Pamela.Grace answers “I did not like Julia’s personality at all....”

Taylor Sobzack asked this question about 1984:

I did not like Julia’s personality at all. She was very dull, childish, and clueless. What did you think of her personality? How do you feel about how she acted when Winston would start talking more in depth about Big Brother? If there was a telescreen in the room where Julia and Winston had their affair all along, why did the affair go as long as it did?

Pamela.Grace I have a theory that Julia is sort of a double agent working for the government to lure in men who commit thought crimes against the government. She l…moreI have a theory that Julia is sort of a double agent working for the government to lure in men who commit thought crimes against the government. She lures those men in with her sexuality in order to get inside their head to expose their thought crimes against the government.

Her job description is sort of along those lines: pretend to be super chaste in public, but in doublespeak fashion her official job is to publish "pornsec" aka pornographic material to the masses. So really, would it be that much of a stretch to think that her true profession may be to actually lure in, sleep with, and get inside the heads of the men the government deem guilty of thought crimes?

I think Julia always knew they were being watched and having their conversations listened to. She said she knew where all the cameras/mics were, so it's plausible she was aware that they were never alone. Maybe having the government listen in was all part of her job.

Also, she had access to some forbidden items like chocolate in the antique store scene. How would an average person have access to something like that, unless they were more important to the government than just a writer in the "pornsec" department.

I think that it is possible that she could have rebelled a bit and broke the rules though and perhaps started to have real feelings for Winston. She said she was not a virgin, and that she had relationships with other men before. I don't think we get a lot of information on those relationships though.

Maybe all of these relationships were all fake ones, Winston included, where she was gathering information on men for the government. Regardless, when Julia and Winston meet for the final time at the end of the novel, any feelings they did have for each other no longer seem to exist. They seem like broken people who had those feelings removed through torture and room 101.

Additional evidence for my theory that luring in men is Julia's true profession is that when she is first introduced, she has her arm in a sling. Why? No one really questions this. I think this is because she had been tortured before. Winston was not the first man she had been in relationships with. Maybe he was not the first she was sent to spy on. I think it is possible she may have liked him though, and possibly others as well. And when the government is finished using her to expose thought crimes, they torture any romantic feelings out of her. In this case, maybe they broke her arm in room 101 in order to torture those feelings out of her, leaving her arm in a cast when we are first introduced to her.

At the end of the novel, when Julia and Winston both meet again, any feelings they had for each other do not exist anymore. I believe that Julia had been tortured too in room 101. She has a scar on her forehead, perhaps it is a scar from her torture or from where a lobotomy was performed. Maybe she refused to say she did not love Winston, and so the government performed a lobotomy on her to make her forget. Maybe it's the scar from the Winston's rat fear from 101, performed on her since he said to "do it to her instead". Maybe this was done to her in order to make her hate him.

Maybe Julia's entire dull, childish, clueless persona is just dumb girl cover for her real profession: double agent who lures in men guilty of thought crimes with her sexuality -- but in the end gets herself sent to room 101 too.

I have to re-read the book again as it's been a few years, but I remember close reading a ton of things that made me believe that she was working as a double agent all along. Anyway, with this in mind it really adds another possible layer to Julia's character and makes her more intriguing.

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