Wednesday, September 6, 2017

In the novel 1984, how does syntax reflect Winston's sexual frustration with Julia?

In the early part of the novel, before they actually meet, Winston both sexually desires Julia, a coworker at the Ministry of Truth who he sees at group events such as the Two-Minute hate, while at the same time loathing her for what he interprets as her frigidity. They work in different departments so he only sees her in passing and doesn't yet know her name.

As Winston focuses his attention on Julia during the Two-Minute hate, Orwell's use of words like "suddenly," "violent effort," and  "wrench" in a long sentence in which the more sedate main verb "succeeded" follows a dependent clause full of jarring images shows how hard Winston has to work mentally to transfer his inchoate rage and aggressions onto Julia:



Suddenly, by the sort of violent effort with which one wrenches one’s head away from the pillow in a nightmare, Winston succeeded in transferring his hatred from the face on the screen to the dark-haired girl behind him.



Once he makes the transition to Julia, his thoughts flow more easily, reflected in the shorter, direct sentences with powerful verbs that follow, such as "flog," "tie," "shoot," "ravish," and "cut," which reveal how far the violence, hatred, and dehumanization fostered by the regime has infiltrated Winston's soul. This dehumanization is again highlighted by his use of the word "beautiful" to describe acts of sadism:



Vivid, beautiful hallucinations flashed through his mind. He would flog her to death with a rubber truncheon. He would tie her naked to a stake and shoot her full of arrows like Saint Sebastian. He would ravish her and cut her throat at the moment of climax.



But once he expels his violent fantasies and returns to a more reasoned state of mind, his sentences become longer, more reflective and less driven by active, violent verbs:



Better than before, moreover, he realized why it was that he hated her. He hated her because she was young and pretty and sexless, because he wanted to go to bed with her and would never do so, because round her sweet supple waist, which seemed to ask you to encircle it with your arm, there was only the odious scarlet sash, aggressive symbol of chastity.



By the end of the passage, he is acknowledging her beauty, such as in her "sweet supple waist" which seems to invite a gentle encircling. These thoughts are separated from the "odious scarlet sash" by the words "there was only," indicating that Winston is already able to distinguish Julia (though he does not yet know her name) as a human being from the sash that represents the state's tyranny over natural human desires. The syntax suggests that Winston's sexual frustration is not because of Julia but because of the state, and that he uses her to focalize his frustration for a brief time before becoming more analytical.  

No comments:

Post a Comment