O'Brien (Nineteen Eighty-Four) O'Brien (Nineteen Eighty-Four) O'Brien (known as O'Connor in the 1956 film adaptation of the novel) is a fictional character and the main antagonist in George Orwell's novel "Nineteen Eighty-Four". The protagonist Winston Smith, living in a dystopian society governed by the Party, feels strangely drawn to Inner Party member O'Brien. Orwell never reveals O'Brien's first name. O'Brien is a member of the Inner Party and, like Winston Smith, works in the Ministry of Truth. There, he holds an administrative position that is so distant that Winston has only a vague idea of its nature. Winston suspects that O'Brien secretly opposes
Nineteen Eighty-Four a facial expression, can result in immediate arrest and imprisonment. Thus, citizens, particularly party members, are compelled to obedience. "The Principles of Newspeak" is an academic essay appended to the novel. It describes the development of Newspeak, the Party's minimalist artificial language meant to ideologically align thought and action with the principles of Ingsoc by making "all other modes of thought impossible". (A linguistic theory about how language may direct thought is the Sapir–Whorf hypothesis.) Whether or not the Newspeak appendix implies a hopeful end to "Nineteen Eighty-Four" remains a critical debate, as it is in Standard English and refers