Happy 2018 everyone, and welcome back to my blog of many (school) things. As winter break began a few weeks ago, we were tasked with reading a very important book in literature history… 1984 by George Orwell. This book tied in with our overall unit, in PLP, of Dystopian versus Utopian worlds and societies. We were to read 1984, and one other contemporary dystopian novel, in order to gain a vast knowledge of dystopian societies and their differences and similarities, using a historical perspective.

The Task:

Pretty much the first class back in school, Ms. Willemse had us compose a bio poem of ourselves, and I knew that it was leading to something much bigger.

Gabi
Kind, enthusiastic, empathetic, creative,
Sister of Jeremi,
Love of travel, animals, and art,
Who feels tired, friendly, and overworked,
Who needs food, sleep, and friendships,
Who fears spiders, plane crashes, and lack of love,
Who gives laughter, advice, and relatively good stories,
Who would like to see the Eiffel Tower, a bowl of butter chicken, and the Queen,
Resident of multiple countries,
Rossignol

Afterwards, we were grouped, and told to write a bio poem of a character from Orwell’s 1984. Our group decided on Julia, as she seemed to have a large spectrum of emotions and sides to her personality. Once we finished, we had been tasked with creating a life-size Julia on paper, and had to fill in her outline with anything that represented her character. We brainstormed her desires, feelings, and ideals, and figured out how we could represent these on her “body”. Once we came up with our ideas, we filled the outline, and used the green screen to make her character come to life.

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As you can see, we came up with quite a lot:

– Spectacles dangling out of her pocket
-Men printed on her feet
-A red sash around her waist
-A fox on her chest
-Birds in flight in her mind
-A mask in her hand
-An unlocked padlock hanging from her jeans
-A fiery heart
-The setting of a field

Breaking It Down:

Julia’s character in 1984 is quite contradicting of herself. She has strong internal hate for the Party, yet keeps these views to herself, and focusses on her own personal rebellion. She is also free-spirited, and prefers to live in the moment, which is why we gave her “birds for a brain”. Her mindset is practical and set on the “here and now” rather than the future, and follows the beat of her own drum. Julia asks Winston, as he worries about death, “Don’t you enjoy being alive? …I’m real, I’m solid, I’m alive!”(215). She is passionate about the present, and can’t understand why her lover is thinking about anything else. We also chose to draw map lines across her legs, to symbolize the way she neglects the options of others and makes her own path in life.

Julia is silently rebellious towards the party in the way that she continuously engages in sexual relations with large amounts of men, regardless of the rules set against the act. She possesses raging hormones and passion. We gave her a red celibacy sash around her waist, to show that she seems to be following the rules of the Party, but secretly has sex regularly. We put men all over her feet, as she constantly “walks all over them” in the book. She experiences sex with Winston Smith (her lover) and openly admits to sleeping with different members of the Party. This connects to the eye mask that dangles in her hand, representing her secrecy and “mask” that she wears in front of certain people. She seems generally uninterested in rebellion, but her pursuit of sexual relations could be to defy the Government, as an act of small rebellion.

The fox on her chest is to represent her cunning spirit and sly manoeuvring of secrets. She is breaking the rules of loyalty to the Party, by being loyal to her lover Winston, and is not caught for a long while. This ties into the reason we used a padlock on her jeans to represent her disloyalty. Obviously she already rebels against the Party with her sexual partners, but she also shows disloyalty towards Winston. Although she is loyal to Winston, this trust is broken when she is captured by the thought police, and “She betrayed…Winston. Immediately – unreservedly.”(409) The lock is simply to represent the fact that Julia can break her loyalty as easily as you can unlock a padlock. Julia is fiery, yet outwardly displays an optimistic and pragmatic personality. We gave her a heart on fire to show how her heat, passion, and rebellious nature come from within, and is not who she seems to be for the onlooker.

This assignment was very interesting, and really helped me to get to know Julia’s character on another level. I was happy with our outline of her character and thought we nailed her portrayal in the novel. I thought it was a great way to inquire about the major characters in 1984, through creativity and innovation!