stereotyped women in 1984

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Orwell only succeeds in creating stereotyped representations of women in his novel ‘1984’. Discuss.

In George Orwell’s ‘1984’ he patronises the women he creates as we see an insight into the weaker sex who are often degraded with humiliating names and vulnerability. Orwell stereotypes the female characters, which reflects his somewhat limited view of women and their important role ion society.  He creates a problem in the way that masculinity and femininity lose all value in the totalitarian state. As the misogynist Orwell is, it is not surprising he has portrayed women in such silent, sad and solitary ways.

The main character, Julia is revealed as weak, and incapable of helping her self up as ‘she held out a free hand’ toward Winston expecting him to help her up. This is the first time we really meet Julia and already she is exposed to the critical eye of the reader as in need of a man to perform in society. She is very much displayed as a sexual object in the novel as she works in minitrue and creates cheap pornography for a living. This reflects her insignificant role in the rat race of the world, as a toy amongst men. She has had ‘many affairs’ and even Winston seems infatuated by her ‘naked, youthful body’. In a world where sex is banished only for the purpose of procreation, Orwell used her stereotypical ‘nimble’ figure to make sex is at the height of the agenda. In the masculinity of Orwell’s work, women are only congratulated when they stick to their men. He never dwells on the culture of women in general, their concerns, history or movements. He captures women in his novel for his own male desires,

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Essentially Julia is epitomised as an easy character that loves her man and simply uses sex for fun as a rebellion. Orwell has forsaken the traditional women who are expelled from male privileges. The novel on a whole is a male paradigm and Orwell assumes that sexually active women are just for amusement and only mothers are to be shown admiration and respect as they have achieved something of having children, which would be the norm in civilization and obedience to the party.  This is displayed when Winston risks his life to retrieve Goldstein’s book from O’Brien, he tell Julia ...

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