Give how adept Julia seemed to be at acting like a good Party member, it would stand to reason that she could have been a spy. It would also explain how she behaved at the end of the book. Winston's conditioning would have been solidified by thinking that Julia was also broken.
I like to think that Julia wasn't a spy. But rather she may have been something akin to a high class escort who serviced members of the inner party, trading sex for high quality goods that she would then share with Winston during their meetups. Perhaps being the mistress of one or more inner party members provided her some level of protection, as she is able to freely sleep around with people and doesn't get caught. I'm sure members of the inner party wouldn't want news of their affairs to get out. So they help protect Julia by getting the thought police off her back.
I have to aggree, it would also be in theme for their downfall to have been not because of anything they did, but her protectors simply lost a power struggle and the moment they were gone the Thought Police grabbed her. Its also possible that O'brien made her out to be a direct traitor inorder to bring down her protectors, it could be that the Brotherhood is real but O'brien just gave them one of the books so he could manufacture someone elses downfall, it would be very in theme for everything that happens to the characters to be linked to a power struggle far over their heads and out of view.
@barbiquerea But Julia clearly shows her digusting when winston asks her if she slept with any upper party members and even says "there's plenty who would."
I think that would make sense in a more realistic book, but I believe the intent of 1984 was to show a "perfect" totalitarian state aside from a few thought criminals.
I don't think Julia was a spy, but a main point of the book is *exactly* the fact that you can never know for certain who is and who isn't a spy - one of the many horrors of the party apparatus is that it destroys trust and fosters constant paranoia - so I also think it's entirely intentional that there will always be at least a shred of doubt as to whether she was or wasn't. That said, Julia was born after the revolution, and has no life of memory before - whereas Winston was a child during the revolution, and has vague memories of life before. So to Julia, casually circumventing the controls of the party comes more naturally to her than it does Winston - but she's also far more jaded and far less disinterested in the "truth" of the Party and the world she lives in than Winston is. I generally believe that if it weren't for getting caught *with* Winston - i.e. being drawn in to Charrington's trap via Winston - she *might* have escaped notice of the Thought Police once more. But either way, she was playing a dangerous game, and it was really just a matter of time before the Thought Police caught up with her - whether through her own carelessness, or bad luck, or just happening to be "unperson-adjacent" enough to become suspect. Of course, back to the fundamental horror of the book: Despite all that, it's still entirely possible the Party has known about her all along, and - whether she was in on it or not - was using her as bait to entrap other Party members.
Anyone who can say "She's definitely X" hasn't understood the point of the novel. Orwell wanted you to mistrust everyone, to never be sure who is on whose side, except for Winston. personally, I think Julia was likely a member of the thought police, but I'm certainly not sure.
She knew how to blend into the crowd, she knew a big chunk of Winston’s thoughts, ideas and life story. In an environment where one has no friend , Winston is suddenly approached by a mysterious woman who writes a note of “I love you”
I've never considered the possibility before but it makes sense. Before meeting Julia, Winston wasn't loyal to anything or even cared very much about anything, so what could the party use to break him in room 101. They needed to give him something to be loyal to in order for him to have something to betray thereby breaking him completely.
I don't think she is a direct spy, more like she is someone the party leaves alone and just watches to find upstart people, she is a perfect honeytrap and normally they leave her alone when the capture the person, but this time they brought her in too just to discipline her as well. Like I said in the comment of the Julia video: "I honestly think Julia is at best a useful idiot: a useful tool that is allowed to 'rebel' against the party because she is so useful in drawing possible traitors into the open and she doesn't even know it would explain why she is let off so easily. "
Another theory for you: why is Winston so afraid of rats? Although it's never stated in the book, I think it's implied that Winston saw his little sister get eaten by rats, and the fear of rats is so traumatic because it's mixed with feelings of guilt about starving her to death. He repressed this memory which is why he doesn't mention it to Julia. In the 1954 movie they come out and state it. But I'm wondering if others have this interpretation.
@CaptainUnusual No. It's Because he grew up during the aftermath of the nuclear war. When rats where everywhere, he didn't see his sister get eaten by rats but he does find them when his mother and sister go missing. So he probably assoicates rats with death in his mind. He even says how he knows prole women don't leave babies alone as rats will attack them.
14:55 Just occurred to me that Julia mentions the rhyme for St. Martin's, while the thought police mentioned the rhyme for St. Clement's. When they're exposed, the thought police provide the end of the poem "Here comes a candle to light you to bed...". Just a coincidence, or another clue that she could be a spy?
Julia’s casual reference to bugs behind the picture frame bet has always struck my as I dial and telling. You have a picture frame tightly secured to the wall which in itself is unusual. Then Julia remarks I bet it has bugs behind it and it turns out it indeed did
@@sionbarzad5371 That's the plausible deniability they give you, that's the main point of the book not confirming if she's really a spy. The question you have to ask is why was she is suddenly so carefree about getting caught? I could see why Winston was, he was in love. But she was someone that has slept with so many men that it's hard to believe she's suddenly in love with someone. Add this to the fact she calls the shots all book, even bringing Winston to a remote cave that just so happened to be bugged beyond belief. Finally she brings him right in front of bugged picture frame, says it to his face that's what it is, and he's still so foolish to ignore it. That peak would make sense. Then we don't see her after Winston is arrested.
