Mr Charrington: Character & Lore in 1984

[@nineteen-eighty-four-lore]

If you enjoyed this video on the most insidious villain of Nineteen Eighty-Four you may find our video on O'Brien a hoot too. Check him out here: kzbin.info/www/bejne/nqfRqqGiedlsmcU

[@teamermia7741]

During his trip to the countryside Winston made reference to the ingenious and advanced listening devices that the Thought Police created and used. I always thought the coral paperweight Charrington sold Winston had been one such bug. It seems to me that this was perhaps a deep irony that could not be unused; that not only could one not trust anyone, but also nothing could be trusted, including the past, which is what the coral paperweight represented.

[@nineteen-eighty-four-lore]

That's an interesting theory. That's pretty sophisticated and clever given the paperweight is apparently transparent. I wouldn't put anything past the Thought Police though.

[@scitchmunkey5587]

I always imagined a clear shell around a piece of coral so you could easily make a fake price of cira containing any device you wanted and set it in resin. The issue comes when you consider that it wasn't guaranteed that anyone, let alone Winston, would actually buy it. But again this isn't a deal breaker. I wouldn't put it past the thought police to create such a thing just in case or even to spy on Charrington and then be passed unknowingly along.

[@jdb47games]

Such a bug would be miles beyond the technology available to them. There is little innovation in a tyranny as extreme as Oceania, and there has cleary been little advancement beyond the technologies of around 1950 when the revolution is happened.

[@teamermia7741]

@@jdb47games Though the Party cannot provide most ordinary things, it does put a TV in every home that Winston says is also a spy camera. Also when he is on the countryside Winston states that bugging technology is the one area where the Party does innovate, and the though Police have attained a high level of technology and ingenuity. But both statements could be the result of deliberately fostered paranoia.

[@frazergreen6786]

When I first read the book I just had an almost visceral distrust of Charrington as well as O'Brien (especially after the scene where he has Winston and Julia say what they'd do I just thought ''Yeah...he's a fed'').

[@meiketorkelson4437]

Ha. When I first read it, I kept wondering how Smith would defeat the system. 😂

[@donalfoley2412]

I think that it is good that Cyril Cusack represented the worst of spies given his hatred of MI5 and MI6 as an Irish Catholic. Was he chosen because of his performance in The Spy Who Came in from the Cold, where John le Carré supported him for just those reasons? Reading the novel as an Irishman it was those references to old rhymes that made me sympathiize more with Winston as an Englishman and appreciate more the horrifying betrayal that the grandfather figure perpetrated.I hope my English neighbours will continue to enjoy their old stories and rhymes and traditions just as George Orwell did, and not give in to the pressure to cancel their own nation out. I am proud of my great grand uncles who fought for the freedom of our country but I know that none of them would wish for a cultural suicide in England.

[@wengchiang9216]

Cyril Cusack’s performance is wonderfully understated and at the same time utterly chilling.

[@bipolarminddroppings]

I suspected every single important character, other than Winston, to be a member of the thought police when I first read the book. I'm still not convinced that Julia isn't actually in on the whole thing...

[@scitchmunkey5587]

Would be a hell of an act for Parsons but it does make kind of sense

[@gregoryberrycone]

interesting idea, but i think you can pretty safely conclude that Julia and Winstons love was genuine, and there isn't any real evidence in the book to suggest she wasn't really in love with him or was trying to somehow entrap him. Shes also the one that slipped him the note, and initiated the relationship, just doesn't really make sense. Perhaps more to the point, its much more thematically relevant to have their love be real as a way of showing the horrifying power of the state to completely destroy someones will to resist by making Winston forsake her

[@hastekulvaati9681]

I don’t think there is any indication that Orwell intended the reader to think that Julia was on on it.

[@bipolarminddroppings]

@hastekulvaati9681 then you have completely missed the point of the entire novel. It's not about indication, it's about mindset. If you arent suspicious of everyone in the novel, you simply don't get it

[@paulcheney3636]

​@@bipolarminddroppingsvery good point

[@maciejkamil]

I love your character analysis. Thank you. Your videos remind me that, as bad as our world is, it could've been much, much worse. And that chilling music in the background... vibe of your videos is as 1984 as possible.

[@travtotheworld]

I've always wondered, what if Winston had tried to immediately turn in Charrington to the thought police? Would Winston even initiating contact with him have been enough to set consequences in motion? Would Winston have been punished for making "false" accusations in order to maintain Charrington's cover? Would Charrington have been reassigned and replaced with a different agent?

