Good Bad Girl

Earlier on in 1984, George Orwell defined the Newspeak term "doublethink" as a sort of juxtaposed mode of thought, where war is peace and freedom is slavery, where the concept of "truth" is mutable and facts can change from hour to hour. Doublethink doesn't make sense--it involves complete and unquestioning belief in two completely opposite opinions. Our main character Winston vehemently criticizes the "doublethink" principle, especially after Oceania's sudden and seamless switch from war with Eurasia to Eastasia. However, I found it ironic that while Winston devotes a great amount of brainspace to committing thoughtcrimes, criticizing the Party and their acts of doublethink, he, too is fooling himself. I speak, of course, about his relationship with Julia. 

Winston's and Julia's supposed "love"... doesn't seem to be founded on "good" or even "authentic" principles. Their relationship, supposedly rooted in a shared hatred of the Big Brother regime, is almost an act of doublethink.  It's more difficult to analyze Julia's true feelings, since we can't really see inside her headspace as readers, but in Winston's case, it seems quite evident that a certain amount of self-deception is taking place. Take, for instance, the evolution of Winston's thoughts on Julia between parts I and II. When we first meet her, during the Two Minutes Hate, he characterizes her as an "ideal Party member," directing the full force of his hatred towards a fantasy about brutalizing, raping, and killing her. Not exactly positive feelings.

However, all it takes for his thoughts to do a total 180 is one tiny slip of paper, exchanged in a matter of seconds. "I love you," Julia writes, and suddenly Winston's fallen hard. How different is that card, really, from the sheet of paper that the Hate Week speaker reads off of, during the change from Eurasian to Eastasian hate? Winston mocks the crowd's abrupt and unquestioning switch in opinion, but doesn't realize that he did almost exactly the same for Julia.

Now, for the actual quality of Winston's feelings. Those don't exactly seem genuine either. In particular, they seem more a combination of lust and desperation. I don't think it's entirely lust, because he does state more than once that he wishes they could be together in a place without the obligation to make love, just talking like a "normal" husband and wife would have in the old days. However, that's where the desperation comes in. Winston and Julia do have a disconnect--Julia's completely uninterested in Party policy, only truly caring about sensual and sexual freedom. She falls asleep whenever she finds Winston uninteresting (which I find hilarious, by the way, but also goes to show that she doesn't have much of an emotional investment, either). There's also the strange scene where they meet on the street and Winston suddenly becomes enraged when Julia tells him she can't meet--he's become dependent on her, possessive of her. He's finally found someone with the slightest bit of similarity to him and latched on, trying to swallow her and fit her into a mental mold. We can't exactly blame him for the latching-on part--after all, I don't think any of us have known an isolation of thought as deep and lonely as his must have been--but it's the self-deception that I find ironic. In his feelings for Julia, Winston's effectively making 2+2 equal 5 in his mind to feed his desperation for a meaningful relationship. 

Let me know what you think!