1984

Winston Smith

A thirty-nine-year-old Party member in the Records Department at the Ministry of Truth. He secretly kept a diary, had a forbidden relationship with Julia, and joined the Brotherhood before his arrest and torture. After betraying Julia in Room 101, he is released, becomes a heavy drinker, and finally loves Big Brother.

Big Brother

The Party’s leader and public face, presented on posters and telescreens as the source of every success and virtue. O’Brien says Big Brother embodies the Party and cannot die; Winston ultimately loves him.

Emmanuel Goldstein

Also known as Goldstein

The Party’s declared Enemy of the People and formerly one of its leading figures. O’Brien confirms Goldstein is real and alive, though his whereabouts are unknown; his book is circulated by the Brotherhood, and O’Brien says he helped write it.

The dark-haired girl

Also known as the girl in the Fiction Department · Julia

A twenty-six-year-old Fiction Department worker who secretly loved Winston and opposed the Party through private rule-breaking. After they were tortured, she and Winston each admitted betraying the other; when they meet again, they feel only estrangement and contempt.

O’Brien

A powerful Inner Party member who pretended to recruit Winston and Julia into the Brotherhood, then revealed himself as their betrayer. He directed Winston’s torture, helped write Goldstein’s book, and explained that the Party seeks power through pain, humiliation, and control of minds.

The sandy-haired woman

A Records Department worker in the cubicle next to Winston’s who deletes from the Press the names of vaporized people. Her husband was vaporized a couple of years earlier.

The middle-aged woman in the lifeboat

Also known as the Jewish woman in the news film · the refugee woman in the boat

An unnamed woman in a war film who tries to protect a frightened young boy from a helicopter attack on their lifeboat. Winston recalls her protective gesture as an echo of his mother’s love.

The little boy in the lifeboat

Also known as the small boy in the news film

An unnamed boy of about three in a war film, hiding in the arms of the woman who tries to protect him during a helicopter attack. The helicopter blows them both to pieces.

The woman in the prole section

Also known as the prole woman

An unnamed woman who protests at a cinema screening of a war film because it shows children being killed. The police remove her.

The fat man in the water

An unnamed refugee in a war film, shot by a helicopter while trying to swim away.

Mrs Parsons

Winston’s neighbour and Tom Parsons’s wife. She is anxious and helpless around her children, who frighten her with their Party zeal.

Tom Parsons

Also known as Parsons

Winston’s fellow Ministry of Truth employee and Mrs Parsons’s husband. A devoted Party worker, he is arrested for thoughtcrime after his young daughter reports his sleep-talking denunciation of Big Brother.

The Parsons boy

The Parsons’ nine-year-old son and a member of the Spies. He threatens Winston and eagerly wants to see public hangings.

The Parsons girl

The Parsons’ daughter, about seven years old and a member of the Spies. She imitates her brother in threatening Winston and chants that she wants to see a hanging; she later reports her father to the patrols.

Winston’s mother

Winston’s tall, quiet mother, remembered for her fair hair and slow movements. She cared for Winston and his sick younger sister amid hunger, and disappeared during the purges of the 1950s; Winston does not know whether she died or was sent to a forced-labour camp.

Winston’s younger sister

Winston’s younger sister, remembered as a tiny, silent, sickly child with large eyes. She disappeared with their mother during the purges; Winston does not know whether she was sent to a children’s reclamation centre, a labour camp, or left to die.

Winston’s father

Winston’s father, whom he remembers vaguely as dark, thin, bespectacled, and neatly dressed. He disappeared during the purges of the 1950s.

The Physical Jerks instructress

Also known as the instructress

A youngish, muscular woman whose image appears on Winston’s telescreen to lead morning exercises. She is thirty-nine, says she has had four children, and urges the group to keep fit for the war effort.

The old man in the Tube station

An unnamed, grieving man Winston remembers sheltering in a Tube station during an air raid. He says they should not have trusted someone; Winston suspects a beloved little granddaughter may have been killed.

The old woman beside the old man

An unnamed elderly woman sitting beside the grieving old man in the Tube station during Winston’s childhood memory.

The old man’s presumed granddaughter

A girl whom Winston guesses may have been killed in the event that devastated the old man in the Tube station. Her identity and fate are uncertain.