People like Julia in totalitarian societies develop coping strategies and chameleon personalities. Although she's a nihlistic malcontent, she's no genuine opponent of INGSOC in a principled, ideological sense. She's a slacker, rather than a true refusenik. I think she would do whatever she has to and would betray anyone without thinking too deeply about it. Julia as an individual is a vapid character. But countless other Julias floating in the Outer Party suggest long-term trouble. Yet Julia is the type who could easily turn informer for extra rations, out of petty jealousy, or because the Thought Police have so much kompromat on her they recruit her as a low level tout. Not being especially smart, she may have been under surveillance for years as she unknowingly lures one victim after another. The TP don't act immediately; Julia is useful to organically unmask Inner Party subversives especially, or even whole networks of them. It was Winston pulling her into Goldstein's heresy that tipped things against her whereas if left to her own devices, the Thought Police may have allowed her to continue for years more.
I think there's a good fork in the road here. Where this could be her first time actually being confronted by the party, or she is aware that it's a sting operation. What would support the latter point? They use the thought of her to further torture Winston, meanwhile we have no proof of where she is. If she wasn't a spy before, she could have become one after. I just don't see why they would suddenly let it be known they've been using her as bait in this one instance if they have been doing that all along. She seems more malicious. No where she took him wasn't bugged.
I agree. This also tracks with her comment when they first met up in the fields. She said she had "done it" hundreds of times before. If we take that at face value, then it would seem the TP have been using her to easily convict SEXCRIME. But as you said, she and Winston began moving into deep heresies which meant the ruse was up and she had to be picked up too. The TP already knew about Winston for years... I doubt they missed Julia. Whether intentionally or not, she was helping them.
I think Julia may have been ratted out by a previous lover, or could have been discovered before dating Winston. The TP could have thus kept an eye on her and used her unknowingly as bait to discover more revolutionary thought criminals than just run-of-mill sec criminals.
TheThought Police already knew Winson was a "Thought Criminal". His visits to the curiosity shop were all the evidence that they needed, but it was essential to CRUSH Winston's spirit before his execution. Julia acted as their agent in their "Honey Trap". To give Winston something to Hope for and a person to care for before his arrest and "Re-education".
I agree with your final comments. Julia wasn't a spy, she was just someone who was attracted to Winston, and the destruction of their relationship is much more poignant if this is the case. If she had been a spy, then the dramatic import of the book's ending would have been reduced. I also agree that if Julia had been a spy Orwell would have made this clear in the text at some point. On another issue, of the several screen versions of 1984, the Julia played by Yvonne Mitchell in the Peter Cushing version seems the most realistic in terms of her transformation after her internment. When she meets Winston for the last time she looks absolutely broken. She seems to have aged considerably, and looks completely washed out. The transformation is all the more remarkable considering that the production was filmed live, so her transformation had to be done backstage in a matter of minutes
I think Julia and Winston were a believable couple. First, it's pretty common for men to be older than women in relationships. Julia might be attracted to older men because of the way she lost her grandfather. It could also be the source of her unorthodoxy. Second, Winston was likely not as unattractive as he thought. His confidence had been beaten down by his marriage and the society he lived in. Peter Cushing and John Hurt both did a good job of portraying Winston, and both actors could be considered handsome in their own way. Neither of them look terribly out of place with their respective Julia's. Also, in the book it's said that Julia is pretty but not exactly beautiful. Although possible, I think the theory that Julia was an under-the-covers undercover agent is highly unlikely. I do think the Thought Police had been watching her and "using her" in a sense to weed out male thought criminals (one has to wonder what happened to her previous lovers - and for that matter, does SHE know. If she's aware that at least one of them was arrested, she must know she's being watched and that she's putting any future lovers in danger. A Black Widow! Then again, maybe she's in denial about that aspect of her life.) Ultimately, it's one thing to pretend to be an old antique shop owner in order to monitor and entrap thought criminals, it's very much another to seduce a guy and only turn him in months later after you've banged him passionately like a dozen times. To easy to be corrupted yourself in the process. I doubt the Thought Police would use that kind of spy. Also, why would they go to the trouble of faking Julia's transformation at the end of the book. Winston is already broken and no longer cares for Julia, so it serves no purpose. Nah, easiest explanation is that they were a real couple.
I see a lot of people using the term "Honeypot" and that's pretty much what I'm getting at. I'm betting that every time one of her lovers was going to get arrested, she was transferred to another department so she'd be kept in the dark about what happened to them, and feel free to take new lovers. I think the only reasons she was arrested with Winston are 1) they slept in and forced the TP to spring the trap, and 2) the TP were realizing that Julia was in love with Winston and would not be taking new lovers - and therefore would no longer be useful to them. Yes, I'm biased, I want to believe that Julia loved Winston. But I also think the book is more impactful as it's intended to be if it's read like that
@@CaptainUnusual I'm glad you made that argument because that perspective is also very likely. We don't know if them arresting both of them was because this was the final time, or if this is typical of how it goes down after Julia is done her job. I wouldn't bother bringing up movies because even nowadays a director doesn't always grasp or even care what the author is conveying. Also women dating older men is usually only for financial reasons, not romantic reasons. A sex worker actually falling for a man is very unbelievable as well. They become numb to things like that.
I've been rereading the book and this was one of the things I wanted to reevaluate. I really want to believe that their love story was true, but I can't shake the feeling that she was a honeypot put into place by O'Brian.
This is a great video. You bring up many thoughts and questions I had during my first reading of the story. Things that to me seemed like bad writing at first, but then make sense if Julia is actually a spy.
Except in the final scene of the movie she speaks with Winston and appears to have been conditioned exactly as he was. The plot twist of Winston seeing her approaching another person to dupe another into room 101 would have been too delicious to leave out if it was intended.
