This content is from Wikipedia. We do not consider this content professional or citable. Please use your discretion when relying on it. GradeSaver also offers a professionally written study guide by one of our staff editors.

Characters

Characters and events derive from the revolutionaries who effected the anti-monarchist October Russian Revolution of 1917.

Principal characters

• Winston Smith — the protagonist, is a phlegmatic everyman.
• Julia — Winston's lover, is a covert "rebel from the waist downwards" who espouses Party doctrines whilst living contrariwise.
• Big Brother — the dark-eyed, mustachio'd embodiment of the Party governing Oceania (viz. Josef Stalin), whom few people have seen.
• O'Brien — the antagonist, a member of the Inner Party who deceives Winston and Julia that he is of the Brotherhood resistance.
• Emmanuel Goldstein — a former Party leader and friend of Big Brother, is the national nemesis used to ideologically unite Oceanians to the Party, as an enemy of the state, author of "the book" (The Theory and Practice of Oligarchical Collectivism), and leader of the Brotherhood.

Secondary characters

• Aaronson, Jones, and Rutherford — former Party leaders assassinated, then rendered unpersons via historical revisionism.
• Ampleforth — Winston's Records Department colleague imprisoned for writing the word "God" in a poem; Winston re-encounters him in the Miniluv.
• Charrington — An officer of the Thought Police posing as an antiques-shop keeper.
• Katharine — The indifferent wife of whom Winston "can't get rid of"; despite disliking sexual intercourse with him, continued, because it was their duty to the Party; she is a "goodthinkful" ideologue.
• Martin — O'Brien's Mongolian servant, possibly a slave captured in the disputed lands.
• Parsons — Winston's naïve neighbour and an ideal member of the Outer Party: an un-educated, suggestible man. He is utterly loyal to the Party and believes fully in it's image of perfection. He is in a way like the proles: unable to see the bigger aspects of the world. He is very active and participates in hikes and leads community group and fundraisers. Despite being an arrogant fool, Parsons does possess some good traits. He is a very friendly man and seems to believe in a basic form of decency despite his political views. This is demonstrated by the fact he punishes his son for firing a catapult at Winston and also by the fact that he shows fondness for his children despite his belief that the end of family life is a good idea. He was captured when his children reported that he repeatedly and unknowingly spoke against the Party in his sleep and was last seen in the Ministry of Love, proud of having been betrayed by his orthodox children.
• Syme — Winston's intelligent colleague, a lexicographer developing Newspeak, whom the Party killed, because he remained a lucidly-thinking intellectual.