1984 Winston A Hero Essay

1984’s author, Orwell, portrays Winston as a protagonist that fails to embody the personality of a person containing all qualities of a hero. He believes that he will always resist Big Brother, but Orwell makes a hero that has failures. This is not the hero many know, but rather one who allows that which is outside of his mind to affect him and how he lives. Readers do not have knowledge of all that Winston set out to do, but rather recognize in his failure that he is just as human as they are.
While Winston is very rebellious and desires to challenge Big Brother, his weaknesses are where Orwell molds him into what is representative of the qualities of being human, more than what it means to be the novel’s hero. Winston is uncannily normal for a hero of a novel. He holds a respectable job in Oceania. When Winston is caught by Big Brother, he does not show the courage of a traditional hero. He instead surrenders to the influence of Big Brother. Winston fails to show the qualities of a hero when he is persecuted because he is unable to conquer his fear of rodents. This is the point in the novel in which Winston is shown to be more human than hero. The fact that Winston was unable to overcome fear shows that he is not …show more content…
People are controlled by the higher-ups, allowing the higher-ups to control all that goes on in their world. At this point, Winston does not possess the characteristics a true hero. He becomes an example to all the citizens of Oceania. This is told in the closing of the narrative. Orwell develops Winston in the end as not a hero, but as a crippled human being. He has fallen victim to the power of Big Brother: “A violent emotion, not fear exactly, but a sort of undifferentiated excitement, flared up in him, then faded again. He stopped thinking about the war. In these days he could never fix his mind on any one subject for more than a few moments at a time. He picked up his glass and drained it at a