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The Party ignores any threat of uprising from the Proles.
The ultimate "answer" within the book suggests this to be well-founded.
If we consider the analogous class structure, and who the proles represent,
is Orwell making a statement about the working classes and social mobility?
What are readers' thoughts on this?
Doesn't the party liquidate all prole dissidents?Quote:
Originally Posted by Richier
Thanks for the reply, Gladys. I don't remember a reference to proles being liquidated/vaporised, though?Quote:
Originally Posted by Gladys
O'Brien tells Winston in the ministry of love:
"The proletarians will never revolt, not in a thousand years or a million"
My question is how can the Party be so absolutely sure that they don't even
need to consider the risk? (The key being "absolutely")
I think this is a fundamental message in the book, and I don't quite understand it,
hence my thread.
Early in Chapter 7:Quote:
Originally Posted by Richier
In reality very little was known about the proles. It was not necessary to know much. So long as they continued to work and breed, their other activities were without importance. Left to themselves, like cattle turned loose upon the plains of Argentina, they had reverted to a style of life that appeared to be natural to them, a sort of ancestral pattern. They were born, they grew up in the gutters, they went to work at twelve, they passed through a brief blossoming-period of beauty and sexual desire, they married at twenty, they were middle-aged at thirty, they died, for the most part, at sixty. Heavy physical work, the care of home and children, petty quarrels with neighbours, films, football, beer, and above all, gambling, filled up the horizon of their minds. To keep them in control was not difficult. A few agents of the Thought Police moved always among them, spreading false rumours and marking down and eliminating the few individuals who were judged capable of becoming dangerous; but no attempt was made to indoctrinate them with the ideology of the Party. It was not desirable that the proles should have strong political feelings. All that was required of them was a primitive patriotism which could be appealed to whenever it was necessary to make them accept longer working-hours or shorter rations. And even when they became discontented, as they sometimes did, their discontent led nowhere, because being without general ideas, they could only focus it on petty specific grievances.
Well Spotted!
When O'Brien talks of the proles never revolting, do we think that he is referring to the "secret service" operations of the thought police? And when he tells Winston that he (Winston) already knows they won't revolt what is he referring to?
I think the message is that the proles lack the capacity to revolt, as demonstrated by Winston's visit to the east end pub (and attempt to discuss the old days)
Unlike intensively repressed Outer Party members, the proles have a degree of personal freedom, adequate food through the black market, and entertainment supplied by the Party through pop ditties and pornography. The proles are not unhappy and those among them that might make them so are speedily despatched by the Thought PoliceQuote:
Originally Posted by Richier