Essay on English: Anthony Burgess and Women

Compare and contrast how women are portrayed in 1984 and A Clockwork Orange

George Orwell’s novel ‘1984’ portrays the ability of a government controlling an entire population by using oratory and language. People are controlled in every imaginable way in the totalitarian society of Oceania. ‘Big Brother.’ The capital figurehead leader constantly manipulates oratory and language. ‘Newspeak’ utilizes incomprehensible terms to avoid the idea of rebellion and freedom distant from peoples’ intellect. The use of ‘doublethink,’ encouraging people to maintain two contrary ideas at once, concluding them both as realistic truths. ‘The Ministry of Truth’ is fond to changing long lost history in order to comply with current government objectives. The author guides us to recognize similar links in his dystopian view and today’s real world controlled by mass media. ‘A Clockwork Orange’ is besides a dystopian novel written by Anthony Burgess and narrated by a fifteen year old Alex, alluring the reader with his history tale of his gang’s rampage. Alex’s controversial style attracts the reader in forcing to contemplate about your own notions of morality on the text. The novel is made up of three parts illustrating Alex’s life growing up and his changing attitudes towards women.

In ‘1984’ gender is one of the capital accomplishments of the party. The relationship between the men and women are tremendously divergent as opposed to what we acknowledge to be. From an early age women are educated that sex is unnecessary, immoral and dirty. ‘Two Minutes Hate’ an element the Party has used to harness the sexual desires of the members so that they dismiss any compulsions. There is no love to express to anyone or anything expects for the love of ‘Big Brother’ in which the Party promotes, loyalty remains intact at all times. Orwell patronises the women, they are portrayed as the weaker sex and very much degraded with susceptibility and mortifying labels. The female characters are stereotyped by Orwell, which mirrors the author’s limited view of females and their vital position in society. The misogynist character Orwell has is portrayed in the novel where the author is the initiative of creating problems in the way that masculinity and femininity lose all worth in the tyrannical state. Julia, the main female character is portrayed as frail from the very beginning when ‘she held out a free hand’ toward Winston expecting him to help her up. Julia is immediately exposed to the critical eye of the reader as in need of a male to perform in society. Julia is exhibited as a sexual object in the novel who works in minitrue and crafts cheap pornography for a living. This echoes her insignificant role in the daily grind of the world, as a toy amongst men. This object that Julia is represented as in the novel has had ‘many affairs’ nevertheless, Winston who seems infatuated by her ‘naked, youthful body’. Orwell used her stereotypical ‘nimble’ figure to make sex at the peak of the agenda. This was undoubtedly deliberate by Orwell as the novel sets the image of a world where sex is banished only for the purpose of procreation. Women are only praised when they stick to their men, in the manhood of Orwell’s work. The women have no identity; we are not informed on the culture of women in this dystopian novel, their worries nor doubts, history or engagements. Orwell lacks this. This is a clear reflection on the author himself, that he captures women for his own desires, which is illustrated in the novel as Julia is exemplified as an easy character who is in love and devoted to her man, a woman who simply uses sex for fun as a rebellion. The traditional women who are expelled from male privileges, Orwell has abandoned. Therefore the novel overall is a male theory in which Orwell simulates that sexually active women are just for amusement and mothers are to be shown admiration.

In a ‘Clockwork Orange’, Burgess similarly presents women as objects. The appearance of

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