[@scitchmunkey5587]

Winston would probably be punished for being in the prole area and any timelines for his 'cure' would be moved up to maintain his cover surely? Especially if as suspected he has acted in this way for more than one outer party member it would not matter if Winston denounced him or not. By the point we meet Charrington Winston's fate is long sealed.

[@ThexVaultxTech]

Babe, wake up, new 1984 Lore video dropped

[@nomemories130]

Right? This channel slaps.

[@davidlee3499]

ye frfr

[@nickhall5766]

I was wondering could you do something on the ministry of plenty? Like a in depth look? Out of all the ministries it was the one in the book that got the least attention.

[@nineteen-eighty-four-lore]

I could take a look at the idea. 👍

[@Jerlynvins]

The Studio One version with Eddie Albert is a great version of 1984 and is very bleak the way Orwell intended. Albert gives a wonderful performance.

[@Meade556]

I think Charrington was genuinely malicious whereas, as far as is possible for a member of the Inner Party, O'Brien actually likes Winston as someone with a very able mind, a real intellectual and as he admits someone who thinks like he does. The whole series of stuff O'Brien does even setting out that they are after power for its own sake and what the goal is, is actually a display of respect for Winston that he actually deserves to know it but also because O'Brien knows what is making Winston a thought criminal is all the lies, and not knowing why it is done.

[@albertarthurparsnips5141]

Look carefully at the officer’s helmet, at 1:46. You can see the embossed symbol of Mussolini’s Fascist regime on it ( rather unsurprisingly, a ‘fasces’ lictor rod ensemble as wielded, originally, as symbols of authority during the Roman Republic, ‘SPQR’, era. ) Just 40 years after the war, and ‘surplus’ Italian M33 helmets painted black obviously came in handy for the film..

[@agl1138]

1984 has the same problem that comic-based movies have today: the secret, elaborate masterplan that is revealed at the end and relies on a series of massive coincidences and just poor logic to succeed. Winston might not have actually used the diary. He might not have gone back to Charrington's shop. He might not have selected the coral paperweight. There is a realistic chance he would have noticed someone had accessed his diary. O'Brien's smugness at the end hinges on a series of events that can only be predicted by the author: O'Brien as a character does not have all his knowledge because it makes any sense for him to, but purely because Orwell gives it to him. This is the reason I dislike Sherlock Holmes: he solves cases because Arthur Conan Doyle builds them in such a way he can solve them. Most of what Holmes actually says is total rubbish and the police would never put up with it. I think The Batman was the nadir of this type of thing. By the time it had finished I was so confused and the only people who seemed able to follow it were the characters themselves.

[@robkeeleycomposer]

It’s worth pointing out that 1948 also appeared the opera Il Prigioniero (the Prisoner) by Luigi Dallapiccola; both Mr Carrington and OBrien’s characters are reflected in the Gaoler in the opera; there is a strong element of sadism in both.

[@sixty-six2991]

It's interesting that Winston is so starved for knowing how life was before Big Brother yet he doesn't ask Charrington (whose supposed livelihood is artifacts from the past) but, instead, tries asking a drunk in a pub.

[@tauIrrydah]

Its kind of interesting how thought criminals are just another cog in the machinery of the party, absolutely necessary, so they manufacture them if none exist.

[@hafizihilmibinabdulhalim1004]

Can you examine the logo of Ingsoc? At first glance, nothing weird because the handshake is a common logo for socialist parties but when you examine closely, you will notice the hand on the right side looks a bit "robotic". Have any idea what that means??

[@Cenindo]

The logo is something made up for the movie starring John Hurt, not anything Orwell ever described in the novel. But I always took the white and the black hand connecting as a symbol of the universal brotherhood of all races, Ingsoc paying lip-service to the old socialist ideals.

[@hafizihilmibinabdulhalim1004]

​@@Cenindoyeah, but that black hand looks like a robot hand. Weird right??

[@Houseofweird]

It's a hand in a glove; it could potentially represent a manual labourer/factory worker. Although I prefer to think of it as representing someone working in the military/intelligence to demonstrate the willing cooperation of party members and proles on the one side with the Thought Police on the other.

[@meiketorkelson4437]

"How does a guy with a half empty antique store stay in business?" The answer will surprise you...

[@akapper57]

Charrington may well have trapped a few proles, as well as outer Party members like Winston.

[@scitchmunkey5587]

I would argue that with tactics of entrapement like this that the TP are creating dissidents not trapping them. I think that without interactions with Mr Charrington then Winston would of acted very differently around both Julia and O'Brian. It definatly felt like He was being guided into actions he wouldnt of taken and without the room to use I think it would of only been a matter of weeks or months until he convinced himself meeting her in the country was to dangerous and cut off their rendezvous.

