“Nineteen Eighty-Four” by George Orwell (post 3): In Chapter One, Winston Smith’s alternate personality writes “Down With Big Brother” in his diary.

Winston Smith, the protagonist, begins a diary, about which, two things—the origin of what he writes and his handwriting—are specified: 

1. “The actual writing would be easy. All he had to do was to transfer to paper the interminable restless monologue that had been running inside his head, literally for years.” 2. “His small but childish handwriting straggled up and down the page, shedding first its capital letters and finally even its full stops” (1, p. 7).

The origin of the content of Winston Smith’s diary recalls what George Orwell had written in his essay “Why I Write” (see previous post), which I again quote: “…for fifteen years or more, I was carrying out a literary exercise…the making up of a continuous ‘story’ about myself, a sort of diary existing only in the mind…This habit continued till I was about twenty-five…Although I had to search, and did search, for the right words, I seemed to be making this descriptive effort almost against my will, under a kind of compulsion from outside…”

In the novel, why is Winston Smith’s style of handwriting specified? Because seven pages later, his handwriting changes: “His eyes refocused on the page. He discovered that while he sat helplessly musing he had also been writing, as though by automatic action. And it was no longer the same cramped awkward handwriting as before. His pen had slid voluptuously over the smooth paper, printing in large neat capitals— DOWN WITH BIG BROTHER, DOWN WITH BIG BROTHER, DOWN WITH BIG BROTHER, DOWN WITH BIG BROTHER, DOWN WITH BIG BROTHER” (1, p. 14).

Thus, in both Orwell’s nonfiction essay and his novel, writing is described as not being under the control of the person’s regular personality; rather, it is “against my will, under a kind of compulsion” and “by automatic action.”

Indeed, the novel takes this two steps further. Winston Smith has amnesia, a memory gap, for having written “DOWN WITH BIG BROTHER.” And he writes it in a different handwriting.

These things—automatic (nonvolitional, involuntary, dissociated) writing, amnesia, and a change in handwriting style—are evidence of the presence of an alternate personality.

1. George Orwell. Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four [1949]: Text, Sources, Criticism. Edited by Irving Howe. New York, Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1963/1982.