I doubt she was a spy because of the apathy she had towards the idea of the Resistance. If she were a spy that might be a logical means of entrapment towards Winston but she just wasn't interested in it; considered it foolish.
No, like many people who lived in totalitarian regimes, a rebel-from-waist-down was focused on surviving and enjoying life. She was born into Ingsoc society, and did not have a family, she knew that she could not change her fate, she could not leave Oceania as most people cannot leave the planet Earth. She did not believe anything and did not care about the truth, as she had learned that anything that was written or said was used for manipulation of crowds. In fact, her presence in O'Brien's house was not necessary, yet she went there for an awkward visit as she probably did not want to leave Winston in the situation alone. He was her only true friend in the whole world.
My belief is that Julia was a spy... That went astray while with Winston. That that is why her arrest and interrogation was seemingly more harsh than Winston's.
Honestly, a lot of the mannerisms and actions that Julia takes throughout the book are the same kind of actions that you would expect out of a psychopath. She doesn’t even seem like she truly loves Winston at parts, but rather she enjoys the thrill of loving him
That's a good point. She often seems like she's acting or just in love with the thrill of sleeping with someone like Winston. It's realistic, women love bad boys for a reason.
I think Julia might loyal to the party,but her attraction towards Winston along with her past of sex crimes does complicate things a bit. She probably knew about the bugs etc for many reasons, also there is no mention of her torture etc so we only have O'Briens word to to go by on that and being that the party loves doublespeak makes his words very hard to believe. At end we see Julia in a different state of mind, i think the reaons for that is that the party either had no further use for her or like O'Brien said, they broke her as she was torn between her feelings for Wintson snd Big brother.
I think the posited question is impossible to answer, without knowing the outcome of her previous partners' entanglements? Some comments veered into this thought. Orwell evidently chose to avoid offering this info. I'd guess that if she was brutalized by the TP after any previous sexual liaison, she would have avoided future trysts.
She certainly acts like one early on but it seems to me she is just a young woman who naturally chafes against authority due to her strong sense of self. They always seemed an odd couple to me but then I think it would be hard to find a kindred spirit so maybe that accounts for it. The note may have been written like that to grab his attention and doing it in front of a telescreen in a busy area like the ministry would probably be safer than trying to find a quiet off screen place. I personally think she definitely went through the ministry of love so in this case wether that would be as cover or because she went too far in her role and was cut off by the T.P. I don't know. The most suspicious part to me is that she is the one who sets the terms of his betrayal long before he does. She plays with the concept when they discuss it ultimately claiming he will do it and placing the responsibility on him to resist, setting him up to psychology torture himself making O'Brian's job in room 101 easier.
If she were a spy, Orwell would have had O'Brien use that fact to add a deeper level of despair in breaking Winston; making the state seem that much more infallible. Or, once they were discovered, she could have broken character right there to soften him up for the coming ordeal.
Unless she needs him to still believe she was once on his side to set up their final meeting The bit where he acknowledged he betrayed her... she had to maintain her cover; to complete the final test when they meet again If Winston didn't wholeheartedly believe in Julia he may not have been fully broken... and perhaps this would show when they met again So O'Brien sends Julia in one last time; IF Winston is broken... he will show loathing of her; if he isn't he would naturally give himself away upon seeing someone he loves... Provided he still believed in her as a real experience Just a possibility
Why? The fact Winston believes she's somewhere going through the same thing as him causes him guilt and he feels even more despair that someone he loves is going through the same pain because of him.
@@measlesplease1266 I described a situation where it's revealed to Winston at some point during his torture, that she's not being tortured, that she was an instrument of the state used to ensnare thought criminals. and that Winston was her assignment. Although I didn't explicitly state this, my thinking was that she'd be brought in to confront Winston. She'd be freshly scrubbed, with a cold expression and wearing some kind of crisp, official uniform while he's in a decrepit state. It would have been an amplified echo of the instance where the shop keeper, Mr. Charrington, is revealed to be working for the state. Related: Today, I started reading Julia, a sequel to 1984 by Sandra Newman which, if Wikipedia is to be believed was written at the request of George Orwell's estate.
True enough that 1984 crushes any kind of naive, optimistic hope .... but to think that Julia was really a spy ... horrifying possibility in an already horrifying novel...!
I've to admit I never thought Julia could be a member or a spy of the thoughts police. However, it kind of still could be. Even her transformation in the end could possibly be fake. But another thought: Could she even have been a spy without knowing it herself?
It is possible that Julia was not a spy but that the Thought Police knew about her and were using her without her knowledge. She would be much more effective if she truly thought she was getting away with things. She wasn't caught because they knew the whole time and used her as bait to catch Outer Party members. And then Winston came along, she went too far somehow and they decided to end her along with him.
On a random and completely reaching note: I always saw O'Brien as a descendant of Brian Boru, the Irish High King who won against the Danes in Clontarf.
I think, like a lot of things in the novel, that the ambiguity of Julia's allegiance is the point. She could actually have loved Winston. She could have been a sex spy for the thought police and the party. She could have been both, or signify both. How is Winston supposed to tell the difference in the end?
before even watching the vid, I never ever thought she could be a spy, no matter tha adaptation or number of time I've read it (while her rebellion and O'brian's orthodoxy seemed obvious since the first chapter), it just wouldn't make sense to me as her character is the "secretly unorthodox girl", she'd be and mean nothing if she actually wasn't
Now, we all know you've red "Julia," or it is at least heavily implied that you have. The end of that book WRECKED me, holy crap. Would you consider reviewing it?
