Essay

Stephen Simmons
English 10 Honors/Mr. George
Do we see Winston as a hero, failure, or average?
3/19/09

Hero, Failure, or average?

“Hero: a man distinguished by exceptional courage and nobility and strength.”(Google.com).Throughout the course of history the world has been introduced to different kinds of heroes, some who could bend cars with their hands, and others who were normal people fighting for a cause larger than themselves. They were people with courage, strength, and valor, people who would go against what isn’t right. Winston, in George Orwell’s 1984, is a hero, not in the traditional sense with superpowers, but in the more modern sense, as a selfless rebel with a cause. After all, he is only human. Winston is still a hero, even though he did not triumph in the end, because he showed great courage and strength in the events leading up to his near death.
All heroes that ever existed were different from society. Whether they had x-ray vision or the intelligence of the whole world combined, or even a different skin color, heroes have and will always be somewhat set off from the average man and woman. In Orwellian society, Winston is not like the average man or woman. In this society men and women were lured by the Parties ideas to the point where they could do nothing but breathe the Party’s messages and teachings. Those who were taken under the spell of the Party were the average civilians. They were those who worked for the party and thought nothing against it, like O’Brien; a member of the inner Party. There were also those who failed to realize their place in life and absorbed the fear that the Party emitted through waves of discrimination and hate. These are the failures, better known as the proletarian.
Both groups, the average civilians and the proletarian, did not oppose the party and never would. These people served Big Brother as if they were waiters, and mocked those who died because they failed to do the same. This is the underlining difference between Winston and those living in the society around him; that the people in this society worshiped this concept without second thought, and failed to do otherwise, whereas Winston opposed the party by committing small crimes against the Party.
Winston puts on a disguise in order to mask the hatred he broils in his heart against the Party and Big Brother. The disguise he puts on isn’t a suit jacket, or a human identity, but a false expression on his face that indicates no abnormal behavior for the Party to worry about. With the constant monitoring of the people by the Party, Winston can do nothing to rebel against the party without the risk of being captured, but secretly writes in his diary every night until the fear he bears is broken. In the beginning of the novel, Winston is still kept back by the fear of the Party. When he buys the diary he didn’t intend for it to be a heroic act of rebellion, it was just something that he did without thinking. However, as the novel progresses and Winston begins to write daily entries in his journal, his heroism grows larger and larger. The heroism was not in the buying of the diary, or his ability to disguise his hate, but the courage it took to do those actions.
From the beginning of the novel when Winston made a move against the party, he was always a hero even though he didn’t know it. “On impulse he had turned away from the bus stop and wandered off into the labyrinth of London…losing himself along unknown streets and hardly bothering in which direction he was going” (Orwell 82). Also, when he first bought the diary and wrote the words, “DOWN WITH BIG BROTHER,” (18) he wasn’t too conscious of the fact that he had done so, but he accepted that he did. Instead of searching for a way to dispose of the diary, he hid it in fear that the thought police would find it and take him. It would take a very significant amount of courage to hide or keep a diary in your possession, knowing that some day, if discovered, it could mean death. As his entries increase, the fear Winston feels for the Party decreases, making his actions and entries more and more courageous. At one point in the novel he takes the risk of strolling through the prole quarter which was an odd thing to do for a man of his social standing. There he tries to answer the question as to whether or not life was better before the revolution or after. Although he did not get the answer he was looking for, or any answer for that matter, these small acts against the party acted as a trial to see how far he would go until he was caught. The heroism wasn’t in the actual actions, but in his decision to continue doing these rebellious acts knowing that it could cost him his life. Each act he did brushed off a little bit of the Party that had been weighing him down. He finally broke through the Party’s shell when he met Julia.
Since the beginning Winston wasn’t really conscious of what he was doing. Meeting Julia jumpstarted his heroic nature and motivated him to do more. Like all superheroes, they meet a girl that they fall in love with. They vow to keep her safe at all costs and to protect them from harms way. Sadly to say this vow doesn’t always hold. As Winston and Julia spent more time together, going to the countryside, and meeting in dark alleys, they came to the conclusion that they wanted to rebel against the Party. Through their rebellion they wished to make life better for the future generations. Julia acted as Winston’s sidekick, without one another they were powerless. Winston’s love for Julia evolved into Winston cheating on his wife, another crime of the Party. He also bought a room upstairs in an antique store in the prole quarters so that he and Julia would have some privacy and be safe. Now that Winston is unharmed by the Party’s policies, and not in fear, he committed greater felonies against the Party because of the courage that Julia gives him. Winston, as the novel progresses, constantly develops different aspects of a hero. First courage, then love, strength to persevere, determination, and soon, kryptonite.
Like superman, every superhero has a Kryptonite; a substance or weakness that defeats a hero. As the end of the novel approaches, everything Winston has done with and without Julia has led to his capture. His courage and strength have led up to his final moment. Many heroes face a point where they have to decide whether their life is worth giving up for someone else. When captured, Winston endured a great amount of torture and suffering. He endured physical and emotional pain beyond imagination and yet, he still held on to his beliefs. It wasn’t until he was faced with his kryptonite, rats, that he broke down:
“O’Brien picked up a cage and brought it to the near table…they were enormous rats…O’Brien picked up the cage, and, as he did so, pressed something in it. There was a sharp click…O’Brien moved the cage nearer. It was less than a meter from Winston’s face”(285).
The courage and strength Winston showed, up until his defeat, was great. He had almost given his life for Julia and his cause. Although he did not triumph, and the Party remained in power, he completed his goal, like Guy Montag in Fahrenheit 451, to be something other than what is expected.
Many people believe that heroes always prevail, that they always defeat their enemy: however, that is merely an assumption. Winston was a hero for how he went about his life while everyone passed theirs by. The average man never would have risen against the party. A failure, like the proletarian, were cheated from the beginning, they would never rise up to realize their inner abilities. “Until they become conscious they will never rebel, and until after they rebel they cannot become conscious” (70). It was because Winston became conscious and rose against the Party, knowing that some day he would throw in the towel because of it, that he was a hero. Not because he failed, but because he was strong, courageous, and worked to make a better society for the future generation to come.