In the fictitious novel 1984, George Orwell uses stereotypical female characters to illustrate that men are more powerful physically and intellectually and more important in their place in society. Although Orwell portrays many different characteristics, he tends to illustrate three main roles for the women throughout the novel. The first role we see is the nurturer who the main character sees as a caring and loving figure. Second role is the procreator whom the protagonist sees as the women who wants a relationship based on sex. Finally, the last role we discover and the spy. This idea of women as inferior to men is obvious throughout the whole novel; accordingly, the female characters reveal an anti-feminist bias on part of the author.
Winston Smith is a government employee whose job involves the rewriting of history in a manner that casts the government and society in his fictional country in a bright light. Winston is in constant conflict with the oppression in Oceania, where the Party scrutinizes human actions and feelings. Defying the law, Winston dares to express his thoughts and his feelings in a diary and pursues a relationship with a girl named Julia. These criminal deeds bring Winston into the eye of the opposition, who then must reform the nonconformist.
Our first role that George Orwell describes women in the novel is as a nurturer. Throughout the novel this role of nurturers can be seen through the women who are described by the main character as a caring and some sort of mother figure. In the novel, we see this through characters such as, Winston’s Mom or Mr. Parsons. Our first character that we tend to see as a nurturing figure throughout the novel is Winston’s Mother. Although Winston’s mother appears only in his dreams we are still able to understand his feelings and memories pertaining to her. For instance, Winston describes that, “His mother’s memory tore at his heart because she had died loving him, when he was too young and selfish to love her in return, and because somehow, he did not remember how, she had sacrificed herself to a conception of loyalty that was private and unalterable” (Orwell40). During Part 1 of the novel Winston dreams of his mother sinking down into the deep waters, there he realizes that, “they were down there because he was up here. He knew it and they knew it, and he could see the knowledge in their faces” (Orwell 38). This dream affects Winston deeply and causes him to think about the series of events that caused his family’s death and if he could have done something different. At the start of novel, Winston describes his mother as walking down a set of steps in “her slow dreamy way” giving her a weak and lazy personality. (Orwell 41). Then, after Winston begins to explore the thoughts of his past and disobey the laws of the Party he grows stronger and remembers that, “she had possessed a kind of nobility, a kind of purity, simply because the standards that she obeyed were private ones” (Orwell 146). While Winston’s mother never appears in anything more than his memories and dreams, she affects the actions that he makes and the thoughts he thinks. Winston’s depiction of his mom as a caring and strong character shows how Winston can develop and change as a character. Next character that we see as a nurturing figure in the novel is Mrs. Parson. All we know about her is that, similar too her husband, she is a follower of Big Brother and that her own kids are a part of the Thought Police. To Winston, she is old with amounts of dirt under her eyes. Despite Winston’s opinion of Mrs. Parson’s she actually embodies a loyal member of the Party while being a caring mother. Winston describes the conflict between Mrs. Parsons personality when he says, “Mrs Parsons’ eyes flitted nervously from Winston to the Children” (Orwell 30). We see that even though Winston doesn’t enjoy the Parsons, Mrs. Parsons show him respect. Mrs. Parsons ability to be a loyal Party member and still care about her kids even though they would turn in their own parents shows how loving of a mother she is.
Confirmation of MP1: As we can see through the presentation of women such as Mrs. Parsons, and Winston’s mother whose purpose is to assume the typical motherly duties such as take care of children, clean, cook, etc. we can begin to understand Orwell’s bias against women.
Our second role that we see women illustrated as in this novel is a procreator. In 1984 the role of these women is either as a sexual release for the men or reproduce to create more Party members. We can see this through characters such as, or Katharine or Julia. Katherine is one character we see throughout the novel who we see consistently playing this role as some sort of procreator throughout the novel. To start off, Katharine forms her relationship with Winston completely on sex. When Winston reflects on the time him and Katharine spent together, he thinks:
“She would lie there with shut eyes, neither resisting nor co-operating but SUBMITTING. It was extraordinarily embarrassing, and, after a while, horrible he could have borne living with her if it had been agreed that they remain celibate… It was Katharine who refused this” (Orwell 85).
Although Winston wanted his affair with Katharine to be true love, Katharine insists on just sex because she sees it as a way “to remind him of it in the morning, as something which had to be done that evening and which must not be forgotten. She had two names for it. One was ‘making a baby’, and the other was ‘our duty to the Party’” (Orwell 85). Once Winston and Katharine decide to stop having sex “soon afterwards they parted” (Orwell 86). After the sex between Katharine and Winston t had ended here was nothing more for the two. This showed that Katharine’s only interest in their relationship was to make babies as a service to the Party for being a loyal member. Another character that we see throughout the novel that takes on this role of wanting to have a relationship just based on sex and making offspring is the dark-haired girl, also known as Julia. Julia is the person who has the most influence over Winston throughout the novel as he begins to discover his past and go against Big Brother. Julia is the person that makes him realize how unhappy he is under the rule of big brother. Winston expresses his deepest thoughts and opinions to her as he shares, “I hate purity, I hate goodness. I don’t want any virtue to exist anywhere. I want everyone to be corrupt to the bones” (Orwell 158). Winston also shares his thoughts about her sexually when he says, “‘Listen. The more men you’ve had, the more I love you” (Orwell 158). Winston’s suddenly becomes so vulnerable and so exposed in just a few sentences all because Julia’s desire for freedom makes him love her more. Through, this depiction of women whose only interest is in sexual relationships and to procreate we can further understand Orwell’s bias against women like this.
Our final role that the women in the novel represent is a spy or liar. In the novel, these women are known for being devoted to the Party and only to the Party. We can see this role exhibited specifically through Julia. Julia is a member of the Junior Anti-Sex League which is basically means she is a member of the Party. Throughout the novel we see Julia as this sort of rebellious character acting as a cause for Winston’s hope in humanity. Julia enjoys having sex with not only Winston but with other Party members. Although Julia commits a lot of crimes to rebel against the Party she keeps it quiet and covered up by going on community hikes with the Junior Anti-Sex League. This ultimately causes Winston to become somewhat skeptical of Julia. We see Winston’s skepticism when he starts to think about, “His earlier thought which returned to him: probably she was not actually a member of the Thought Police, but then it was precisely the amateur spy who was the greatest danger of all” (Orwell 78). Another example, we see of Winston’s curiosity of Julia is when Winston sees Julia following him around Oceania and he says:
“At any rate, one question was settled. There was no doubting any longer that the girl was spying on him. She must have followed him here, because it was not credible that by pure chance she should have happened to be walking on the same evening up the same obscure backstreet, kilometres distant from any quarter where Party members lived. It was too great a coincidence. Whether she was really an agent of the Thought Police, or simply an amateur spy actuated by officiousness, hardly mattered. It was enough that she was watching him” (Orwell 126).
Last example of Winston’s skepticism about Julia’s privacy and sense of loyalty is when he describes that:
“For a moment he was violently angry. During the month that he had known her the nature of his desire for her had changed. At the beginning, there had been little true sensuality in it. Their first love-making had been simply an act of the will. But after the second time it was different. The smell of her hair, the taste of her mouth, the feeling of her skin seemed to have got inside him, or into the air all around him. She had become a physical necessity, something that he not only wanted but felt that he had a right to. When she said that she could not come, he had the feeling that she was cheating him” (Orwell 175).
We see here that Winston is suspicious of Julia because he does not feel the same connection that he use to feel with Julia and he starts to question whether this feeling of love is real or it is all just a scam and Julia is actually a spy trying to catch Winston in a lie.