Something about writing a re-imagining of such a classic and important story seems very wrong to me. I don't care if it was approved by Orwell's "estate." I personally don't intend to read it.
Unwanted pregnancy is pretty much ignored in the book. I'm not sure what the situation was in the UK, but around 1948 birth control was not commonly brought up in the United States. Some condoms were even labelled with "For the prevention of disease only" to avoid suggesting they were birth control.
Appendix The Principles of Newspeak Section II Morphology of lexical items such as 'denunciation', 'pronunciation' etc shall be replaced by 'denOunciatuon', as this mirrors the godless speech of the Proles, who have long since forgotten phrases like 'the Annunciation' and any hope of salvation...
Although it maybe a irrelevant question, but what is the film you show during this video? (Examples: 1:16, 1:41, 2:27, 4:27, 5:05, 9:23, 9:45, 10:17 .) It seems that this some film-adaption of the novel but which version is it?
Incels are the funniest mfers out there. Sour grapes personified. I adore the fact that you can't even get laid, let alone convince a woman to be in relationship, and that fact dominates your life so much that you build up a whole philosophy around it. LMAO. It's about the most pathetic, whiny shit possible.
Perhaps you are over estimating the abilities of telescreens in terms of resolution and monitoring ability. Is there any evidence of superior technology in Orwell's universe compared to the real world year of either 1984 or 2024 other than an offhand remarks about floating fortresses?
@@MikeHunt-zy3cn Does every screen have a human minder? The logic of such a system makes no sense. I see no evidence of advanced electronics or microcomputers. Even now in our world that is not Orwell's we are only just scratching what possible with A.I. The decaying and ruined U.K. has the year 3,000 A.D. tech? If they do they hide it well there universal use of dead tree products.
2024 has much better tech than 1984. Broadband, 5G, or Starlink has more than enough bandwidth to monitor everyone if it takes shortcuts on analysis that an autocratic organization wouldn't care about. If innocent people were unpersoned, the Party wouldn't care and forget the loss.
I don’t think so. She was raised a puritan so as a rebellion became promiscuous. It’s the same expression when describing a hapless Romeo as “failing to pull even in a convent”. If Julia was in A Brave New World she’d have championed monogamy. That’s why Winston loved her - she went against the system..
Nah, she wasn't a spy. For one thing I don't think the Thought Police is as competent as all that: there are just a lot of them, and they seem to pick up on a lot of infractions simply by the law of averages, since there are so many - an indication that the society might actually be a good deal more fragile than things appear. But most of all, if she had been a spy, why didn't she just say so at the end? The entire point of the ending was that they were both so broken that it didn't really matter to the party what they did or said. But what she did tell Winston was that she betrayed him, which, had she been working for the Thought Police all along, would not have been true, since you can't betray someone you were never truly aligned to in the first place. Of course she could have been lying, but again, what would have been the point?
This is an interesting play on the paranoia of the story, but I think it is the whole point of the story that the platonic love story is a chance/gamble from both sides.
I think Julia in all likelihood just had a classic case of Daddy issues and so likely almost always went for older men like Winston This could also explain how she could've had a large number of lovers, they could've mostly just died of old age
She is obviously a spy. What possible advantage is there for her to engage with Winston? Women only act to their own benefit and, given the efficiency of the thought police there's no point to her pursuit. The business at the end, was just the fact she was no longer useful to the Party and rather than expose themselves to risk, she was "treated". It also served to reinforce Winstons' rehabilitation too.
That is a interesting idea. She seemed to have a weird mixture of knowledge and ignorance. But how would a spy work within Oceania without being killed themselves after dealing with so many enemies of the state and being exposed to thoughcrime?
In the real world governments and government officials break the law all the time, and even when caught they will say it was for the greater good and thus not illegal... Even if it is. Plus Julia doesn't seem to care about going against The Party.
Give how adept Julia seemed to be at acting like a good Party member, it would stand to reason that she could have been a spy. It would also explain how she behaved at the end of the book. Winston's conditioning would have been solidified by thinking that Julia was also broken.
I like to think that Julia wasn't a spy. But rather she may have been something akin to a high class escort who serviced members of the inner party, trading sex for high quality goods that she would then share with Winston during their meetups. Perhaps being the mistress of one or more inner party members provided her some level of protection, as she is able to freely sleep around with people and doesn't get caught. I'm sure members of the inner party wouldn't want news of their affairs to get out. So they help protect Julia by getting the thought police off her back.
Very realistic assessment.
I have to aggree, it would also be in theme for their downfall to have been not because of anything they did, but her protectors simply lost a power struggle and the moment they were gone the Thought Police grabbed her. Its also possible that O'brien made her out to be a direct traitor inorder to bring down her protectors, it could be that the Brotherhood is real but O'brien just gave them one of the books so he could manufacture someone elses downfall, it would be very in theme for everything that happens to the characters to be linked to a power struggle far over their heads and out of view.
@barbiquerea But Julia clearly shows her digusting when winston asks her if she slept with any upper party members and even says "there's plenty who would."
I dont think an inner party memenbr could get the thought police off someones back. I think the inner party memebres would be under increased scrutny.
I think that would make sense in a more realistic book, but I believe the intent of 1984 was to show a "perfect" totalitarian state aside from a few thought criminals.
