When I read 1984 recently, for the first time, I came away from the book with two distinct feelings: shock and discomfort. Discomfort because of the sexism and misogyny exhibited by the protagonist, Winston, and shock because I hadn’t been prepared for it.
Being an English literature student (which I am), or any person with an interest in books (which, obviously, also applies to me) there’s a certain amount of common knowledge that people expect you to have – certain facts you must know about books, even if you’ve never read them. George Eliot was but the pen name of Mary Ann Evans. Tolstoy’s War and Peace is a long book. And Shakespeare’s plays contain misogynistic attitudes; although, whether or not these attitudes belong to the playwright himself, his characters, or the time period from which his characters originate is a point of much contention, with the suggestion that these factors are perhaps not inseparable adding to the confusion. Yet, I’ve never heard anyone discuss Orwell’s texts in such a capacity. Though I have not studied his work in an academic setting before, I would have expected to have some foreknowledge of 1984’s sexism. Whilst it is true that google searches relating to the book that specifically refer to sexism will produce multiple results, you have to go in search of this warning. In fact, this aspect of the book appears to be non-existent to many readers, if the goodreads reviews can be taken as representative of the opinion of wider readers. The subject equally fails to gather much attention on the review sections of multiple bookstore websites. It is for this reason that I found 1984 so uncomfortable to read: the sexism was bad enough, but it was made worse by the element of surprise. The response of other readers, and hence the lack of conversation around this topic, might be considered understandable if the sexism occurred subtly, but there are problematic passages strewn throughout the novel.
To offer a short example, without veering into an analytical essay: Winston defines Julia through her sexuality. When the reader first sees him seeing Julia, he focuses on her body, specifically noting the ‘shapeliness of her hips’. He also later reveals he wanted to ‘“rape you and then murder you afterwards”’; an evidently hate-filled comment. Even after their relationship develops, Winston continues to see Julia and her sexuality as being inseparable. He explicitly says, ‘With Julia, everything came back to her own sexuality’, before he critiques her form of political rebellion, and inwardly promotes his own ideas over hers. In claiming that ‘She did not understand that there was no such thing as happiness, that the only victory lay in the far future’, he fails to consider that being happy in the face of the regime, as Julia seemingly seeks to be, could offer a viable form of rebellion. Winston, for all of the time he devotes to thinking about revolt, ignores the views of his partner-in-rebellion, dismissing them as the product of Julia and her sexuality-driven mind. Julia, the most developed woman in the novel, then, is characterised by Winston as a sexualised body and a misguided mind. And when he does consider her body, like with other female characters in the book, the descriptions are unsettling. Julia’s youthful female body is clearly seen through a male gaze, one that describes her using a series of clichés; she has a ‘supple’ waist and ‘ripe’ breasts. (Side note: at this point Orwell’s writing seems to be lifted from one of many comic twitter threads that examine the male gaze and why so many authors think the description of ‘ripe’ breasts is one that is good, or even one that makes sense.)
If you encountered these passages without knowing they were Orwell’s, I find it hard to believe you would do anything besides dismiss them as being repressive at worst and laughable at best. But I suppose because they are Orwell’s we will let them pass undetected, or we will apply the same excuses that we use for Shakespeare’s literature. Orwell’s work does, after all, display an incredible imaginative talent, just not enough talent to be able to imagine a real woman – one who does not exist only as a hypersexualised being or a prop for the development of his male protagonist. Maybe the views expressed by Winston are simply his own. But then our options seem to be between believing that Orwell didn’t think a man could live a desire-restricted life without developing a hatred for women, or that Orwell could not imagine a woman who could hold her own genuine, sophisticated, and creditable political beliefs. Neither choice feels preferable.
Amber O'Connor 