his childhood has debased and weakened him so that he couldn’t make a real stand if he wanted to. In this environment heroism becomes impossible or at least pointless. Act craven or act bravely, individually or collectivelly, the result is the same boot to the face, for everyone, forever. The most you can hope for is to delay it, to stretch out the time in between stompings. O’Brien can be cynical enough to let Winston read the treatise on IngSoc itself because he knows Smith has no way of ever using that knowlege. The level of oppression in Oceania has progressed beyond the point where you can have a Schindler, he’d be unable to “save” anyone, he’d just get broken and be forced to betray them, or they’d all eventually get caught and broken themselves… …or, at least\* that\*'s what O’Brien _wants_ Winston to _“know”_ before he’s completely broken. Ministry of Love wants their victims to be truly defeated: before they die, to live yet a little while having become wholly convinced there Is. No. Hope. (\*Which is one of Orwell’s points here and in other writings: regardless of the originating social ideology, if you use the methods of totalitarianism to impose it, sooner or later it will be the sustainment of the totalitarian machinery itself that becomes the goal) ---
**Author:** ![The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/the_other_waldo_pepper/32/12370_2.png) [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Other_Waldo_Pepper)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2012, 1:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-take-on-1984s-winston-smith/307506/48 "2012-11-06T01:40:40Z")
> [@Quercus](#): > > I personally find evil-by-beaurocracy much scarier than evil-by-ideology. I mean, that’s the point of the book, right? Nobody is an idealogue, but everyone (including Winston, when he’s airbrushing) goes along and does evil anyway. I’m not sure I’d say O’Brien isn’t an ideologue. (I’m more likely to figure he _ **isn’t** _ just going along with the bureaucracy à la Winston-When-Airbrushing.) ---
**Author:** ![Alysa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/73ab20/32.png) [@Alysa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alysa)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2012, 12:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-take-on-1984s-winston-smith/307506/49 "2012-11-07T00:10:55Z")
Kaylasdad99, thank you for the warm welcome, yes you’re right, sooner or later I shall have to learn to paragraphe, to use the quote function, and to use the BBCode, anyway thank you again for the welcome! ---
**Author:** ![Seanette](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/seanette/32/9139_2.png) [@Seanette](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Seanette)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2012, 10:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-take-on-1984s-winston-smith/307506/50 "2012-11-07T10:33:48Z")
> [@Lemur866](#): > > The thing is, totalitarian society turns everyone into cowards and collaborators. If you aren’t willing to go along, if you try to stand up for yourself you get squashed. Take Winston’s grabbing the chocolate. If he hadn’t taken the chocolate he probably would have starved to death. His mother allowed him to take the chocolate, sacrificing herself. She died. Anyone who isn’t willing to grab the chocolate, who isn’t willing to rat on his neighbor, who isn’t willing to shut up and do their job, gets destroyed. Add to that that he was still a kid at the time (voice just starting to change). One can’t expect an adolescent to have the mental strength of the adult reading his story. ---
**Author:** ![Grumman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/43a26b/32.png) [@Grumman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grumman)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2012, 12:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-take-on-1984s-winston-smith/307506/51 "2012-11-07T12:27:34Z")
> [@JRDelirious](#): > > The level of oppression in Oceania has progressed beyond the point where you can have a Schindler, he’d be unable to “save” anyone, he’d just get broken and be forced to betray them, or they’d all eventually get caught and broken themselves… This is an idea that has caused a lot of harm in the world, but it’s not actually true. Torture does not work that way. _Torturers_ know it does not work that way. ---
**Author:** ![Luk3112](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/a9adbd/32.png) [@Luk3112](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Luk3112)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2012, 12:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-take-on-1984s-winston-smith/307506/52 "2012-11-07T12:41:01Z")
> [@Captain\_Amazing](#): > > Because Oceania is at war with Eurasia. Oceania has always been at war with Eurasia. > > But, no, Lumpy, I agree with you. Smith isn’t particularly heroic, and that’s the point of the novel. Exactly ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2012, 4:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-take-on-1984s-winston-smith/307506/53 "2012-11-07T16:36:31Z")
I agree with the OP (back in 2005) to the extent that Smith was supposed to be seen as a failure not a tragic hero. But I disagree about him being a failure because of liberalism. Smith could just as easily have been a conservative. The key is that _1984_ isn’t about the events that are happening in 1984 - these are simply the inevitable denouement. What the book is about, although they’re barely mentioned, are the events that led to 1984. Smith, and millions of people like him, stood by and let Oceania happen. And now they’re paying the price for it. Orwell’s message was that if you were living in Oceania in 1984, your situation was hopeless. So you had to do something _now_ to avoid ending up there. You can’t be complacent and think you’ll do something when things get really bad. By the time they get that bad, you’ll no longer be able to do anything about it. You have to stop Hitler or Stalin or Mao before they come to power not wait and see what they do after they get in power. ---
