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Female characters please?

 After reading Brave New World and seeing the openness of Huxley's futuristic society towards female equality and empowerment, I was optimistic for similar trends in 1984. Boy, have I been disappointed. 

Our only real female character is Julia, who serves as a distraction, an object of desire, and a companion for Winston that won't make him look stupid or less important. She is essentially a fantasy for Winston - a beautiful woman who he can sleep with and then plot to take down the Party with. She comes across as naïve because rebellion looks different to her than it does to Winston, and we never see her as an individual outside of the male gaze. I know that it was common for female characters during this time to exist only within the context of the men, but Orwell is writing a book that takes place in the future. If he can be so creative with his envisioning of a dystopian world, surely he can find the imaginative capacity to see women as more than toys for men.

Do you think Orwell should have given more power/autonomy to female characters, or do you think that the current experiences of female characters align with the gender roles in Oceania?

Comments

  1. Rani Ramrattan25 February 2021 at 07:39

    I think Orwell should have but although this is set in the future much of the mindset of society remains in the past in 1984

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  2. L. Moffitt25 February 2021 at 07:40

    AGREE. This misogyny of this novel is troublesome. None of the female characters is sympathetic or dimensional in the least. To some degree, that could be Orwell (like Huxley) commenting on how women often have it worse in totalitarian regimes, but I agree that a lot of it is probably Orwell's own sexism.

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  3. Katelyn25 February 2021 at 07:41

    I've been personally really disappointed with Julia's characterization as she doesn't even pretend to evolve the plot (at least not this far into the book). She truly is there just to have sex with Winston and make him look good in his form of rebellion compared to her's. She could easily have taken over the O'Brien character, but instead we are left with our only significant female character of the book being very much the "Eve" to Winston's "Adam" in some ways.

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  4. Prithika Ravi25 February 2021 at 07:42

    I think that, yes, to some extent, what he does aligns with the gender roles in Oceania, but he's the one who made those gender roles. It would have been really interesting to see him undermine the traditional aspects of a dystopian novel, especially as a lot of this was inspired by BNW, and incorporate some unexpected aspect of equalizing them.

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  5. Alice Gao25 February 2021 at 07:52

    It definitely is extremely sad, because Orwell has taken care to twist the idea of motherhood and sexuality in the world of 1984, but for some reason doesn't seem comfortable giving the women any power. None of the high rank Party members are male. Julia works in a freaking porn shop, and all of Winston's coworkers are male. I think given Orwell's own biases (as Ms. Moffitt said) there was no way he would give women quality representation in a book such as this.

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  6. Anonymous25 February 2021 at 07:56

    I think what's really interesting about this is the way that the gender roles in Oceania seem to be somewhat inclusive - both women and men can reach the upper echelon of the inner party, and all "comrades" in the Party are equal. And yet, Orwell inexplicably wrote his only significant female character in a way that aligns much better with the gender roles in Orwell's 1948 than Winston's 1984.

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    Replies
    1. L. Moffitt25 February 2021 at 08:09

      Good point, and it's interesting that this has played out in real life as well. Totalitarian regimes in our world have claimed that the sexes are equal, but women inevitably end up in subservient roles.

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