Mr. Conrad Heyer Character Analysis

The head of the Eye, the Norsefire institution charged with video monitoring all citizens of London, Conrad Heyer is a weak-willed, ineffectual man. He spends long hours watching Londoners in their homes, and is, as his wife, Helen Heyer puts it, London’s highest-paid “peeping Tom.” When it becomes clear that the government of England is slowly falling apart, Helen Heyer engineers a plan for Conrad to become the new Leader. Conrad seems to support this plan, but does nothing himself to enact it. He’s a curiously blank character—his one defining characteristic, as Helen notes, is that he likes to watch. In a gruesomely appropriate twist of fate, he dies of a neck wound while watching his own death on a television screen.