Tillotson

Also known as Comrade Tillotson

A small, precise-looking, dark-chinned man with spectacles who works in the Records Department cubicle opposite Winston’s. Winston suspects he may be rewriting the same Order for the Day.

Ampleforth

A mild, dreamy Records Department worker and poet with very hairy ears and a talent for juggling rhymes and metres. Arrested for leaving the word “God” in a line of Kipling, he is taken to Room 101.

Comrade Withers

Also known as Withers

A prominent Inner Party member once praised by Big Brother and awarded the Order of Conspicuous Merit, Second Class for his work with FFCC. After that organization was dissolved, Withers was declared an unperson.

Comrade Ogilvy

Also known as Ogilvy

A fictional Party member Winston invents for a rewritten Order for the Day after Withers is erased. Winston gives him a model career of zealous service and a heroic death in battle.

Syme

Also known as Comrade Syme

Winston’s colleague in the Research Department, a philologist and Newspeak specialist who worked on the Eleventh Edition of the Newspeak Dictionary. He is intellectually sharp and zealously orthodox, takes pleasure in executions, and is later erased so completely that his name disappears from the Chess Committee list.

The white-aproned prole serving lunch

An unnamed prole who works behind the Ministry canteen grille, serving the regulation lunch.

The important Fiction Department man

Also known as the eyeless man · the man with the strident voice · the quacking man

A roughly thirty-year-old Fiction Department employee with a muscular throat and a large, mobile mouth. He speaks in a rapid stream of orthodox slogans and denunciations that Winston experiences as mindless quacking.

The young woman at the next table

Also known as the Fiction Department man’s possible secretary

An unnamed young woman seated with her back to Winston who appears to be the important Fiction Department man’s secretary. She eagerly agrees with what he says.

The stranger followed by the Parsons girl

Also known as the suspected enemy agent

An unnamed man whom the Parsons girl and two other Spies followed for hours and handed over to patrols because his shoes seemed foreign. Parsons suspects he may have been executed, but does not know what happened to him.

The youthful Ministry of Plenty announcer

An unnamed person whose eager voice announces the Ministry of Plenty’s claims about rising production and living standards over the telescreen.

The little beetle-like man in the canteen

An unnamed man sitting alone in the Ministry canteen, drinking coffee and glancing about suspiciously. Winston sees him as an example of the small, stout type that flourishes in the ministries.

Geoffrey Chaucer

Also known as Chaucer

A writer from the past whom Syme says will survive only in a Newspeak version, with the literature of the past altered or destroyed.

William Shakespeare

Also known as Shakespeare

A writer from the past whom Syme says will survive only in a Newspeak version, with the literature of the past altered or destroyed. His works are later named among those being translated to fit Ingsoc.

John Milton

Also known as Milton

A writer from the past whom Syme says will survive only in a Newspeak version, with the literature of the past altered or destroyed. His works are later named among those being translated to fit Ingsoc.

Lord Byron

Also known as Byron

A writer from the past whom Syme says will survive only in a Newspeak version, with the literature of the past altered or destroyed. His works are later named among those being translated to fit Ingsoc.

The old market woman

An unnamed woman whose skirt the Parsons children set on fire after seeing her wrap sausages in a poster of Big Brother. Parsons says she was badly burned.

The prostitute in the basement kitchen

Also known as the woman in the basement kitchen

An unnamed sex worker whom Winston visited about three years earlier. He initially mistook her for a young woman in the darkness, but saw in lamplight that she was at least fifty and toothless.

Katharine

Also known as Winston’s wife

Winston’s estranged wife, a tall, fair-haired Party member who treated sex as a duty to the Party and hoped to have a child. They separated after about fifteen months of marriage when no child appeared; Winston recalls her as rigidly orthodox and sexually frigid.

The twitching Party member

Also known as the ordinary-looking man with a facial spasm

An unnamed, tallish, thin Party member, about thirty-five to forty, whom Winston once passed in the street. His face repeatedly twitched, which Winston feared might be an unconscious sign that he was doomed.

The woman who lost the saucepan

Also known as one of the women at the saucepan stall

An unnamed prole woman in a market crowd who struggled with another woman over a scarce tin saucepan; its handle broke during the tugging.

