1984

Victoria Becker
12-1
English; Mr. Fiorini; 1984 Commentary

I found a possible essay topic that I was interested in online so I decided to answer that as my one-page commentary to George Orwell's "1984". Describe Julia's character as it relates to Winston. How is she different from him? How is she similar to him? How does Julia's age make her attitude toward the Party very different from Winston's? Use examples from the text to support your answer.

Winston is thirty-nine. His childhood took place largely before the Party came to power around 1960 (as he remembers it). Winston often fantasizes about the "Golden Country" and has dreams about his mother and sister. He grasps onto theses thoughts because it is the only aspect of a true "memory" from before the Party. He has this obsession with finding out the real truth on whether life was better before or after Big Brother took over. Julia, on the other hand, is a child of the Party era. She is only twenty-six. Many of the regime's elements that seem most frightening and evil to Winston fail to upset or even faze Julia. For example, Winston is disgusted with the fact the the Party said they invented airplanes. He knows for a fact that they didn't but when he approaches Julia with this idea she was very apathetic and claims that it didn't make any difference and falls asleep. Like Winston, she hates the Party and sees through many of its techniques. She understands that it uses sexual repression to control the populace. She even has a better intuitive grasp of the Party's methods than Winston does, planning their affair and often explaining aspects of the Party to him. For instance, Julia thinks that buying the coral paperweight was extremely too risky and not worth dieing over. Winston admires the paperweight because it is a true artifact from a time when people were free. Winston wants to change how the Party acts. He believes in the Brotherhood. He wants to make a difference. Julia is more concerned with doing what she has to do to stay alive, not acting suspicious, and rebellion in secret (mostly by having sexual relationships with Party members). The Party's large-scale control of history does not interest or trouble her as it does Winston, because she does not remember a time when the Party was not in control. In blunt defiance of Party doctrine, Julia enjoys sex and rebels against the Party in small ways. But growing up under the Party rule has made her apathetic to the difference between fact and fiction. I find their differences interesting because it shows that there are different ways for these people to rebel. Whether a small defiance, or large one, both were caught and sent to Room 101. I feel that I would be more like Winston because it would anger me that the Party has so much control over people's instincts and natural thought. I would over analyze everything and risk "thought crime" so I could try and put pieces together.