[@pendorran]

Classic "agents provocateur" tactics as practiced by secret police as far back as the Tsars.

[@scitchmunkey5587]

Well we all know room 101 needs it's victims one way or the other

[@nineteen-eighty-four-lore]

I do sympathise with this line of thinking about "creating dissidents" based on O'Brien's comments in the interrogation. I'm paraphrasing, but he talks about Goldstein and his heresies living forever just to be defeated. If the whole point of the Party, INGSOC and everything is to wield absolute power it makes sense for there to exist opponents on which to exercise said abosulte power.

[@scitchmunkey5587]

@@nineteen-eighty-four-lore It just always struck me that it would really suck to try and run the thought police if they ever managed to end thought crime and since everything is so strongly manufactured it makes sense that the party system would contain a mechanism for creating thought criminals. I guess they could always just pick and choose random people and accuse them but after a while this kind of treatment starts to create rea unrest

[@hafizihilmibinabdulhalim1004]

​@@pendorranyup, in fact, one of the reasons why Stalin distrusted everyone was because he was betrayed by his friend who turned out to be an agent of Okhrana (Tsar's secret police)

[@kalles8789]

There is only one question left: Who watches and observes the members of the thought police itself?

[@nineteen-eighty-four-lore]

Excellent question. I'll have to think about that one.

[@kalles8789]

@@nineteen-eighty-four-lore Do you know Benthams "Panopticon"? You can also read Michel Foucault about that question. His book "Monitoring and Punishment" deals about that.

[@angellover02171]

Even O' Brian has a screen in his house. Although that might not be his house.

[@bodsnvimto]

As I very recently found myself in a thread with others who have clearly thought intelligently about this masterpiece, even within some disagreement, I realise that I'm amongst people with whom I can ask questions which remain unanswered in both my head and my conversations. Indeed one of these was a question I sent in to Melvyn Dragg's In Our Time on Radio 4, but which was not asked, and that was- Apart from Orwell trying to crowbar in his firmly-held beliefs on authoritarianism, was there any need or entertainment value for us in having to wade through The Book (IMO the only dull part) or for that matter, for it to have even been written by O'Brien and/or handed out to enemies of the state at all? And was there even a need for us to "see" inside his plush dwelling and for the conversation which took place? Instead the host and panel of the episode they did on this novel had only one disagreement with Orwell, and that was in their opinion that he was wrong to dismiss the proles as concerned not with the bigger picture and more legitimate concerns, but with smaller personal details. Of course, this masterpiece is a polemic, therefore over-the-top and overly sweeping in generalisations, and of course there are many working-class folks like myself who are interested in politics, but largely I agree much more with author than that programme. A smaller question I have is, if they supposedly, as Orwell said, do they always come for you at night, then why was this not the case for Winston and Julia? Was it a simple oversight? Was it a tacit way of inferring that said discretion is only deemed necessary within the Party's quarters? Is there any other explanation? And the biggest issue I have re their capture: given the quiet, swift and seemingly often capricious manner of people disappearing and/or being vaporised, why was Winston allowed to continue getting away with it under their constant gaze for seven years, and why so much ostentatious a showing of said seizing, with so much unnecessary manpower and force?...other than the fact that it all makes for far more impressive reading, of course. Again, any other thoughts? (Anyhow, just to prove myself right about the smaller issues being more important in the moment for us plebs and proles, i'm signing off now as the third Euro match of the day has just now kicked off...hooollleeee Moses, and between starting and finishing this sentence, rank outsiders Albania have just gone 1-0 up against holders Italy!!!)

[@m2heavyindustries378]

Have you tried using AI to make your impenetrable block of word salad actually readable? It certainly would greatly improve your version.

[@bodsnvimto]

@@m2heavyindustries378 Very nice of you, you clear class individual. And i don't even know where you're coming from, i've just gone back and reread what i said, and i see nothing amiss or awry. if you have nothing nice or to say, why not zip it, and/or crawl back under your little bridge in order to wait for your next passer-by? And thanks fort all your creative and insightful input to my questions; much appreciated, every resonant and salient point on the novel that you made.

[@covenawhite4855]

I think it was necessary to break Winston mind. Physical torture and fear of room 101 was a big part of brainwashing but there was a part of the book when party Officials would debate Winston for hours about the philosophy of the Party until Winston would cry. During a debate with O'Brian he reminded Winston said he was as bad as any Party member by how he was willing to kill children to achieve his goals.

