Dr Jessica Norledge (School of English, UoN)
A rebel from the waist downwards: Re-voicing Orwell’s Julia
Wednesday 26th Nov, 16.00, Trent A46
All welcome.
Abstract
The feminist re-telling has received substantial popular and critical interest in recent years, with re-tellings of myths, legends, and popular fairy tales giving a voice to those who have been customarily silenced (Zipes 1986). Such works, which are often satirical or parodic in nature, characteristically reflect upon and challenge stereotypical representations of gender and gender politics, presenting nuanced forms of social criticism (Haneș 2019), and making new lives from old tales (Heilbrun 1990). Sandra Newman’s (2023) Julia imagines such a life.
In this talk, I explore the relationship between George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four and Sandra Newman’s (2023) feminist dystopian re-telling, Julia. Analytical focus is placed on the re-voicing of Julia, and the ways in which Newman re-imagines Julia's relationship with Winston Smith, the Party, and the infamous Big Brother. In taking a feminist-stylistic perspective, I trace the nuanced linguistic differences between the two narratives, examining the subtle changes in action, agency and perspective Newman makes in order to re-position and re-characterise Julia as more than ‘a rebel from the waist downwards’ (Orwell 1949: 163). I focus in particular on the re-imagining of Julia and Winston’s first illicit meeting, applying Hallidayan transitivity to unpack the specific semantic elements that signal ‘who does what to whom and how’ (see Mills 1995). In so doing, I aim to highlight how the process of feminist re-telling can offer new insights into dystopian storytelling and consider both the challenges and potential rewards of re-imagining classic dystopian works from a contemporary 21st-century perspective.