"Against the background of the film's bleak setting and terrifying ideas, the characters shrink almost into insignificance."
             One may agree with the fact that the background setting created is bleak, desolate and that we are truly confronted with terrifying ideas, but to simply say that because of this, the characters shrink almost into insignificance is a crude interpretation. One cannot deny that to some extent, the world created in '1984' is so bleak, so depressing and obsolete with awesome displays of power hungry sadism that the characters become a mere triviality. In spite of this, there still remains the fact that the characters in this political work are integral to the work as a whole. Although their individuality is demised, their character and their humanity is the propulsive force that gives the film its ability to collaborate the incredulity of the ideas with the viewer's ability to relate to the film. Also, the anti-Utopian and very much anti-totalitarian notion of the film all relate back to the necessity for character, without Winston, Julia or O'Brien these ideas could not be conveyed to a vast viewing audience. Hence, although there has in fact been created a setting of explicit austerity and futility, the characters on the whole maintain there significance.
             Although there is a lack of overt characterization in 1984, the notion of rebellion, the film's chief motif, propagates the significance of the characters in all respects. Essentially, in exploring ideas of suppressing the individual by means of a system pertaining to 'collective oligarchy', it is necessary to cast the characters in a less opulent light. Nevertheless, the morality of the film rests on the idea that to be human is to be private and to have a personal identity that is internal and inviolable. Winston's rebellion against authority is an attempt to preserve that small circle of privacy and ...