Female Unpersons

Abstract

Sandra Newman’s Julia (2023) represents a new approach among the rewritings of George Orwell’s 1984 (1949). A retelling of Orwell’s dystopia from the perspective of Winston Smith’s love interest, Newman’s novel interrogates 1984’s representation of women. It is fundamentally feminist in tone, in that it gives voice to an underutilised female character, while also making it clear that the society imagined by Orwell is almost inevitably misogynistic inasmuch as it devalues, degrades, and prohibits personal relationships, erasing the very sphere that is traditionally female. In this respect, a key moment occurs when Newman’s Julia herself acknowledges that, under patriarchy, women are by definition “unpersons”—an Orwellian term referring to the erased identities produced by torture. This paper seeks to explore an inherent contradiction in the rewriting’s relationship to Orwell’s original, focusing on how, through Julia’s character, Newman’s novel navigates the ambiguity surrounding the possibility of a viable “female” world and ethics within Oceania’s patriarchal system which rigidly confines women to specific roles and positions.