Julia and Lenina

Julia and Lenina, our main female characters of Brave New World and 1984, have many similarities and differences. In terms of personality, Julia and Lenina are similar, but differ in their actions and motives. Julia while attempts to rebel against the Party in little big ways, she is still not entirely confident in actually attempting to go against them. I see her joining the Brotherhood as more of Winston's influence rather than her own volition. Lenina, on the other hand, is also more timid in her actions, but her motives are entirely different - she is a product of the New World in every mannerism and action, and any possible 'misconduct' - even something as small as staying with the same man for a longer period of time - is quickly cut off.

Both Julia and Lenina, despite their differing stances in their respective societies, have one huge thing in common: they are both incredibly well-written characters that display how people in their societies are shaped by their values and teachings. By our standards, we consider Julia a rather complacent 'female protagonist.' She does all the things a role model Party member would do, but only for the sake of doing other things such as sleeping with other Party members and getting Inner Party goods. Furthermore, she displays little interest in the book about the Brotherhood, and always seems so dismissive towards the revelations about their society that Winston thinks of. To us, we feel that her values are only slightly distorted, because her society and the only things that she has learned only differ from our basic education very slightly. As such, I feel that Julia is more of a disturbing character to us rather than Lenina.

Lenina's teaching and values are so incredibly removed from ours, we can probably label their society as alien and them as aliens and not think to much on it. They are so far from us, we simply see their actions and ideas and think, "that's gross and messed up," but it does not disturb us on a base level like Julia's little actions do.

Does this make sense? What do you all think?

Comments

  1. Ahmad BobatApril 15, 2019 at 6:37 PM

    I think Lenina can definately be seen as an "alien." She is brainwahsed beyond belief and is unable to learn and adapt to anything else. Julia on the other hand is very smart and cunning. She finds ways to rebel for fun (and for her own pleasure) without being caught. Aside from their gender, these two charaters are day and night. Julia provides something to the story and gives us a candidate to favor, while Lenina is just blatantly dumb. Her purpose is to reinforce the power of the New State while Julia's purpose is to bring hope. In my opinion, Julia is a far better character.

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    Replies
    1. AnnetteApril 19, 2019 at 8:23 AM

      Lenina is far more sympathetic to me than Julia. I think because the BNW society is a lot further along than 1984's, it's harder to rebel. But (and I didn't hear this discussed much in class) Lenina DOES!!! have rebellious impulses. She cares about John far more than she should--even when other people comment on how strange it is, she persists (even though she's literally fighting against lifelong brainwashing!!!!) Meanwhile, although Julia does rebellious things, it's without much intent. She does it because she can. It's not as painful for her as it is for Lenina.

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    2. RaineApril 20, 2019 at 7:55 AM

      I agree with Annette here: Lenina's actions are more impressive than Julia's. The government in 1984 has surveillance literally everywhere, so they allowed her to continue her activities, most likely so they could find other traitorous party people. She treats her rebellion as a game, whereas Lenina actually sticks by her actions, even though she has been relentlessly conditioned to obey BNW's system.

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  2. BridgetApril 20, 2019 at 11:56 AM

    When we first encountered Julia in 1984, I really hated her as a character because she felt like a "male fantasy" type to me. But as we kept reading, I began to be more interested in her because of how she wasn't really supposed to be sympathetic. The scariest thing about Julia is that she shows us how we can think we're being subversive, being intelligent, and rebelling, when in reality we're not. Like Raine said, the government is using her, so she doesn't have as much power as she thinks she does. Lenina is kind of the opposite, in that she is "rebelling" against the government unknowingly and unintentionally, and isn't super arrogant about it. And like you said, she's so different from us in terms of environment, that we're less likely to see ourselves in her, and thus be less disturbed by her. Great post!

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  3. Krishna SubbiahApril 20, 2019 at 7:12 PM

    In my opinion, Julia is a much more deceptive and intelligent character than Lenina. Lenina is just another pawn of the World State, but Julia was much harder to read. She managed to fool Winston into thinking that there was some form of a rebellion, but she was just toying with his mind. Lenina definitely doesn't have the capacity to do that.

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  4. Ayah JaberMay 3, 2019 at 11:42 AM

    I disagree with the statement that Julia is a well developed character. She doesn't do anything to rebel other than sleep with men. And even that doesn't seem to be to undermine the system as much as satisfy her desires. We as readers don't know much of her thoughts or feelings except from what Winston hears from her. Maybe Im being too harsh, but Julia seemed pretty 2D to me.

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  5. Ayat JaberMay 17, 2019 at 3:09 AM

    I wish the authors had expanded on both Julia and Lenina a lot more. Its sad that they both play similar roles, in that I think they could've had more potential than just be exactly what their society shapes them to be. Also, they're both there because of the men, not because of themselves. That's the character they play, but I think they could've played better characters to be honest, especially Julia. Nice post!

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  6. Samantha ChurovichMay 17, 2019 at 7:02 AM

    I tend to agree with Krishna in that I think that Julia is a much more challenging character than Lenina. And I say that because I think in these dystopian worlds being rebelious in one way or another is the key to achieving movement in the plot. But that being said, I do think that the roles each of them have are intentional and make sense in the context of each novel. Still, as Ayat commented, I really do wish that both Julia and Lenina had more developed roles in each story. I think that 1984 and BNW really missed the mark with not having at least one strong female role. Anyhow, great post!

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