I don't think Julia was a spy, but a main point of the book is *exactly* the fact that you can never know for certain who is and who isn't a spy - one of the many horrors of the party apparatus is that it destroys trust and fosters constant paranoia - so I also think it's entirely intentional that there will always be at least a shred of doubt as to whether she was or wasn't.
That said, Julia was born after the revolution, and has no life of memory before - whereas Winston was a child during the revolution, and has vague memories of life before. So to Julia, casually circumventing the controls of the party comes more naturally to her than it does Winston - but she's also far more jaded and far less disinterested in the "truth" of the Party and the world she lives in than Winston is.
I generally believe that if it weren't for getting caught *with* Winston - i.e. being drawn in to Charrington's trap via Winston - she *might* have escaped notice of the Thought Police once more. But either way, she was playing a dangerous game, and it was really just a matter of time before the Thought Police caught up with her - whether through her own carelessness, or bad luck, or just happening to be "unperson-adjacent" enough to become suspect.
Of course, back to the fundamental horror of the book: Despite all that, it's still entirely possible the Party has known about her all along, and - whether she was in on it or not - was using her as bait to entrap other Party members.
Anyone who can say "She's definitely X" hasn't understood the point of the novel. Orwell wanted you to mistrust everyone, to never be sure who is on whose side, except for Winston.
personally, I think Julia was likely a member of the thought police, but I'm certainly not sure.
She knew how to blend into the crowd, she knew a big chunk of Winston’s thoughts, ideas and life story. In an environment where one has no friend , Winston is suddenly approached by a mysterious woman who writes a note of “I love you”
I've never considered the possibility before but it makes sense. Before meeting Julia, Winston wasn't loyal to anything or even cared very much about anything, so what could the party use to break him in room 101. They needed to give him something to be loyal to in order for him to have something to betray thereby breaking him completely.
I've been reading 1984 for almost half a century, and the idea of Julia being a spy never occurred to me.
I don't think she is a direct spy, more like she is someone the party leaves alone and just watches to find upstart people, she is a perfect honeytrap and normally they leave her alone when the capture the person, but this time they brought her in too just to discipline her as well.
Like I said in the comment of the Julia video:
"I honestly think Julia is at best a useful idiot: a useful tool that is allowed to 'rebel' against the party because she is so useful in drawing possible traitors into the open and she doesn't even know it would explain why she is let off so easily. "
How do you know they brought her in? She isn't seen again after they get found out.
@@measlesplease1266 They likely brought her in for the very least to make the ruse look real.
Another theory for you: why is Winston so afraid of rats? Although it's never stated in the book, I think it's implied that Winston saw his little sister get eaten by rats, and the fear of rats is so traumatic because it's mixed with feelings of guilt about starving her to death. He repressed this memory which is why he doesn't mention it to Julia. In the 1954 movie they come out and state it. But I'm wondering if others have this interpretation.
@CaptainUnusual No. It's Because he grew up during the aftermath of the nuclear war. When rats where everywhere, he didn't see his sister get eaten by rats but he does find them when his mother and sister go missing. So he probably assoicates rats with death in his mind. He even says how he knows prole women don't leave babies alone as rats will attack them.
14:55 Just occurred to me that Julia mentions the rhyme for St. Martin's, while the thought police mentioned the rhyme for St. Clement's. When they're exposed, the thought police provide the end of the poem "Here comes a candle to light you to bed...". Just a coincidence, or another clue that she could be a spy?
Julia’s casual reference to bugs behind the picture frame bet has always struck my as I dial and telling. You have a picture frame tightly secured to the wall which in itself is unusual. Then Julia remarks I bet it has bugs behind it and it turns out it indeed did
Everything was bugged so it doesnt take a great seer to say it
@@sionbarzad5371 That's the plausible deniability they give you, that's the main point of the book not confirming if she's really a spy. The question you have to ask is why was she is suddenly so carefree about getting caught? I could see why Winston was, he was in love. But she was someone that has slept with so many men that it's hard to believe she's suddenly in love with someone. Add this to the fact she calls the shots all book, even bringing Winston to a remote cave that just so happened to be bugged beyond belief. Finally she brings him right in front of bugged picture frame, says it to his face that's what it is, and he's still so foolish to ignore it. That peak would make sense. Then we don't see her after Winston is arrested.
I think it's left ambiguous for a reason. In that world you never really know who is or isn't a thought police/party spy..
Yes, it is a world that makes normal human interactions sinister betrayals. They might as well be spies.
People like Julia in totalitarian societies develop coping strategies and chameleon personalities. Although she's a nihlistic malcontent, she's no genuine opponent of INGSOC in a principled, ideological sense. She's a slacker, rather than a true refusenik. I think she would do whatever she has to and would betray anyone without thinking too deeply about it. Julia as an individual is a vapid character. But countless other Julias floating in the Outer Party suggest long-term trouble.
Yet Julia is the type who could easily turn informer for extra rations, out of petty jealousy, or because the Thought Police have so much kompromat on her they recruit her as a low level tout. Not being especially smart, she may have been under surveillance for years as she unknowingly lures one victim after another. The TP don't act immediately; Julia is useful to organically unmask Inner Party subversives especially, or even whole networks of them. It was Winston pulling her into Goldstein's heresy that tipped things against her whereas if left to her own devices, the Thought Police may have allowed her to continue for years more.
Oh look, the autisic Romanian who barely speaks English and uses Chat GPT to write her fake comments is back.
