1984 - Simile

p. 220 "She had had her momentary flowering, a year, perhaps, of wildrose beauty, and then she had suddenly swollen like a fertilized fruit and grown hard and red and coarse, and then her life had been laundering, scrubbing, darning, cooking, sweeping, polishing, mending, scrubbing, laundering, first for children, then for grandchildren, over 30 unbroken years."



Throughout Winston's time in the room above Mr. Charrington's shop, descriptions are given of the woman who sings outside the room's window. Winston describes her as strong and large at some points. He describes her singing voice as beautiful at another. In this case, the use of simile, of relating her to a fruit that has grown ripe, shows a greater respect. In stating that she is like a fruit, he says that she gives birth to many more proles. In this sense, she is spreading her seeds, which in Winston's mind are the people who will end the Party. The simile used here shows that the proles have greater strength, they are not like weak flowers that shrivel and die. Instead, they produce fruit, they would continue on, and carry their spirit with them. I feel that this simile is important to the novel, because it helps describe Winston's final realization of all that the proles might be capable of, in generations to come.