Describe the characterization of the protagonist or the main character of 1984. Explain how his or her spiritual, psychological, emotional, or physical journey contributes to your assessment and evaluation of the character.

Protagonist Winston Smith is, on the outside, an average outer Party member, thirty-nine years old, nondescript, and doing a mundane job in a bureaucracy. He rewrites the news so that it aligns with current Party policy. He is intelligent, logical, and contemplative. As the novel opens, he is dissatisfied and is embarking on a spiritual, emotional, and psychological journey that will change him.
Winston has been subversive: he has purchased an old-fashioned journal of creamy white pages that he can write in. He begins to write, an act for which he knows he will be severely punished if caught.
At first, he doesn't know what to say. Ceaselessly indoctrinated by the state, he is filled with hate. He recounts, with no sense of compassion, a violent film, with the audience laughing at people being shot and a three-year-old child being blown up. We learn too, that he wants to rape and harm Julia, a coworker, though he doesn't know her name.
However, as he embarks on his affair with Julia, he begins to love and care for her. Having someone to care about and sacrifice for makes him more compassionate and humane. He even begins to see the old, fat Prole woman who sings and hangs laundry outside Mr. Charrington's shop as human and even beautiful. Believing he is part of an underground movement also helps him, if only by giving him an additional sense of purpose and supplying him with a book explaining the logic behind the Party's actions. Loving Julia and establishing, if only now and again, an old-fashioned life with her, helps triggers childhood memories of his mother, who also loved him. As he becomes more compassionate, he becomes more likable and relatable.
In prison, his love for Julia and desire not to betray her helps sustain him. In prison he is broken, learning to accept illogic and betraying Julia. Afterwards, he is an empty man, but his last memories of a happy day with his mother and sister suggest he is not entirely robbed of his humanity by the Party.