I think there's a good fork in the road here. Where this could be her first time actually being confronted by the party, or she is aware that it's a sting operation. What would support the latter point? They use the thought of her to further torture Winston, meanwhile we have no proof of where she is. If she wasn't a spy before, she could have become one after. I just don't see why they would suddenly let it be known they've been using her as bait in this one instance if they have been doing that all along. She seems more malicious. No where she took him wasn't bugged.
I agree. This also tracks with her comment when they first met up in the fields. She said she had "done it" hundreds of times before. If we take that at face value, then it would seem the TP have been using her to easily convict SEXCRIME. But as you said, she and Winston began moving into deep heresies which meant the ruse was up and she had to be picked up too. The TP already knew about Winston for years... I doubt they missed Julia. Whether intentionally or not, she was helping them.
I think Julia may have been ratted out by a previous lover, or could have been discovered before dating Winston. The TP could have thus kept an eye on her and used her unknowingly as bait to discover more revolutionary thought criminals than just run-of-mill sec criminals.
TheThought Police already knew Winson was a "Thought Criminal". His visits to the curiosity shop were all the evidence that they needed, but it was essential to CRUSH Winston's spirit before his execution.
Julia acted as their agent in their "Honey Trap". To give Winston something to Hope for and a person to care for before his arrest and "Re-education".
I agree with your final comments. Julia wasn't a spy, she was just someone who was attracted to Winston, and the destruction of their relationship is much more poignant if this is the case. If she had been a spy, then the dramatic import of the book's ending would have been reduced. I also agree that if Julia had been a spy Orwell would have made this clear in the text at some point. On another issue, of the several screen versions of 1984, the Julia played by Yvonne Mitchell in the Peter Cushing version seems the most realistic in terms of her transformation after her internment. When she meets Winston for the last time she looks absolutely broken. She seems to have aged considerably, and looks completely washed out. The transformation is all the more remarkable considering that the production was filmed live, so her transformation had to be done backstage in a matter of minutes
Big brother is always watching
More like big busher
I think Julia and Winston were a believable couple. First, it's pretty common for men to be older than women in relationships. Julia might be attracted to older men because of the way she lost her grandfather. It could also be the source of her unorthodoxy. Second, Winston was likely not as unattractive as he thought. His confidence had been beaten down by his marriage and the society he lived in. Peter Cushing and John Hurt both did a good job of portraying Winston, and both actors could be considered handsome in their own way. Neither of them look terribly out of place with their respective Julia's. Also, in the book it's said that Julia is pretty but not exactly beautiful.
Although possible, I think the theory that Julia was an under-the-covers undercover agent is highly unlikely. I do think the Thought Police had been watching her and "using her" in a sense to weed out male thought criminals (one has to wonder what happened to her previous lovers - and for that matter, does SHE know. If she's aware that at least one of them was arrested, she must know she's being watched and that she's putting any future lovers in danger. A Black Widow! Then again, maybe she's in denial about that aspect of her life.)
Ultimately, it's one thing to pretend to be an old antique shop owner in order to monitor and entrap thought criminals, it's very much another to seduce a guy and only turn him in months later after you've banged him passionately like a dozen times. To easy to be corrupted yourself in the process. I doubt the Thought Police would use that kind of spy. Also, why would they go to the trouble of faking Julia's transformation at the end of the book. Winston is already broken and no longer cares for Julia, so it serves no purpose. Nah, easiest explanation is that they were a real couple.
I see a lot of people using the term "Honeypot" and that's pretty much what I'm getting at. I'm betting that every time one of her lovers was going to get arrested, she was transferred to another department so she'd be kept in the dark about what happened to them, and feel free to take new lovers. I think the only reasons she was arrested with Winston are 1) they slept in and forced the TP to spring the trap, and 2) the TP were realizing that Julia was in love with Winston and would not be taking new lovers - and therefore would no longer be useful to them. Yes, I'm biased, I want to believe that Julia loved Winston. But I also think the book is more impactful as it's intended to be if it's read like that
@@CaptainUnusual I'm glad you made that argument because that perspective is also very likely. We don't know if them arresting both of them was because this was the final time, or if this is typical of how it goes down after Julia is done her job. I wouldn't bother bringing up movies because even nowadays a director doesn't always grasp or even care what the author is conveying.
Also women dating older men is usually only for financial reasons, not romantic reasons. A sex worker actually falling for a man is very unbelievable as well. They become numb to things like that.
She seems like a classic honeypot to me.
I've been rereading the book and this was one of the things I wanted to reevaluate. I really want to believe that their love story was true, but I can't shake the feeling that she was a honeypot put into place by O'Brian.
This is a great video. You bring up many thoughts and questions I had during my first reading of the story. Things that to me seemed like bad writing at first, but then make sense if Julia is actually a spy.
Long live big brother
Except in the final scene of the movie she speaks with Winston and appears to have been conditioned exactly as he was. The plot twist of Winston seeing her approaching another person to dupe another into room 101 would have been too delicious to leave out if it was intended.
This is entirely besides the point, but that thumbnail makes her look like Anakin Skywalker.
😆 Really? I can't see it myself. Pre-suit I hope. Then I suppose that's only Vader. 😆
I doubt she was a spy because of the apathy she had towards the idea of the Resistance. If she were a spy that might be a logical means of entrapment towards Winston but she just wasn't interested in it; considered it foolish.
That's hardly evidence. Could be that she's acting, or she actually does see it as foolish because she is with The Party.