The other woman at the saucepan stall

Also known as one of the women at the saucepan stall

An unnamed prole woman in a market crowd who fought another woman for a scarce tin saucepan. The two women broke its handle while pulling at it.

Jones

One of the three surviving original leaders of the Revolution whom the Party later purged. He was arrested, disappeared, confessed publicly to extensive crimes, was pardoned and reinstated, then confessed again and was executed; O’Brien says he took part in Jones’s interrogation and that Jones ultimately professed love for Big Brother.

Aaronson

One of the three surviving original leaders of the Revolution whom the Party later purged. He was arrested, disappeared, confessed publicly to extensive crimes, was pardoned and reinstated, then confessed again and was executed; a photograph Winston found proves that one of his confessions was false. At the Chestnut Tree Cafe, Winston noticed that he had a broken nose; O’Brien says he took part in Aaronson’s interrogation and that Aaronson ultimately professed love for Big Brother.

Rutherford

One of the three surviving original leaders of the Revolution whom the Party later purged. Formerly a famous caricaturist whose cartoons helped inflame opinion before and during the Revolution, he was arrested, disappeared, confessed, was pardoned and reinstated, then was executed after confessing again. A photograph Winston found proves that one of his confessions was false; Winston saw him weeping at the Chestnut Tree Cafe and noticed his broken nose. O’Brien says he took part in Rutherford’s interrogation and that Rutherford ultimately professed love for Big Brother.

The two women talking in the street

Two unnamed prole women talking outside a doorway in a poor district of London. Their voices fall silent and they watch Winston warily as he passes.

The young woman who grabs the child

An unnamed young prole woman who snatches a tiny child from a puddle and takes shelter when a rocket bomb approaches.

The tiny child in the puddle

An unnamed young child playing in a puddle in a London street, whom a woman quickly carries to shelter during a rocket-bomb warning.

The man who warns Winston of the rocket

Also known as the prole who shouts “Steamer!”

An unnamed man in a black suit who runs from a side alley and warns Winston that a rocket bomb is coming. His warning prompts Winston to throw himself to the ground.

The man holding the Lottery newspaper

Also known as the middle man in the Lottery group

An unnamed prole standing between two men outside a pub, holding a folded newspaper that they study intently. The passage does not identify which man he is in the ensuing argument.

The Lottery man who disputes the number ending in seven

Also known as the man with the records of Lottery numbers

An unnamed prole who insists that no Lottery number ending in seven has won for more than fourteen months. He says he regularly records the results.

The Lottery man who recalls a winning seven

An unnamed prole who argues that a Lottery number ending in seven won in February and recalls that it ended in 407.

The third Lottery man

An unnamed prole who interrupts two men arguing over whether a Lottery number ending in seven has won.

The very old man in the pub

Also known as the old man Winston follows into the pub

An unnamed prole of at least eighty, bent but active, with bristling white moustaches. He is one of the last living links to the world before the Revolution; Winston follows him into a pub hoping to ask what life was like then, but his memories are too disjointed to compare life before and after the Revolution.

The pub barman

An unnamed large, stout, hook-nosed young man with enormous forearms. He serves drinks in litres and half-litres and mocks the old man for asking for a pint.

Mr Charrington

Also known as Charrington · the proprietor of the junk-shop · the old man in the junk-shop

The apparent sixty-three-year-old widower and antique-shop owner who sold Winston a glass paperweight and rented him the upstairs room. He was actually a Thought Police officer in disguise, revealed after Winston and Julia’s arrest.

The old man's late wife

Mr Charrington’s wife, who lived with him in the upstairs room above his shop until her death. No further details about her are given.

The powerful speaker in Hyde Park

Also known as the speaker at Hyde Park

An unnamed man the very old pub customer remembers hearing speak in Hyde Park long ago. A powerful speaker, he denounced the Labour Party as lackeys and parasites of the bourgeoisie.

The young gentleman on Shaftesbury Avenue

Also known as the man who shoved the old pub customer

An unnamed, apparently drunk young man in a dress shirt, top hat, and black overcoat who shoved the old pub customer toward a bus after they collided on a pavement. The old man recalls that he was about to strike back.

