What is the juxtaposition at the end of Book 2, Chapter 1 in 1984?
In this section of 1984George Orwell is juxtaposing two relationships: the relationship of Winston and Julia with the relationship of Winston and the prisoner.
In a sense, everyone in Oceania is a prisoner. They are all terrified of the Thought Police and under constant surveillance. One of the goals of the Party and Big Brother is to prevent people from forming meaningful relationships with one another—they want the only relationship people to value is their relationship with the Party.
Winston and Julia are taking a great risk by engaging in their secret (or so they think) affair. They succeed in conducting the clandestine affair for a while, but they have to be so careful that they are really still imprisoned in a way—they must hide and sneak around.
At the point when they see the prisoner they are in the open and afraid to even look each other in...
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the eyes—it might give them away. They can, however, look at the prisoner without fear.
At this point the juxtaposition becomes ironic (irony is something surprising or unexpected). The final lines of the chapter are:
. . . they stared steadily in front of them, and instead of the eyes of the girl, the eyes of the aged prisoner gazed mournfully at Winston out of nests of hair.
Because of Orwell’s juxtaposition, the reader is mentally making a comparison of Winston/Julia with the prisoner/Winston. Here’s the irony involved—Winston and Julia cannot look each other in the eye, but the prisoner is able to look Winston in the eye. The word “mournfully” implies a certain degree of emotional honesty: the prisoner is the only character in this scene who is able to react without fear of detection; he doesn’t have to hide his emotions like Winston and Julia. In a way, the prisoner has more freedom than they do.
There are two juxtapositions I see at the end of this chapter.
- Winston feels that he knows Julia's hand really well -- so well that he could know it if he saw it -- but he doesn't even know what color her eyes are.
- Winston and Julia are holding hands, but instead of looking into Julia's eyes, he is looking into the eyes of the prisoner.
The first of these shows us how much Winston and Julia have to hide what they're doing. The second is symbolic of their status in society. It's saying that even though they are trying to fight back (by holding hands and having their affair) they are really just prisoners like the guy on the truck.
What are some examples of juxtaposition in 1984?
Juxtaposition is something that is used extensively throughout this novel in order to highlight the difference between the Party's version of events and their presentation of life and the reality as experienced by Winston Smith. This is often achieved through the naming of items. For example, in Chapter 1, Winstom Smith is shown to enter "Victory Mansions," although in reality this grand name masks a building that smells of "boiled cabbage and old rag mats." In the same way, note how the experience of swallowing some "VICTORY GIN" is described:
Instantly his face turned scarlet and the water ran out o fhis eyes. The stuff was like nitric acid, and moreover, in swallowing it one had the sensation of being hit on the back of the head with a rubber club.
Again and again in this novel, the way things are named or how they initially appear is radically different from how they actually are. Just as the gin is named in a way that leads the reader to suspect it will be much better than it is, so the naming of other places, like the Ministry of Love, for example, masks the true reality of what happens behind its walls. Juxtaposition therefore is used to identify the two very different versions of reality: the Party's reality, and the reality of Winston Smith. It is the conflict between these two different versions of reality that occupies the entire novel.