"Cliff Notes - 1984" - читать интересную книгу автора (Cliff Notes)

Julia has many sides. Do they add up to a whole person? You'll have fun deciding.

^^^^^^^^^^1984: O'BRIEN

Probably the most interesting thing about O'Brien is that we have only Winston's opinion of him. This burly but sophisticated leader of the Inner Party is supposed to be head of the secret Brotherhood dedicated to the overthrow of Big Brother. In his black coverall, he haunts both Winston's dreams and his waking moments to the very end of the novel.

1. O'Brien may be a kind of super-being. He is certainly Winston's hope for the future as the novel opens. Winston's early reveries and his doglike devotion in Part Two, VIII, support this view. He seems to represent freedom and privilege to the downtrodden Winston. Even when Winston is in prison in Part Three, he is glad to see O'Brien. If the Thought Police are the "bad cops" after Winston's capture, O'Brien is the "good cop" who keeps Winston's confidence even as he destroys him. He's certainly Big Brother's mouthpiece, or preacher, as he explains Party doctrine to Winston in Part Three, II-IV.

2. O'Brien may be rather a super-villain, who maliciously engineers Winston's downfall. After all, he seeks Winston out. He gives him the illegal Goldstein book, and it may be O'Brien's voice Winston hears from the TV set as he is captured at the end of Part Two. It is certainly O'Brien who brainwashes him, and O'Brien who takes Winston to the dreaded Room 101 to complete his "rehabilitation."

3. Maybe O'Brien is a love object. Look again at Winston's doglike devotion at the end of Part Two, when he is caught. "It was starting," he thinks almost joyfully. "It was starting at last!" Look at the way O'Brien brainwashes Winston, from Section II in Part Three to the end. When he enters, Winston is almost reassured. "Don't worry, Winston; you are in my keeping.... I shall save you. I shall make you perfect." Terrified as he is, Winston seems glad. From here to the finish, Winston and O'Brien are engaged in a delicate dance of life and death and, perhaps, love, that ends in Room 101, where Winston is confronted by that which he most fears. The experience changes him completely, and forever.


The minor characters in 1984 are not so much people as sign-carriers bearing Orwell's message. Everybody stands for something.

^^^^^^^^^^1984: THE PARSONS FAMILY

Winston's neighbors are drawn from the World War II days of the Hitler Youth when children were junior party members and so fired up by Nazism that they would even turn in their parents for speaking against the party. The Parsons children are on the lookout for Thoughtcrime. Their mother is scared to death of them. The father is the stereotypical dumb, zealous Party member who loves decorating the neighborhood for Hate Week and adores Big Brother. Watch what happens to him in Part Three, when the kids finally turn him in.

^^^^^^^^^^1984: MR. CHARRINGTON

The sweet old proprietor of the second-hand shop where Winston hides out loves antiques and talks about the old days in heartwarming tones. His antiques are not what they seem to be, and neither is Mr. Charrington. He is in fact a powerful member of the Thought Police and part of O'Brien's elaborate plot to snare Winston.

^^^^^^^^^^1984: THE PROLE WOMAN

This great big lady has SYMBOL written all over her. Winston sees her as emblem of the hope for the future. She is like a brood mare standing out there doing her laundry, with her heavy, veined legs and her overblown female apparatus ready to drop babies to populate the future. The problem is that Orwell never explains how his uneducated and mindless proles can ever get their act together to make a revolution. Is this problem accidental, or is it one of the author's ironies, designed to sharpen his warning?

^^^^^^^^^^1984: WINSTON'S MOTHER

This shadow figure appears only in Winston's dreams and memories. She stands for better days, for the past, and in a funny way for Winston's guilt. He survived; she didn't.

^^^^^^^^^^1984: SYME

This Party member is too intelligent for his own good--another type. He is preparing a "Newspeak" dictionary, and he tells Winston--and us--that once the national vocabulary has been narrowed to a few hundred words, people won't be able to do or think bad things because they won't have words for them. Naturally he is purged.

^^^^^^^^^^1984: GOLDSTEIN

Here's another type--the Trotsky of Oceania. Like the Russian revolutionary leader, he has been purged and has become a Party enemy. Some writers say Goldstein's book, which is quoted at length in Part Two, is a parody of political writings of the time, including a book by Leon Trotsky, a Russian revolutionary leader who had been purged. For Winston, Goldstein is the symbol of opposition to the Party--until he discovers who really wrote the book.

^^^^^^^^^^1984: OLD MAN

Only the proles remember the past because nobody bothered to rewrite their history. This old drunk remembers, all right, but the bits are useless to Winston because all the old man can think about is his twitchy bladder and various shortages because he is "like the ant, which can see small objects and not large ones."

^^^^^^^^^^1984: JONES, AARONSON, RUTHERFORD

Three revolutionary leaders purged from the new Party. Only Winston remembers them.


^^^^^^^^^^1984: SETTING