The old man's sister-in-law

The sister-in-law of the very old pub customer, whose funeral he attended about fifty years earlier. He hired a top hat for the occasion.

St Clement Danes

A London church identified by Mr Charrington as the building depicted in an old engraving. It is now a ruin in the street outside the Palace of Justice.

St Martin's-in-the-Fields

Also known as St Martin's · St Martin's Church

A London church named in the children’s rhyme remembered by Mr Charrington. It still stands in Victory Square, where it has been put to use as a museum for propaganda displays; Winston recognizes it there and recalls the rhyme about its bells.

The brassy-voiced telescreen singer

Also known as the woman on the telescreen

An unnamed female voice singing patriotic songs over Winston’s telescreen while he writes in his diary.

Wilsher

A blond-headed, silly-faced young man in the Ministry canteen whom Winston barely knows. He calls Winston over to sit at his table, preventing Winston from approaching the dark-haired girl.

Oliver Cromwell

A historical figure represented by a statue of a man on horseback in Victory Square.

The aged Eurasian prisoner

Also known as the old prisoner in the last truck

An unnamed elderly prisoner in the last truck of a convoy of Eurasian captives. He stands with his wrists crossed as if accustomed to being bound, and Winston sees his mournful gaze through a mass of grizzled hair.

The thrush

A bird that sings in the wood where Winston and Julia meet. Its song captivates them and briefly draws Winston away from thoughts of surveillance.

Julia’s grandfather

Also known as the grandfather who disappeared

An unnamed man who often spoke to Julia about life before the Revolution and taught her the nursery rhyme about St Clement’s and St Martin’s. He disappeared when Julia was eight.

Julia’s first lover

Also known as the sixty-year-old Party member

An unnamed Party member who had an affair with Julia when she was sixteen. He later committed suicide to avoid arrest.

The woman singing in the courtyard

Also known as the prole woman at the clothesline

An unnamed, powerfully built prole woman who sings while hanging diapers in the courtyard below Mr Charrington’s room. Winston sees her as beautiful and imagines she has borne many children; her singing and the proles’ vitality represent hope for a future beyond the Party.

The old man suspected of foreign extraction

An unnamed elderly man, part of an old couple suspected of foreign ancestry after a rumor blamed spies for directing rocket bombs. Their house was set on fire and they perished of suffocation.

The old woman suspected of foreign extraction

An unnamed elderly woman, part of an old couple suspected of foreign ancestry after a rumor blamed spies for directing rocket bombs. Their house was set on fire and they perished of suffocation.

The cow with a crumpled horn

An animal in a nursery rhyme fragment remembered by Mr Charrington.

Cock Robin

Also known as poor Cock Robin

A nursery-rhyme character whose death is recalled in a fragment remembered by Mr Charrington.

Martin

Also known as O’Brien’s servant · the servant at O’Brien’s flat

O’Brien’s small, dark-haired servant, who admits Winston and Julia to O’Brien’s flat and serves them drinks. O’Brien identifies him as a member of the Brotherhood and says he will be the channel for communications to Winston and Julia.

The Inner Party orator at the Hate Week rally

Also known as the speaker at the demonstration

An unnamed small, lean Inner Party man with a large bald skull and long arms who harangues a crowd during Hate Week. When Oceania’s enemy abruptly changes from Eurasia to Eastasia, he seamlessly switches the names in his speech and keeps the crowd’s hatred focused on the new enemy.

The messenger at the Hate Week rally

Also known as the man who delivers the scrap of paper

An unnamed man who hurries onto the rally platform during the orator’s speech and gives him a scrap of paper announcing the change of enemy.

The man who gives Winston the brief-case

Also known as the unidentified man who taps Winston on the shoulder

An unnamed man at the Hate Week demonstration who tells Winston he has dropped his brief-case and hands him another one containing Goldstein’s book. Winston does not see his face.

The voice behind the picture

Also known as the iron voice

An unseen voice speaking through the telescreen concealed behind the picture in Mr Charrington’s room. It orders Winston and Julia to stand still and repeats their words; a second, thin, cultivated voice from the telescreen recites a nursery rhyme, but the passage does not establish who is speaking.