No, like many people who lived in totalitarian regimes, a rebel-from-waist-down was focused on surviving and enjoying life. She was born into Ingsoc society, and did not have a family, she knew that she could not change her fate, she could not leave Oceania as most people cannot leave the planet Earth. She did not believe anything and did not care about the truth, as she had learned that anything that was written or said was used for manipulation of crowds. In fact, her presence in O'Brien's house was not necessary, yet she went there for an awkward visit as she probably did not want to leave Winston in the situation alone. He was her only true friend in the whole world.
My belief is that Julia was a spy... That went astray while with Winston. That that is why her arrest and interrogation was seemingly more harsh than Winston's.
Yes, if they are able to mind read they'll know she's actually starting to agree with him
I don't recall Julia ever showing up at the end of the book. I may have to reread it, but it was hallucinations at best I'm pretty sure.
Honestly, a lot of the mannerisms and actions that Julia takes throughout the book are the same kind of actions that you would expect out of a psychopath. She doesn’t even seem like she truly loves Winston at parts, but rather she enjoys the thrill of loving him
That's a good point. She often seems like she's acting or just in love with the thrill of sleeping with someone like Winston. It's realistic, women love bad boys for a reason.
*Insert TF2 reference*
I think Julia might loyal to the party,but her attraction towards Winston along with her past of sex crimes does complicate things a bit.
She probably knew about the bugs etc for many reasons, also there is no mention of her torture etc so we only have O'Briens word to to go by on that and being that the party loves doublespeak makes his words very hard to believe.
At end we see Julia in a different state of mind, i think the reaons for that is that the party either had no further use for her or like O'Brien said, they broke her as she was torn between her feelings for Wintson snd Big brother.
Just a tec. note -the background track is too high or your vocals are too low in the mix.
I think the posited question is impossible to answer, without knowing the outcome of her previous partners' entanglements?
Some comments veered into this thought. Orwell evidently chose to avoid offering this info.
I'd guess that if she was brutalized by the TP after any previous sexual liaison, she would have avoided future trysts.
She certainly acts like one early on but it seems to me she is just a young woman who naturally chafes against authority due to her strong sense of self. They always seemed an odd couple to me but then I think it would be hard to find a kindred spirit so maybe that accounts for it. The note may have been written like that to grab his attention and doing it in front of a telescreen in a busy area like the ministry would probably be safer than trying to find a quiet off screen place. I personally think she definitely went through the ministry of love so in this case wether that would be as cover or because she went too far in her role and was cut off by the T.P. I don't know. The most suspicious part to me is that she is the one who sets the terms of his betrayal long before he does. She plays with the concept when they discuss it ultimately claiming he will do it and placing the responsibility on him to resist, setting him up to psychology torture himself making O'Brian's job in room 101 easier.
If she were a spy, Orwell would have had O'Brien use that fact to add a deeper level of despair in breaking Winston; making the state seem that much more infallible. Or, once they were discovered, she could have broken character right there to soften him up for the coming ordeal.
Unless she needs him to still believe she was once on his side to set up their final meeting
The bit where he acknowledged he betrayed her... she had to maintain her cover; to complete the final test when they meet again
If Winston didn't wholeheartedly believe in Julia he may not have been fully broken... and perhaps this would show when they met again
So O'Brien sends Julia in one last time; IF Winston is broken... he will show loathing of her; if he isn't he would naturally give himself away upon seeing someone he loves... Provided he still believed in her as a real experience
Just a possibility
Why? The fact Winston believes she's somewhere going through the same thing as him causes him guilt and he feels even more despair that someone he loves is going through the same pain because of him.
@@measlesplease1266 I described a situation where it's revealed to Winston at some point during his torture, that she's not being tortured, that she was an instrument of the state used to ensnare thought criminals. and that Winston was her assignment.
Although I didn't explicitly state this, my thinking was that she'd be brought in to confront Winston. She'd be freshly scrubbed, with a cold expression and wearing some kind of crisp, official uniform while he's in a decrepit state. It would have been an amplified echo of the instance where the shop keeper, Mr. Charrington, is revealed to be working for the state.
Related: Today, I started reading Julia, a sequel to 1984 by Sandra Newman which, if Wikipedia is to be believed was written at the request of George Orwell's estate.
@@Orlando_from_The_Bronx if Julia is a spy and this is told explicitly to Winston, there is no one for Winston to betray
True enough that 1984 crushes any kind of naive, optimistic hope .... but to think that Julia was really a spy ... horrifying possibility in an already horrifying novel...!
Big brother is watching you
Hell, Winston was probably a spy.
I've to admit I never thought Julia could be a member or a spy of the thoughts police.
However, it kind of still could be. Even her transformation in the end could possibly be fake.
But another thought: Could she even have been a spy without knowing it herself?
It is possible that Julia was not a spy but that the Thought Police knew about her and were using her without her knowledge. She would be much more effective if she truly thought she was getting away with things. She wasn't caught because they knew the whole time and used her as bait to catch Outer Party members. And then Winston came along, she went too far somehow and they decided to end her along with him.
I never thought she was a spy. I always diod think it interesting that at first, winston had his relationships with O'brian and Julia backward.
On a random and completely reaching note: I always saw O'Brien as a descendant of Brian Boru, the Irish High King who won against the Danes in Clontarf.
