Character
In the novel, Goldstein is rumoured to be a former top member of the ruling (and sole) Party who had broken away early in the movement and started an organization known as "The Brotherhood", dedicated to the fall of The Party. The novel raises but leaves unanswered the questions of whether Goldstein, "The Brotherhood," or even "Big Brother" really exist.
Each member of "The Brotherhood" is required to read The Book, supposedly written by Goldstein, The Theory and Practice of Oligarchical Collectivism. Ostensibly The Brotherhood is organized into cells.
Goldstein is always the subject of the "Two Minutes Hate," a daily, 2-minute period beginning at 11:00 am at which a purported image of Goldstein is shown on the telescreen (a one-channel television with surveillance devices in it that cannot be turned off). The reader may surmise that a political opposition to Big Brother—namely, Goldstein—was psychologically necessary in order to provide an internal enemy posing a threat to the rule of the Party; the constantly reiterated ritual of the Two Minutes Hate help ensure that popular support for and devotion towards Big Brother is continuous.
It is never revealed whether Goldstein really exists. In fact, Inner Party member O'Brien adamantly refuses to reveal whether The Brotherhood truly exists when asked by Winston in the torture room:
Winston: Does the Brotherhood exist?
O'Brien: That, Winston, you will never know. If we choose to set you free when we have finished with you, and if you live to be ninety years old, still you will never learn whether the answer to that question is Yes or No. As long as you live it will be an unsolved riddle in your mind.
Although O'Brien claims to have collaborated in writing the book himself, his statement still leaves the questions of Goldstein and the Brotherhood's existence unanswered, as it could have been an untrue statement made by O'Brien in order to manipulate Winston's thinking and break his spirit.
Read more about this topic: Emmanuel Goldstein
Famous quotes containing the word character:
“The first thing to be done by a biographer in estimating character is to examine the stubs of his victim’s cheque-books.”
—Silas Weir Mitchell (1829–1914)
“People without firmness of character love to make up a “fate” for themselves; that relieves them of the necessity of having their own will and of taking responsibility for themselves.”
—Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev (1818–1883)
“The man who pretends that the distribution of income in this country reflects the distribution of ability or character is an ignoramus. The man who says that it could by any possible political device be made to do so is an unpractical visionary. But the man who says that it ought to do so is something worse than an ignoramous and more disastrous than a visionary: he is, in the profoundest Scriptural sense of the word, a fool.”
—George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950)