**Author:** ![grude](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e47774/32.png) [@grude](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/grude)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2012, 8:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-take-on-1984s-winston-smith/307506/54 "2012-11-08T08:24:59Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > I agree with the OP (back in 2005) to the extent that Smith was supposed to be seen as a failure not a tragic hero. But I disagree about him being a failure because of liberalism. Smith could just as easily have been a conservative. > > The key is that _1984_ isn’t about the events that are happening in 1984 - these are simply the inevitable denouement. What the book is about, although they’re barely mentioned, are the events that led to 1984. Smith, and millions of people like him, stood by and let Oceania happen. And now they’re paying the price for it. > > Orwell’s message was that if you were living in Oceania in 1984, your situation was hopeless. So you had to do something _now_ to avoid ending up there. You can’t be complacent and think you’ll do something when things get really bad. By the time they get that bad, you’ll no longer be able to do anything about it. You have to stop Hitler or Stalin or Mao before they come to power not wait and see what they do after they get in power. That is actually why I am amused when concerns about authoritarianism are dismissed with accusations of paranoia and a “call me when the jackboots are executing people in the street”, the only problem is that when that happens it is far too late. ---
**Author:** ![Tapioca\_Dextrin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Tapioca\_Dextrin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tapioca_Dextrin)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2012, 10:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-take-on-1984s-winston-smith/307506/55 "2012-11-08T10:55:06Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > I agree with the OP (back in 2005) to the extent that Smith was supposed to be seen as a failure not a tragic hero. But I disagree about him being a failure because of liberalism. Smith could just as easily have been a conservative. My opinion is he wasn’t a failure or a tragic hero. He wasn’t capable of being either. Within the context of the novel, they are ideas that don’t (or can’t) exist. Newspeak has made them unconcepts. You can make the same argument for Room 101. Everyone has a secret fear, but it turns out that it’s exactly what the Party tells you it is. O’Brien didn’t read anyone’s thoughts, he simply stated what you were thinking, and that is what you _were_ thinking. Anything else would be unthink. ---
**Author:** ![Gagundathar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/a183cd/32.png) [@Gagundathar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gagundathar)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2012, 11:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-take-on-1984s-winston-smith/307506/56 "2012-11-08T11:28:09Z")
Orwell’s genius in this work is not just what he wrote in the narrative. It was also his creation of Newspeak. I STILL hear people say ‘doubleplusungood’, but I am among a geeky cadre. The idea that language controls people is very powerful, and the effects of that are long-lasting. ---
**Author:** ![JRDelirious](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jrdelirious/32/9531_2.png) [@JRDelirious](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JRDelirious)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2012, 1:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-take-on-1984s-winston-smith/307506/57 "2012-11-08T13:03:05Z")
> [@Grumman](#): > > This is an idea that has caused a lot of harm in the world, but it’s not actually true. Torture does not work that way. _Torturers_ know it does not work that way. That’s the point. O’Brien is part of a scheme that _in fictional Oceania_ is successfully planting this in the minds of anyone who dares try to think about it. He tells Winston that the purpose of torture is torture itself, anymore. Breaking Winston is convincing him of that and that there is no way out of it. ---
**Author:** ![Shodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2012, 2:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-take-on-1984s-winston-smith/307506/58 "2012-11-08T14:55:16Z")
> [@Grumman](#): > > This is an idea that has caused a lot of harm in the world, but it’s not actually true. Torture does not work that way. _Torturers_ know it does not work that way. Sure it’s true. They are not trying to get information about Winston’s associates, or his petty conspiracies against the Party. O’Brien already knows all about that. He is trying to break Winston down and remake him in his own image - he says as much. And it does work that way in the real world - witness the show trials under Stalin. The novel says that, after enough torture, Winston will confess to anything, true or false. It’s part of the collective solipsism that O’Brien talks about. If the Party tells you it’s true, it’s true. It’s the same reason they vaporized Sime. He was a good Party member, but the Party said he was guilty, and so he must have been. “In politics or religion, two plus two can equal five.” This is politics - therefore two plus two equals whatever the Party tells you. The torture is to break you down until you believe whatever the Party tells you. “Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two equals four. All else follows from that.” Therefore - the Party tells you that 2 + 2 = 5, as Winston doodles in the dust (what an image) at the end of the novel. Regards, Shodan ---
**Author:** ![Alysa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/73ab20/32.png) [@Alysa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alysa)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2012, 5:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-take-on-1984s-winston-smith/307506/59 "2012-12-06T05:26:53Z")
@Grude, I saw the movie “Brazil” (well most parts of it it) and must say the protagonist of the movie in almost no way resembles any real character-traits with Winston Smith, I first read the book “Nineteen-Eighty Four” by George Orwell and than saw the movie “1984” by Michael Radford and what I can deduct from both the book by George Orwell and the movie “1984” is that Winston Smith is a serious guy, while the character from the movie “Brazil” is not, that guy is a complete idiot with as far as I know (luckily!) no resemblance in the real world, while one can more easily meet a guy like Winston Smith! ---
**Author:** ![Derleth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Derleth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Derleth)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2012, 7:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-take-on-1984s-winston-smith/307506/60 "2012-12-06T07:15:28Z")
> [@Gagundathar](#): > > Orwell’s genius in this work is not just what he wrote in the narrative. > It was also his creation of Newspeak. > I STILL hear people say ‘doubleplusungood’, but I am among a geeky cadre. > The idea that language controls people is very powerful, and the effects of that are long-lasting. Except if Newspeak worked, not only would we not have the word ‘antibiotic’, we wouldn’t even have been able to invent antibiotics. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-take-on-1984s-winston-smith/307506.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-take-on-1984s-winston-smith/307506.md?page=4)