In the book 1984 the author, George Orwell, goes out of his way to describe a woman as a “Jewess”
A quote with more context:
“then you saw a lifeboat full of children with a helicopter hovering over it. there was a middle-aged woman might have been a jewess sitting up in the bow with a little boy about three years old in her arms”
How would you differentiate a jew from a non jew in (presumably) England? Why is it necessary to even mention she’s Jewish?
I’m half way through half of the book and I’m asking the questions because I’ve lived my entire life in Israel so I’ve never encountered antisemitism. Maybe I’m missing something obvious?
by sin314
11 Comments
Because at the time he wrote it, Jews had recently been persecuted and fleeing, so when he is describing a scene of refugees, he was adding information about the envisioned scenario and what it might represent. Also he says “might have been.”
Orwell is trying to give us a “cultural” scene from the England of 1984: a house full of people laughing at a disgustingly violent and xenophobic film.
Winston’s detached tone here (and his casual guess at the Jewishness of one woman) shows that even he, purportedly a free thinker, is not free of the crudity all around him.
The older a book is, the more likely the writer would consider physiognomic differences between ethnic groups to be easily distinguished.
Pro tip: Don’t read The Brothers Karamazov, lots of antisemitism in it. Also, The Picture of Dorian Gray has a little bit.
Edit: Blood Libel scene with Lise, Fyodor and Grushenka being looked down on for doing business with jews and doing usury.
Not sure how you could have lived in Israel and still asked this question. Would you rather Jews be never mentioned at all? Jews are a minority thus their presence is interesting to note.
Hot take for this sub since everyone here worships Orwell for some reason:
Orwell was pretty antisemitic. He regularly reported people to British intelligence, some of which he would do simply because they were Jewish. In his journal he used to report people he wrote things like:
“(Charlie Chaplin)
“Polish Jew, (Tom Driberg)” “English Jew,”
or “Jewess.””
He also reported gay people because he was homophobic and black people because he was racist. For example in his journals he wrote things like:
“Paul Robeson – “ROBESON, Paul (US
Negro) …Very anti-white. [Henry] Wallace
supporter.”
Paul Robeson wasn’t anti-white, just look
at the welsh coal miners for whom
Robeson Campaigned.
The testimony of Paul Robeson (one of
the people Orwell snitched on), to HUAC
(House of Unamerican activities
committee) during the red scare.
Stephen Spender – “Sentimental
sympathiser… Tendency towards
homosexuality””
Also, Orwell specifically stated in some of his writing that he “never really disliked Hitler” in his review of Mein Kampf.
Also an interesting review of 1984 by Asimov: http://www.newworker.org/ncptrory/1984.htm
In short, Orwell is similar to me as Ayn Rand. Really bad fiction that has no attachment to reality yet huge groups of people consider it enlightening for all the wrong reasons. And base their political positions off of bad fiction. And also the authors were both objectively bad people.
Couldn’t you ask that question about any descriptive attribute of a character, and then anybody who shared that attribute and felt part of a minority would ask why is it relevant ? Is this highlighting the bias of the author, or the bias of the reader ?
I have come across mentions of Jewish people casually in older books, it’s a bit of an eye opener as to how Jewish people were viewed in older times. I don’t remember specific examples, just that it has popped up several times and been surprising.
There are also books about Jewish people by mon Jewish authors, which was also surprising to me, although now that I think about it’s not that surprising.
One was Peony by Pearl Buck. She seems to have a somewhat negative view but also a fascination, and I guess thinks there is something ‘special’ about Jewish people.
England today: “… there was a middle-aged woman who might have been south Asian…”
America today: “… there was a middle-aged woman who might have been Mexican…”
Etc.
That’s the cultural context Winston lives in. That’s the kind of person he’s been socialized to be.
In the context of the novel, it’s a cultural cue that readers in 1949 would have understood. Orwell is demonstrating awareness of racism and in the post-War years of the 1940’s it was easily the most obvious example of deadly, rampent racism that existed in the minds of the British public at the time.
In terms of managing to differentiate people as belonging to one cultural group to another, people simply assign elements such as facial features as belonging to group and go from there. So, in the case of Jewish people and highlighting difference, a commonly ascribed facial feature is the large nose which has been in circulation since the 13th Century as a physical trait of Jewish people. Conversely, research has shown the trait is highly prevalent across the Mediterranean and Middle Eastern regions across all local communities. However, the nose has been the focal point of negative depictions of Jewish people since the 1200’s with it culminating Nazi propagandist Julius Streicher writing in a children’s books
>’One can most easily tell a Jew by his nose’
In a kids story.
Had the novel been set now, the description might have fallen inline with that of the refugees who attempt to reach England on a dingy from France or make casual reference to someone looking like a Muslim relying on us to connect the internal dots.
I think Orwell was leaning on stereotypes to describe the character.