The modern period in world literature ,witnessed a drastic change ,from the Forsterian ideal of charcterization which emanates
from the liberated individual to a more complex view on character type and characterisation.The dark/medieval period in literature saw a fusion between the church and the state.Character are either allegorical character which are modelled after the teachings of the church or assumed a heroic stautus.George Orwell,s Nineteen Eighty-Four symtopmises a world
control by technolgical and scientific advancement.And as a result,characters are not well developed or rounded as the case may be but live in make-believe world ruled by a masked and faceless group...The Brotherhood whose identity remains a mystery to the protagonist Winston Smith.Characters only exist as they were in this wondeful piece without much detailed explanation or a bildungsroman type of characterisation which traces the development of characters from childbirth to maturity.Having laid a foundation on what to expect from this piece,I will now procceed to the modern period and how it affects what was conceived as character.The Death of the Author by Roland Barthes attest to the fact that the modern period in which Orwell writes this novel has crippled human pschological advancement,and as a result man is a stooge to philosophical ideologies that has trapped him
beyond the limit of self realization.Winston Smith is a sterotype character whose actions and thoughts seem predictable.The closer he gets to the Inner Party Members the more remote he is from the humanity around him.He lives in a world of hallucination control by the telescreen and thought police.The words of O'Brien that "he who controls the past controls the future" and "who controls the present controls the past" is undisputably right since characters thought has been suppressed by the altering of the past and present.The power the party possess to control human memories in my opinion leads to a complete death of characterization in Orwell,s 1984