A Contrast between Winston's Relationships with Katharine and Julia and why they ultimately failed
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Introduction
A Contrast between Winston's Relationships with Katharine and Julia and why they ultimately failed Christianity has done a great deal for love by making a sin of it. -Anatole France Julia, 26 years old, is Winston's lover. Her name is very carefully chosen; it suggests Juliet, the Shakespearean character whose name has been connected to love. At the beginning of the book Winston hates her yet at the same time is attracted to her. A good example of this is on page 7: "A narrow scarlet sash, emblem of the Junior Anti-s*x league, was wound several times round the waist of her overalls, just tightly enough to bring out the shapeliness of her hips." This extract shows that Winston hated all that she stood for; she was a Party zealot, a member of the Junior Anti-s*x League, a bigoted adherent and a swallower of slogans. Even though Winston perceives her to be like that, he cannot deny his s****l attraction to her when he notices the shapeliness of her hips. Although Julia carries this atmosphere around with her, Winston's perception of her was wrong: she gives him a letter containing the words, I love you. Winston soon realises that she leads a double life; she is a member of the Ministry of Truth's fiction department yet she revels in her s****l escapades. ...read more.
Middle
Winston had never done this with a party member and clearly did not know where was safe and where was not. On the opposite side of the spectrum is Katharine: she has s*x as her way of supporting the Party. She calls s*x "her duty to the Party". It seemed as though, when having s*x with her, there was no spontaneity: it mentions in the book that there was an appointed day. During Winston's marriage he was dominant but at the same time he seemed retreated from the relationship. Orwell makes out Katharine as being much like a robot. She was reduced by the Party so much that she had lost the ability to feel. She must have been extremely suggestible and this made her more vulnerable to the ideals of the party. During intercourse, she would embrace Winston because she thought it was her duty to the Party to have a baby but at the same time she would push Winston away because it had been suggested to her that s*x was wrong. She wasn't resisting or co-operating, but submitting. Winston just wanted to have s*x because of pure animal instinct. Winston's relationship with Julia was deeper than his relationship with Katharine. The main reason why Winston's relationship with Julia lasted as long as it did was that they were both completely dissimilar to each other in some ways and were alike in other ways. ...read more.
Conclusion
She was so supportive of the Party that Winston thinks that she could have told the Thought Police of Winston's thoughtcrimes. Winston's relationship with Julia was far stronger than this relationship. Although they were completely different in some ways, their hatred for the Party binds them together in a tie which they think nothing can break. In the end, of course, Julia is arrested and removed to the Ministry of Love, where she too suffers the horrors of Room 101 and is forced to betray Winston. They were more easily broken than most other couples would have been because their relationship lacked any sort of depth and was based on their mutual s****l desire. . When they meet again after their respective releases, Julia is much changed, spiritless, physically broken, holding a vague dislike for Winston. The comparison he notes between her waist (which seems no longer supple) and the body of a corpse suggests that Julia is dead, that her personality has been beaten down and extinguished so that she, like Winston, is nothing but a shell. If you love something, set it free; if it comes backs it's yours, if it doesn't, it never was Richard Bach * Oedipus complex- In psychoanalysis, a subconscious s****l desire in a child, especially a male child, for the parent of the opposite s*x, usually accompanied by hostility to the parent of the same s*x. ...read more.
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Here's what a teacher thought of this essay
This is a very strong analytical essay and the only thing that needs improving is the way the essay is structured; this includes the way that quotes are used and the way points are linked to one another.
4 Stars
Marked by teacher Laura Gater 19/06/2013