The prize-fighter-faced Thought Police officer

Also known as the man with the smooth prize-fighter’s jowl

An unnamed man with a slit-like mouth who watches Winston while holding a truncheon during the arrest. He is one of the men who assault Julia and remove her from the room.

The cold-faced young officer

Also known as the young officer in the black uniform

A trim, pale-faced officer in a polished black uniform who brings prisoners into Winston’s Ministry of Love cell, orders Ampleforth taken to Room 101, and oversees the punishment of prisoners there.

The enormous drunken woman in the prison cell

Also known as the woman named Smith

An unnamed, roughly sixty-year-old woman arrested as a violent drunk and carried into Winston’s temporary prison cell. She says her name is Smith and jokes that she might be his mother, though Winston cannot know whether they are related.

The two Party women whispering in the temporary prison

Two unnamed Party-member prisoners pressed together on a bench in Winston’s crowded temporary cell. He overhears them whispering about Room 101.

The chinless prisoner

Also known as the toothy-faced prisoner

An unnamed prisoner with a chinless, rodent-like face and pouchy cheeks. He tries to give bread to a starving fellow prisoner, but the telescreen orders him to drop it; a guard strikes him, breaking his dental plate and badly injuring his face.

The skull-faced prisoner

Also known as the starving prisoner

An unnamed, emaciated prisoner with a skull-like face and hateful eyes, apparently dying of starvation. When ordered to Room 101, he desperately begs to be spared, offers to betray anyone, including the chinless prisoner, and says he has a wife and three young children.

The woman sent to Room 101

An unnamed prisoner who is taken to Room 101. Winston notices her shrink and change colour when she hears the room named.

The short, stumpy guard

Also known as the guard who strikes the chinless prisoner

An unnamed prison guard with enormous arms and shoulders who strikes the chinless prisoner in the mouth, knocking him across the cell and breaking his dental plate.

The broad-chested guard

Also known as the guard with the long black truncheon

An unnamed guard who accompanies O’Brien and beats Winston with a truncheon when O’Brien first confronts him in the cell.

The man in the white coat with the syringe

An unnamed medical worker standing beside Winston after he wakes restrained, holding a hypodermic syringe.

The man in the white coat at the dials

An unnamed medical worker who reads the dials while Winston is strapped into a chair under bright lights. He remains focused on the instruments when the officer enters.

The never-speaking food guard

Also known as the guard who brings Winston’s food

An unnamed guard who brings Winston meals during his recovery in a more comfortable Ministry of Love cell. He never speaks, but gives Winston a light for his cigarettes.

The waxen-faced officer

An unnamed officer who enters Winston’s cell behind O’Brien, accompanied by black-uniformed guards. No further identifying details are given.

The first rat in the Room 101 cage

One of the two starving rats in the Room 101 cage used to terrorize Winston. It leaps up and down as O’Brien threatens to release the rats onto Winston’s face.

The old sewer rat

Also known as the second rat in the Room 101 cage

A large, scaly rat in the Room 101 cage, described as an old rat of the sewers. It stands against the bars and sniffs the air as O’Brien threatens Winston.

The waiter at the Chestnut Tree Cafe

Also known as the uncalled waiter

An unnamed cafe waiter who repeatedly brings Winston Victory Gin without being asked and serves him in his usual corner. He knows Winston’s habits and leaves the chessboard and newspaper for him.

The four committee members

Also known as Winston’s colleagues on the Dictionary sub-committee

Four unnamed Ministry of Truth workers on Winston’s sub-committee for an Interim Report connected with the Eleventh Edition of the Newspeak Dictionary. They sometimes argue over details and at other times admit there is little to do.

Jonathan Swift

Also known as Swift

A writer from the past named among those whose works are being translated to bring their achievements into line with Ingsoc; the original writings are to be destroyed once the translations are complete.

Charles Dickens

Also known as Dickens

A writer from the past named among those whose works are being translated to bring their achievements into line with Ingsoc; the original writings are to be destroyed once the translations are complete.

Thomas Jefferson

Also known as Jefferson

The author of the Declaration of Independence, whose words about equality, rights, and government cannot be translated into Newspeak without changing their meaning. The passage says an ideological translation would turn them into praise of absolute government.