[@nomemories130]

I would like to see the video on the Brotherhood some time. Do they actually exist? Will they ever succeed in overthrowing the Party? What would the missing part of the Book's program for dismantling the Party look like? Would they ultimately be just as tyrannical as the Party? Is Trotsky remembered more fondly in the west than Stalin simply because he never became leader of the USSR and thus never went full tyrant or would it have actually been a better place with him in charge?

[@laurencewinch-furness9450]

Orwell was definitely of the view that Trotsky would have been as bad as Stalin. (Ironically, Trotskyists today try and claim Orwell as one of their own). In reality, I think Trotsky would have still been pretty bad, but not quite in the same league as Stalin. Both Trotsky and Stalin had the same approach to dealing with enemies. The only real difference was that for Trotsky, "enemy" meant "enemy of the revolution," whereas for Stalin, it meant "enemy of me personally"

[@nomemories130]

@laurencewinch-furness9450 I agree I can hardly imagine someone worse than Stalin. Trotsky though could be quite ruthless when it suited him I doubt the USSR would have been some paradise "if only..." as Trotskyists would have you believe 🙄

[@feastguy101]

@@laurencewinch-furness9450for the world as a whole, Trotsky would have probably been far worse. With his ideas of world revolution, and no neckbreaking pace of industrialization in the USSR, the Soviet Union would have been far weaker, but far more aggressive in the interwar period, which probably would have seen the Western powers backing a Nazi invasion of the USSR instead of the other way around. Without the massive manufacturing capacity built in the 1930’s, and without western support, the Soviet Union would have been crushed by Germany, with all the horrifying implications of a German victory in Eastern Europe, and of a (eventually) nuclear armed Germany. God help us in that scenario, because I don’t think we would have been able to avoid a nuclear war.

[@1faustus]

The accent had disappeared. Parsons was still wearing his shabby clothes but the disguise was discarded. He was still recognisable but he was not the same person any longer His face had undergone only tiny changes that had nevertheless worked a complete transformation. Winston felt the cold horror and knew for certain that he was looking at Rab C Nesbitt. He thought of hiding in Room 101 but it was too late. His fate was sealed.

[@Crabby303]

Wonderfully played by Cyril Cusack

[@TheShillChannel]

Cusack'sgrandson is a real -life though police agent .

[@ahahaha3505]

​@@TheShillChannel Hah?

[@TheShillChannel]

@@ahahaha3505 Yes. Cultural Marxist Richard Boyd Barrett is Cusack's grandson.

[@Crabby303]

@@TheShillChannel I didn't realise looney-left, rabid anti-semite RBB was his grandson. Yuk.

[@robkeeleycomposer]

Cyril Cusack was the perfect choice for Mr Charrington. Chilling and menacing underneath the charm.

[@arielhamm-flores6893]

ya thank you this is very important for some rezone i love your channel and in the states watching my worst fear come to life but she had got away with it till the room so she may have had in that park a place that was safer

[@maximusd26]

mr Charrington is a representation of the "boomer" that is so criticized today, the happy go lucky elder that was either naive and/or compromised morally for a long while, seen degradation, but would never question his actions or thoughts. he obviously loved bringing Winston back to conformity

[@chickenman6308]

Literally 1984.

[@chriscason6618]

I always thought that the character Charitan was a horrible human being. I thought, he took extra delight in giving pleasure to his victims. By giving them glimpses of the past that never existed. I think He is one of the worst examples of those who work on behalf of the dictatorship.

[@ChristopherHyde-d1y]

Who is Mr. Charrington today?

[@TheShillChannel]

Why did you delete the comment about real life thought police politician Richard Boyd Barrett being Cyril Cusack's grandson. ? It's true.

[@nineteen-eighty-four-lore]

I didn't. Others have commented on this kind of thing too and I've noticed this seems to happen on other channels too. I will not delete comments unless it's abusive and that's about it really.

[@TheShillChannel]

@@nineteen-eighty-four-lore Okay. Sorry.

[@1faustus]

@@nineteen-eighty-four-lore It's becoming more widespread. I often have to rephrase comments on current topics to make them appear and avoid certain words. As you say, it's not channel censorship because it is almost instant so algorithm driven. One might say that it is almost Orwellian.

[@charliehedrick6414]

Poor Mr Charrington, he was replaced by Karen.

[@arielhamm-flores6893]

aand one more time just get a ton of cigs shut up be poor and you may do well