George Orwell Penguin Books

Published Date: 02 Nov 2017

Prescribed question:

‘Thesis statement: Malachy sr and Winston Smith both have their ideals and both can be seen as anti-heroes. Do you agree? Analyze and motivate.’

Title of text for analysis:

Angela’s Ashes, Frank McCourt. Harper Perennial, 2005. 1-425. Print

Nineteen Eighty-Four, George Orwell. Penguin Books, 2003. 3-342. Print

Task is related to course section:

Part 4: Literature- critical study

Task focus:

This essay focuses on two characters: the major character of Angela’s Ashes, Malachy McCourt sr

and on the main character of Nineteen Eighty-Four, Winston Smith. In this essay I’m going to take a look at their characters and ideals and answer the thesis statement based on this information; are Winston Smith and Malachy sr real anti-heroes? Or are their personalities more hero –like?

Task

‘Not all men are heroes’

Angela’s Ashes and Nineteen Eighty-Four, two different books about two diverse characters, Malachy sr and Winston, living in a time with completely dissimilar living conditions.

Nothing in common, you would probably say. Though, if you look deeper into their characters, they share some qualities. My essay explores these common facts. Both George Orwell and Frank McCourt have written their books in such a way that the individual qualities can be noticed very fast. But can you say that both Winston and Malachy are anti-heroes?

First of all, Winston Smith, the protagonist of Nineteen-Eighty Four. He is a member of the outer party and works for the Ministry of Truth, rewriting the past. Winston hates Big Brother, as well as he hates the large-scale control of the party. He wants to defeat it, to make an end to the absolute power of the totalitarian regime.

At a certain moment Winston starts writing down his ‘wrong thoughts’ in his diary, his first movement to revolt against the party. Later on in the book he starts dating Julia and goes to the prole area. This is another rebellious act of him. So yes, Winston has his ideals; he wants to be free, free to be an individual, free to think what he wants. But then what makes him an anti-hero?

Let’s take a look at the definition of an anti-hero, since it’s the most important question of this essay. An anti-hero is the main character in a film or book that doesn’t have the virtues of a hero, such as courage or strength and is not admired by the society for his actions.

Winston Smith isn’t brave or strong, as a typical hero, nor is he admired by his society.

He doesn’t accomplish a thing. The world doesn’t change because of him, and he doesn’t do any good to the people. He’s just different; he’s one of the few people that are aware of the manipulation and mind control of the party. His awareness , however, doesn’t make him a hero. Big Brother in this story is a hero to the people, he is the one who is loved and admired and not Winston. For the regime Winston Smith is just an ordinary man, with wrong ideas and who commits a lot of crimes, such as thoughtcrime and has sex for fun instead of having sex only as a duty to the party.

Though Winston Smith has a lot of ideals and wishes of what he wants the world to look like, he doesn’t really try to change it. Yes, of course this was forbidden, but writing in his diary was an illegal act of him as well, so if he wanted the country to change so badly, why didn’t he really revolt? During the story Winston constantly says: ‘if there is hope, it lies in the proles’ . He knew very well that 85% of the population were proles and that their force, if it could ever be generated, was the only force to take the party down. If he knew this so well, why didn’t he go to the proles and finally create the force needed to destroy the totalitarian regime? Then he would be a real hero, then he could improve the country and make the living circumstances better. But no, he didn’t even try to, his revolt was only very small. And why? Because he wasn’t a hero, he wasn’t that brave, he had the qualities of an anti-hero.

And then Malachy McCourt, one of the major characters in Angela’s Ashes. He is the father of the protagonist in the book, Frank McCourt, who wrote about his childhood.

In the beginning of the story, Frank tells us that his father grew up in trouble with the English and fought with the old IRA, the Irish Army who played a key role in freeing Ireland from Britain.

He is married to Angela McCourt and together they have a lot of children, including Frankie.

The story takes place in a time with extreme poverty. Malachy, just like Winston, has his ideals; he wants his children to look up to him, to have a nice, cozy home and to fulfill his job as man and father. However, Malachy fails hopelessly, since he is a real anti-hero.

He loves his children and wife very much, though he drinks up all the dole money, instead of buying food for his meager, hungry sons.

Instead of trying to get a job and bringing some money home, like men used to during those days, Malachy makes long walks or just sits at home. Even when he finally gets a job he doesn’t make any effort in keeping it and is always fired within three weeks because of showing up too late.

In fact, Malachy is responsible for the death of his twins and baby daughter. But even after these tragic events he doesn’t change and stop drinking.

In some sense Malachy tries to be a good father, he wants to make fun with his sons and tells them great stories about Irish heroes, which they adore. But then again during the night he goes to a pub and drinks a lot of alcohol, leaving his poor family at home. He comes home later that night, wakes up his sons and tells them that they have to die for Ireland. Ireland is one of the few things that he has never let down.

Later in the book Malachy goes to England for work, he abandons his family and leaves them behind without a word or any financial support. He just walks away from all the difficulties at home. He is too weak to face the troubles that he has caused, he doesn’t even try to improve the situation. Instead, as a real anti-hero, he flees and leaves all the burden on Frank’s shoulders.

So my conclusion is that both Winston and Malachy, despite the different circumstances , have their ideals and can be seen as real anti-heroes.