Who is Winston Smith?
Winston Smith, member of the middle class Outer Party, is the protagonist of the George Orwell’s 1984. Winston is the man in fictional Oceania who began to question the lies and half-truths fed to him by Big Brother. He was an editor of historical revisionism at the misnomer Ministry of Truth, Big Brother’s propaganda ministry. 1984 follows Winston’s private thought flow of his misgivings about the nature of life in Oceania, him falling in love with Julia and his subsequent arrest and torture by the Thought Police. O’Brien, an undercover Thought Police officer, approaches Winston with the aim of convincing Winston to join the Brotherhood, a resistance movement against Big Brother. O’Brien gives Winston The Book.
The Book as it is colloquially referred to in Oceania is a paper entitled “The Theory and Practice of Oligarchical Collectivism” written by Emmanuel Goldstein, public enemy number one of Big Brother and the apparent leader of the Brotherhood. George Orwell gives Winston only enough time (the same for the readers) to briefly read the introduction to Chapter 1 and read Chapter 3.
Now one can draw parallels between their own lives and the fictional world. Those fortunate may draw a parallel with 50 Shades of Grey while some unlucky ones find themselves in the midst of a Shakespearean tragedy. But under the influence of intoxicants and floating through the rarified atmosphere of pretentiousness I found similarities in the utopia of my life and the dystopia of Winston’s.
The Things They Tell Us 