1984

Julia is Winston’s love interest, and her arc highlights The Lack of Bodily Autonomy Under Totalitarianism. She is 26 years old and does not have a surname, which is attributed to her younger age and generational separation from the revolution. Whereas Winston is old enough to recall vague memories of what the world used to be like, Julia’s knowledge of the pre-revolution world is based on stories from her grandfather, who disappeared when she was a young child. She is identified as the dark-haired girl until her name is revealed after beginning her sexual affair with Winston in Part 2.

Like Winston, she is a member of the Outer Party. She works for the Fiction Department in the Ministry of Truth. The contrast between fiction and truth is not the only irony in Julia’s character: She is a promiscuous Party member who volunteers for the Junior Anti-Sex League, and the red Anti-Sex sash she wears accentuates her figure. Winston first notices Julia’s attention towards him and suspects she is spying for the Thought Police, which delights her when she learns of his mistaken suspicions.

Julia and Winston are driven by different motivations. Julia wants to rebel against the Party, and she agrees with Winston’s sentiment that sexual promiscuity is the best form of individual rebellion, but she does not share Winston’s deeper philosophical resentment towards the Party. Julia is uninterested in talking about Party doctrine beyond the physical oppression it creates and prefers not to worry about details of the Party’s inner workings. She knows how to behave in public—to the point where Winston himself even mistakes her for a spy—“and that was all one needed” (196).

Despite her careful initial planning and experience with successful sexual affairs, Julia’s affair with Winston leads to her downfall. Even though she resists Winston’s political talk, her sexual relationship with Winston is enough to convict Julia of crimes against the Party. Her torture is only hinted at with a scar on her forehead when she and Winston encounter one another after their arrest, and the sexual desire that once characterized her is gone. Like Winston, Julia’s downfall represents the failed attempt of an individual to defy totalitarian power.

O’Brien is the novel’s antagonist who masquerades as Winston’s friend and fellow dissident. He is an Inner Party member, placing him above Winston and Julia and granting him privileges, such as access to better provisions and a more luxurious residence. O’Brien tends to gently adjust his spectacles in a characteristic fashion, and Winston mistakes this flash of individuality for an unspoken philosophical connection between them. Winston desperately wants O’Brien to be part of the anti-Party Brotherhood because that would mean he’s finally discovered a way to access the secret organization, but O’Brien’s character remains vague, making it easy for Winston to project his own ideas upon him. O’Brien does admit to being in the Brotherhood and answers all of Winston’s questions about it, but only when Winston initiates the subject and incriminates himself first.

O’Brien’s character does not develop or change, but his role in Winston’s downfall gains clarity when he emerges as Winston’s interrogator in Part 3. For much of the novel, Winston is convinced that O’Brien is a member of the Brotherhood and someone he can trust, and even throughout his torture Winston continues to look to O’Brien as a savior figure. Readers, however, understand that Winston has been betrayed when O’Brien enters the cell in the Ministry of Love. O’Brien confides that the Party got him a long time ago, but he says so “with a mild, almost regretful irony” (301). It’s unclear whether O’Brien was ever sympathetic to Winston’s political frustrations, or whether he was laying down traps for Winston all along.