Characters

Julia

Julia is a women around 25, and she works in a special department of the Minitrue, producing cheap pornography for the proles. She has already had a couple of illegal love affairs. Unlike Winston, she is basically a simple woman, something of a lightweight who loves her man and uses sex for fun as well as for rebellion. She is perfectly willing to accept the overnight changes in Oceania's history and doesn't trouble her pretty head about it. If Big Brother says black is white, fine. If he says two and two make five, no problem. She may not buy the Party line, but it doesn't trouble her. Orwell draws Winston's love object lovingly. Julia is all woman, as sharp and funny as she is attractive, but she may also be a reflection of the author's somewhat limited view of the opposite sex.    (Information from http://www.k-1.com)

From Julia's unburden her love to Winston we can learn Julia is a bold, experienced girl.

She is good at concealing her true opinions, and her actions make Winston think that she is a member of the Police. She can make it easy to give the slip with the words "I love you" on it to Winston and it can't be discovered by others. These things show that she did it one more time and she became experienced about it.

All the decision about their appointment is made by Julia. She seemsto be good at dealing with the problems, that is when they would meet, where they would go to and how they could have private conversasion, they all show that Julia is a bold,experienced girl.

Julia takes the initiative, She tells the loving things to him that she had a lot of boyfriends before Winston and she dares to tell these things to him. It is uncommon,from these, we can know that Julia is a confessed, rebellious girl.

Winston Smith

Orwell named his hero after Winston Churchill, England's great leader during World War II. He added a common last name: Smith. The action of this novel is built around the main person, Winston Smith, and therefore the understanding of his personality and his character is important for the understanding of the whole book. Winston was born before the Second World War. To my mind Winston is a sort of hero, because he is aware of the danger that he has encountered. So, for example, He knew that his illegal love affair was an act of revolution, would be disclosed by the Thought Police. (Information from http://www.k-1.com)

From Julia and Winston talking we can know it is the first time that he has a lover. He thinks the more lovers Julia has  had, the more he would love her. From Julia Winston knows something new that he didn’t know before. We also can know Winston is a member of the Outer Party. Julia seems to be the Inner Party.

Settings

Winston’s work place’s corridor, Winston’s work place’s cafeteria, Victory Square and a remote hideaway in the countryside of London.

Summary of the chapters

The first and the second chapter of the second part are very poor from the point of view of the characters, the “inhabitants” of these two chapters are only two: Winston Smith and Julia.

Winston is the typical civil servant busy in his job and intimidated by whoever could be a member of the Inner Party or a thought cop. In fact, despite his affiliation to the Party, he doesn't bear the government of the Big Brother at all. Furthemore,  even if he seems a bashful person in the physical relationships either for fear or for uncertainty, in front of a dream landscape and a romantic song of a thrush his sexual desire wakes up and abandons himself to an explosion of passion with Julia.

Initially Julia appears to him as a thought cop that stumbles and falls, but, despite the fear that Winston feels, he helps her to rise giving her an occasion to slip a scrap of paper in his hand with a simple declaration of love – I love you.

Winston understands that obviously Julia cannot be what she seems and he tries, to speak again to her without getting noticed. Winston succeeds in fixing an appointment with Julia: Sunday afternoon in a remote hideaway in the countryside of London. During the appointment Julia appears just as Winston a harsh enemy of the Big Brother, even more than Winston and she considers a compliment she had been mistaken for a thought cop, because that confirms her ability of "disguise". Subsequently she will fully give herself to Winston and she will have her desire satisfied, while previously she had been rejected.

 The place where he works allows Winston to discover that Julia is not what she seems, in fact in the corridor of the accident of Julia Winston receives the news of her love, the cafeteria represents the place in which Winston and Julia succeed in fixing an appointment without getting noticed.

The first appointment is at Victory Square, near the monument where they confuse themselves among the crowd of demonstrators. There they fix a new appointment in the open country to be sure the will be far from the telescreens. In the place of the appointment Winston finds a dense lawn of bluebells that he picks up for Julia that arrive in the meantime and she leads him into a natural clearing. The clearing was sure, there aren't any telescreens and there can't be mikes hidden. Subsequently they enter the little wood and when they reach the limit of it Winston sees a marvellous landscape that he thinks he has already seen, perhaps in dream, and exclaims – The Golden Country - or the heaven, then, moved by the passion, they move again toward the clearing.

Personal comments

In these two chapters a lot of faults of the Big Brother are underlined: the possibility to communicate without being seen, the possibility to go out from the city with a banal excuse, but above all the existence of some places totally free from every control. These two chapters are also the first ones where, unlike the previous ones, an expression of human feelings is present. In fact till now only a place had been located that was safe from the telescreens, but it was not a completely safe place from the mikes. At the end of the second chapter there is an important statement concerning what Winston and Julia are doing:  “It was a blow struck against the Party. It was a political act”.

Love, even a simple physical affair, always also a triumph on the Big Brother, a revolutionary act against tyranny!

I think this is a very wonderful part of the book. It's about the protagonist' love. From here we can find many different things between them and us.

For example when they want to tell "I love you", they can’t tell each other. They only use a paper with "I love you" to express their feelings. And they can’t give the paper to the other immediately, they have to make a chance "trip" to pass it. When the man receives the paper, he thinks "it must have some kind of political meaning". After they confirm their relationship they also can’t meet openly.

The reason isn't they are shy, like the young. It's because in their society anything which is personal isn't allowed. It's a dictatorial society, a society which  has no personal privacy and freedom.

Some relevant quotations

Ø      At the sight of the words I LOVE YOU the desire to stay alive had welled up in him, and the  taking of minor risks suddenly seemed stupid

Ø     He had got together a big bunch and was smelling their faint sickly
scent when a sound at his back froze him, the unmistakable crackle of a
foot on twigs. He went on picking bluebells. It was the best thing to do.

Ø      I'm thirty-nine years old. I've got a wife that I can't get rid of. I've got varicose veins. I've got five false teeth.'

Ø      'What is your name?' said Winston.
'Julia. I know yours. It's Winston--Winston Smith.'
'How did you find that out?'
'I expect I'm better at finding things out than you are, dear. Tell me,
what did you think of me before that day I gave you the note?'

Ø      'It's the Golden Country--almost,' he murmured.
'The Golden Country?'
'It's nothing, really. A landscape I've seen sometimes in a dream.'

Ø      Winston put his lips against her ear. 'NOW,' he whispered.
'Not here,' she whispered back. 'Come back to the hide-out. It's safer.'

Ø      'Have you done this before?'
'Of course. Hundreds of times--well, scores of times, anyway.'
'With Party members?'
'Yes, always with Party members.'
'With members of the Inner Party?'
'Not with those swine, no. But there's plenty that WOULD if they got half
a chance. They're not so holy as they make out.'

Ø     But you could not have pure love or pure lust nowadays. No emotion was pure, because everything was mixed up with fear and hatred. Their embrace had been a battle, the climax a victory. It was a blow struck against the Party. It was a political act.

by Pierpaolo, Yu Lan & Qian Shuo