Julia, the Thought Police, and other matters.
This is a reply to another post in this section, but I'm posting it in a separate thread because it's quite long, and also because it goes beyond the immediate question into my general understanding of 1984, which is perhaps different from many people's.
twilightdweller said:
I always thought that she wasn't, but re-reading "1984" O'Brien tells Winston that he was working on him for seven years until the time he was arrested. It seems like a huge coincidence that she happens to initiate a sexual relationship with Winston just before his arrest, and she was needed for Room 101 to work on him. In order to break him he had to betray her. Also, she was described as being young and beautiful while Winston was old and in poor health, so it doesn't seem likely she would be interested in him on her own.
It's an interesting idea, and I've heard others opine that she's "too good to be true," but ultimately I don't buy it.
First I have to say that we need to be a little cautious about drawing conclusions from specific data points in 1984. The story is more allegorical than a realistic projection of "what might happen," and although a consistent and sensible fictional universe is necessary for a story to work, Orwell sacrificed realism at times to make his allegory work. There are parts of 1984 that simply don't make sense. For example, it's stated that by 2050 no Party member will be able to understand Oldspeak (standard English), but the proles will. But it's also stated that although the Party mostly lets the proles be, it does monitor and propagandize to them in a general way, for example, to whip them up into a frenzy for Hate Week. But how will the Party do these things in 2050 if its members can't understand what the proles are saying? As realism it's nonsensical; as allegory it's brilliant.
Another reason for caution is that we only see things through Winston's eyes, and he's got some serious mental problems. He muses that the Party can warp reality into any shape it chooses. But because he's terrified of letting anyone else know what he's thinking, he never (until meeting Julia) discusses his doubts and fears with anyone else ... and so never gets any sort of reality check on his imaginings. *He's* also free to warp reality into any shape, at least reality beyond what he can immediately see and hear; he doesn't do it out of a desire to control reality, but because there's no restraint on his fear and paranoia. 1984 is about Winston's ultimate destruction, but it's also about how much he's already been warped and half-broken at the story's beginning just from living in a society like Oceania.
With those caveats stated ...
I think it's a mistake to rely upon anything O'Brien says. He'd certainly lie if it suited the Party's purposes. And the same applies to anything in Goldstein's book, which was pretty clearly constructed specifically for Winston. The Party has book writing machines to produce rubbish for proles; it probably also has a "Goldstein-book writing machine" which makes a product tailor-made for a specific victim after some parameters are input -- e.g., Winston's particular terror regarding the existence of the past, "two plus two make four," etc.
Also, consider these things ...
First, Winston, Parsons, and Ampleforth were all arrested at the same time. That implies that they (and presumably many others) weren't arrested specifically because of things they had done recently, but as part of a general purge. And note that their arrests were just after the ordeal of work was completed following Oceania's change of enemies. That makes sense for a general purge -- leave them free to contribute their labor to that ordeal of work, *then* arrest them.
Second, there's quite a bit of corruption within the Party. Proles aren't supposed to drink gin but can get it easily enough. Winston is amazed that Julia can get real coffee, sugar, et cetera -- but at one point while strolling through a prole neighborhood he smelled real coffee from a building there. But how could these things happen unless Party members were selling these things, giving them away to favored domestic servants, or being criminally lax in safeguarding them from theft? And Winston himself shops in the black market, but only for items (e.g., razor blades) which have become so scarce and sought by so many that it's become obvious the Party will allow him to purchase there. And the corruption goes further. Prostitution is rampant and Party members are tacitly encouraged to avail themselves occasionally. Julia claims that sex is her favorite leisure activity and that she's had numerous affairs with other Outer Party members, and although one might suspect her of some exaggeration there's really no reason to disbelieve her. And if she's doing this, and she's had that many lovers, it stands to reason that there are a lot of other Party members we never hear about who are having forbidden assignations.
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