Describe the main character of 1984.

Winston Smith is a fictional character and the protagonist of George Orwell's 1949 novel Nineteen Eighty-Four. The character was employed by Orwell as an everyman in the setting of the novel, a "central eye ... [the reader] can readily identify with".[1] Winston Smith works as a clerk in the Records Department of the Ministry of Truth, where his job is to rewrite historical documents so they match the constantly changing current party line. This involves revising newspaper articles and doctoring photographs—mostly to remove "unpersons," people who have fallen foul of the party. Because of his proximity to the mechanics of rewriting history, Winston Smith nurses doubts about the Party and its monopoly on truth. Whenever Winston appears in front of a telescreen, he is referred to as "6079 Smith W".

Winston Smith, lured into joining a secret organization whose aim is to undermine the dictatorship of "Big Brother", is actually being set up by O'Brien, a government agent. Captured and tortured, he eventually betrays his accomplice and lover, Julia. His freedom is finally and completely stripped when he accepts the assertion 2 + 2 = 5, a phrase that has entered the lexicon to represent obedience to ideology over rational truth or fact. Winston's death at the hands of the party is not depicted in the conclusion of the novel (aside from the simple statement "the long hoped-for bullet was entering his brain"), but is deeply foreshadowed at the start of the novel.

Orwell conceived of the character sometime around 1945. His first name comes from Winston Churchill and the common surname Smith.[2] He was also partly inspired by the character of Rubashov from Arthur Koestler's novel Darkness at Noon, especially his response and reaction to his interrogation.[3]

The character of Smith has appeared on both television and film in adaptations of the novel. The first actor to play the role was David Niven in an August 27, 1949 radio adaptation for NBC's NBC University Theater. In BBC One's Nineteen Eighty-Four (1954) Smith was played by Peter Cushing, and in a 1965 BBC adaptation by David Buck. In the 1956 film, Edmond O'Brien performed the role. In a 1965 dramatisation broadcast on BBC Home Service, Patrick Troughton voiced the part. John Hurt played Smith in the 1984 film adaptation, 1984. Coincidentally, Hurt also played a Big Brother-style figure named Adam Sutler in the 2005 film V for Vendetta.