Interesting Thought
next Question: is O Brian jealous
I think, like a lot of things in the novel, that the ambiguity of Julia's allegiance is the point. She could actually have loved Winston. She could have been a sex spy for the thought police and the party. She could have been both, or signify both. How is Winston supposed to tell the difference in the end?
before even watching the vid, I never ever thought she could be a spy, no matter tha adaptation or number of time I've read it (while her rebellion and O'brian's orthodoxy seemed obvious since the first chapter), it just wouldn't make sense to me as her character is the "secretly unorthodox girl", she'd be and mean nothing if she actually wasn't
I think they would have told him.... With great pleasure. Unless she WAS and went rogue
Now, we all know you've red "Julia," or it is at least heavily implied that you have. The end of that book WRECKED me, holy crap. Would you consider reviewing it?
@@ArmyJames , oh, it definitely isn't canon, but more like 1984 fan-fiction. Just a really well-written one.
Something about writing a re-imagining of such a classic and important story seems very wrong to me. I don't care if it was approved by Orwell's "estate." I personally don't intend to read it.
2- points - She is not afraid of getting pregnant?
She doesn't have to be a thought police agent - rather just a girl they manipulated
Unwanted pregnancy is pretty much ignored in the book. I'm not sure what the situation was in the UK, but around 1948 birth control was not commonly brought up in the United States. Some condoms were even labelled with "For the prevention of disease only" to avoid suggesting they were birth control.
Big brother loves you
Appendix
The Principles of Newspeak
Section II
Morphology of lexical items such as 'denunciation', 'pronunciation' etc shall be replaced by 'denOunciatuon', as this mirrors the godless speech of the Proles, who have long since forgotten phrases like 'the Annunciation' and any hope of salvation...
Although it maybe a irrelevant question, but what is the film you show during this video? (Examples: 1:16, 1:41, 2:27, 4:27, 5:05, 9:23, 9:45, 10:17 .) It seems that this some film-adaption of the novel but which version is it?
It is the 1953 CBS's Studio One TV version, starring Eddie Albert (Winston), Norma Crane (Julia) and Lorne Greene (O'Brien).
@@nineteen-eighty-four-lore Thank you!
2:45 the black pill follows me everywhere
Incels are the funniest mfers out there. Sour grapes personified. I adore the fact that you can't even get laid, let alone convince a woman to be in relationship, and that fact dominates your life so much that you build up a whole philosophy around it. LMAO. It's about the most pathetic, whiny shit possible.
Perhaps you are over estimating the abilities of telescreens in terms of resolution and monitoring ability. Is there any evidence of superior technology in Orwell's universe compared to the real world year of either 1984 or 2024 other than an offhand remarks about floating fortresses?
The floating fortresses might not even exist. If they do, they might just be repurposed oil rigs.
@@MikeHunt-zy3cn Does every screen have a human minder? The logic of such a system makes no sense. I see no evidence of advanced electronics or microcomputers. Even now in our world that is not Orwell's we are only just scratching what possible with A.I. The decaying and ruined U.K. has the year 3,000 A.D. tech? If they do they hide it well there universal use of dead tree products.
2024 has much better tech than 1984. Broadband, 5G, or Starlink has more than enough bandwidth to monitor everyone if it takes shortcuts on analysis that an autocratic organization wouldn't care about. If innocent people were unpersoned, the Party wouldn't care and forget the loss.
I bet you don't know that the military had cellphones long before we had public access to them.
I don’t think so. She was raised a puritan so as a rebellion became promiscuous. It’s the same expression when describing a hapless Romeo as “failing to pull even in a convent”. If Julia was in A Brave New World she’d have championed monogamy. That’s why Winston loved her - she went against the system..
Nah, she wasn't a spy. For one thing I don't think the Thought Police is as competent as all that: there are just a lot of them, and they seem to pick up on a lot of infractions simply by the law of averages, since there are so many - an indication that the society might actually be a good deal more fragile than things appear. But most of all, if she had been a spy, why didn't she just say so at the end? The entire point of the ending was that they were both so broken that it didn't really matter to the party what they did or said. But what she did tell Winston was that she betrayed him, which, had she been working for the Thought Police all along, would not have been true, since you can't betray someone you were never truly aligned to in the first place. Of course she could have been lying, but again, what would have been the point?
I don't believe Julia is a spy. If it's not in the book then it's not in the srory. But it is fun to speculate
She is in Julia😁
If julia was a Spy why would her handalers alowe her to go neer Winston again (at the end of the book in the park).
A lot of simps in the comments would fall for Julia and get caught being against Big Brother.
A lotta incels pretending they wouldn't cuz Julia wouldn't look at them twice. Nor any other woman.
@anthonymaslow798 the men that use incel as an insult are worse looking than any incel.
This is an interesting play on the paranoia of the story, but I think it is the whole point of the story that the platonic love story is a chance/gamble from both sides.
Lol you think this is a romance novel?
No
I think Julia in all likelihood just had a classic case of Daddy issues and so likely almost always went for older men like Winston
This could also explain how she could've had a large number of lovers, they could've mostly just died of old age
She is obviously a spy. What possible advantage is there for her to engage with Winston? Women only act to their own benefit and, given the efficiency of the thought police there's no point to her pursuit. The business at the end, was just the fact she was no longer useful to the Party and rather than expose themselves to risk, she was "treated". It also served to reinforce Winstons' rehabilitation too.
That is a interesting idea. She seemed to have a weird mixture of knowledge and ignorance. But how would a spy work within Oceania without being killed themselves after dealing with so many enemies of the state and being exposed to thoughcrime?
Well, she wasn't a deep thinker, so maybe she didn't absorb the dangerous ideas she was exposed to.
In the real world governments and government officials break the law all the time, and even when caught they will say it was for the greater good and thus not illegal... Even if it is. Plus Julia doesn't seem to care about going against The Party.