Normal Life of Oceania August 2, pages 129-154 RR5

The red armed prole woman caught my attention in this section of the novel. While in the room above Mr. Charrington’s shop Winston hears a woman singing outside. She is hanging up clothes on her line and singing a song. Winston pays great attention to this woman and how she seems to be careless doing her motherly tasks. The author uses this red armed woman to show the carefree world that the proles exist in. Winston notes that it would be odd to see a member of the Party behaving in such a manor. The prole woman lives a life that we would find to be ordinary, but to Winston and the majority of Oceania perceive her actions as abnormal. Her natural urge to sing appears to be emblematic of a lack of self control to Winston. At this point in the book I made the connection that the red armed woman is slightly analogous to the imaginary life Winston and Julia are living in the room above Mr. Charrington’s.