Women in 1984
Women in 1984
Women in 1984
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Women in 1984
To the Editor:
I found Daphne Patai's article "Gamesmanship
and Androcentrism in Orwell's 1984" (PMLA 97
[1982]:856-70) so rewarding that I am reluctant
to take exception to any aspect of her closely
reasoned argument. It seems to me, however, that
in making her strong case for viewing the gamesmanship in 1984 as an expression of an "essentially
masculine ideology" (868), Patai does not fully
examine the role women characters play in embodying alternatives to the desolate present depicted in
the novel.
Patai comments that there are few "positive portrayals" of women in 1984 other than that of Julia
and mentions as examples of such portrayals the
singing prole woman, Winston's mother, and the
mother in the film Winston sees (868). Certainly
these women play very minor roles in the plot of
the novel. I would maintain, however, that they do
have a major thematic importance in representing,
on the one hand, the only conceivable hope for the
future and, on the other, the vestiges of an almost
completely destroyed past that sets a standard by
which the present must be judged.
The prole woman, "swollen like a fertilized fruit
and grown hard and red and coarse" (Signet-NAL
ed., 181) from thirty years of scrubbing and laundering but still singing as she goes about her tasks,
shares with nature "the vitality which the Party did
not share and could not kill" (182). Winston envisions the "same solid unconquerable figure"
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of the "false memories" that trouble him occasionally (243), the fact that he has recalled the
game at all suggests that O'Brien's methods have
not been totally successful. The "few cubic centimeters" (26) inside the skull still resist complete
domination of the Party; even the "victory over
himself" that Winston is to win a few minutes later
may yet leave a few pockets of resistance.
Assuredly, one can readily find evidence of Orwell's condescension toward women. Just as Julia,
who is only a "rebel from the waist downwards"
(129), has no interest in Goldstein's book and goes
to sleep while Winston reads, the prole woman has
"strong arms, a warm heart, and a fertile belly"
but "no mind" (181) and Winston's mother has
not been, he assumes, "an unusual woman, still less
an intelligent one" (136). In spite of the intellectual
limitations Orwell attributes to women, however,
he assigns them crucial roles in maintaining what
he clearly regards as essential to human dignity. As
Patai points out, it is Julia, rather than Winston,
who first resists O'Brien's dehumanizing demands
of how they must fight against the Party (143).
The prole woman and Winston's mother carry even
more important thematic weight in representing the
unconquerable vitality of life itself and the private
loyalties that make that life significant. If, in my
view of 1984, Orwell's despair is not quite so absolute as Patai maintains, it is because of qualities he
embodies in these women characters. Hope, if there
is any hope, lies in the prole woman, and values
like loyalty, fairness, and love survive, if they survive, as legacies of women like Winston's mother.
ERWIN HESTER
Reply:
Erwin Hester is surely right: there is much more
to be said about the portrayals of women in 1984.
I am completing work on this subject, and my full
argument will appear in my book Orwell's Despair:
Manhood and the Path to 1984.
I agree that Orwell views in what is for him a
positive way both the prole woman, who is a vigorous and enduring breeder, and Winston's mother,
who is a self-sacrificing and protective maternal
figure. But I do not see these examples as refutations of my argument; rather, such characterizations
are part of the problem, not the solution. Winston's
statement that hope lies with the proles is undermined by the opposing view that there is no hope
since the proles are unconscious. In various writings
Orwell saw lack of consciousness as characteristic
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DAPHNE PATAI