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Julia is Winston’s lover and the only other person who Winston can be sure hates the Party and wishes to rebel against it as he does. Whereas Winston is restless, fatalistic, and concerned about large-scale social issues, Julia is sensual, pragmatic, and generally content to live in the moment and make the best of her life. She is unnamed but referenced in Book One as someone Winston hates because of what he perceives to be her enthusiastic support for the Party. It isn’t until Book Two, when she surreptitiously passes Winston a note that reads “I LOVE YOU,” that her real identity as a passionate opponent of the Party and its suppression of individualism becomes known to us. Her energy and enthusiasm provide a welcome lift to the narrative, which up to her appearance has been dominated by Winston’s gloominess. The novel’s examination of how Julia and Winston contrast in temperament and approach even though they match in their opposition to the Party helps make 1984 more human and relatable and less of a political screed.

How Julia and Winston are so fundamentally different is partly due to their respective ages, since Julia has lived her entire life under the domination of the Party and accepts certain aspects of it as inevitable that Winston (who was born before the Revolution) finds utterly intolerable. Another possibility is that, as a woman in a society that is profoundly sexist, Julia has had to learn the limits to her agency in a way that Winston has not. (Despite the Party claiming to find men and women equal, it is hard to escape the overtones of a government led by Big Brother and where all the authority figures we see are men.) But regardless of the basis of their differences, they are profound.

Winston longs to join the Brotherhood and read Emmanuel Goldstein’s abstract manifesto; Julia is more concerned with enjoying sex and making practical plans to avoid getting caught by the Party. He essentially sees their affair as temporary and his fatalistic attitude makes him unable to imagine his relationship with Julia lasting very long. Julia, on the other hand, is well adapted to her chosen forms of small-scale rebellion. She claims to have had affairs with various Party members, and has no intention of terminating her pleasure-seeking, or of being caught. She serves as a striking contrast to Winston, who sees capture as inevitable. Apart from their mutual sexual desire and hatred of the Party, most of their traits are dissimilar, if not contradictory.

Significantly, it is her involvement with Winston and his puzzling belief that O’Brien is an ally (despite having no real evidence to support that) that results in Julia’s capture. After Winston’s actions Julia bring down with him, O’Brien and the Thought Police will see to it that Julia’s and Winston’s differences disappear. In the end, Julia and Winston are defeated and reduced to the same pathetic level.

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