‘We are the dead … you are the dead’. An examination of sexuality as a weapon of revolt in Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four

Abstract

This article examines sexuality as a weapon of revolt in Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four. The sexual relationship between Winston and Julia is scrutinised in terms of its effectiveness as a means of mutiny against, both, the omnipresent Party surveillant mechanisms and the underpinning thought-control and sex-control exercised by the Party. Some discrepancy is noted in Orwell's depiction of women and an attempt made to contextualise this within Orwell's own experiences as described through various biographers.