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In George Orwell's dystopian 1949 novel Nineteen Eighty-Four , the proles are the working class of Oceania. [1] The word prole is a shortened variant of proletarian , which is a Marxist term for a working-class citizen. In the novel, the proles are generally depicted as being uneducated and living in a state of blissful ignorance. [2]
In 1984, Orwell describes Oceania's society as divided into three distinct classes: the Inner Party, the Outer Party (the lower bureaucracy), [3] and the proles [4] (with their own upper, middle and lower classes). The proles made up almost 85% of the population in Oceania; [5] they receive little education, work at manual labor, live in poverty (although in having privacy and anonymity, qualitatively better off than Outer Party members), and usually die by the age of sixty.
As the Party slogan put it: 'Proles and animals are free.' [6]
— Part 1, Chapter 7
Party members (the Inner Party and Outer Party) [7] are under surveillance via telescreens in both private and public; by contrast, proles' quarters are generally free of telescreens as the Party does not care to observe them, and the proles who do have telescreens do not use them for surveillance purposes as they are not required to do so. Their functions are simple: work and breed. Proles are described as "caring little about anything but home and family, neighbor quarrels, films, football, beer, lottery tickets, and other such bread and circuses."[ citation needed ]
They are not required to express support for the Party beyond occasional, mild patriotic fervor; the Party creates (largely meaningless) entertainment, such as shows, songs, books, and even pornography for the proles—all written by machines. Julia is a mechanic tending the novel-writing machines in Pornosec, the government's pornography department. Proles are not required to wear uniforms, may use cosmetics, have a relatively free internal market economy, and would be even permitted religion for those that had interest in it. Proles also have liberal sex lives, uninterrupted by the Party; with divorce and sexual activity outside reproduction (oral sex, prostitution, and other acts which would be considered sexcrimes under Newspeak and by the Party members) being permitted. Despite these personal freedoms, the Thought Police do plant agents to spread false rumors among the proles and attempt to identify and eliminate any individual showing too much intelligence and the capacity for independent thought. Prole quarters typically consist of rundown Victorian houses, shops, and pubs. Though trade between Outer Party members and proles is supposed to be prohibited, all Party members participate anyway, as proles' shops are often the only reliable source for certain necessities (the novel mentions shoelaces and razor blades as examples).[ citation needed ]
From a certain viewpoint, Proles are regarded as the "truly free" individuals of the State, as they are uninterrupted by the Party's propaganda or surveillance, kept in check by certain pleasures to maintain docile behavior with minimal fear of elimination. They also maintain Oldspeak (standard English) unlike the Party members who use Newspeak; the Party have never bothered to require the proles to speak Newspeak as they have rarely been caught using words prohibited under Newspeak.[ citation needed ]
The protagonist Winston Smith's internal conflicts form a recurring theme in the novel: his hope for an eventual uprising by the proles; and his understanding that they would, or could, not. In Winston's words, "proles remained human", i.e., they preserved the essence of life: human emotions, which Party members must avoid; as well as the English language (Oldspeak). Winston writes in his diary "If there is hope, it lies in the proles." This view is challenged by O'Brien, who claims the proles would never revolt because they have no need to do so, so long as they are kept well-fed and distracted. The novel alludes to the unwillingness or inability of the proles to organize politically, noting that the Thought Police will attempt to mark down any prole suspected of independent thought to be killed, further decreasing the possibility of revolution. None of the characters suggest the Party could collapse internally; the chance of internal collapse is already very small, despite being non-zero, due to the absolute control it exerts over the lives and emotions of its members.[ citation needed ]
Big Brother is a fictional character and symbol in George Orwell's dystopian 1949 novel Nineteen Eighty-Four. He is ostensibly the leader of Oceania, a totalitarian state wherein the ruling party Ingsoc wields total power "for its own sake" over the inhabitants. In the society that Orwell describes, every citizen is under constant surveillance by the authorities, mainly by telescreens. The people are constantly reminded of this by the slogan "Big Brother is watching you": a maxim that is ubiquitously on display.
Thoughtcrime is a word coined by George Orwell in his 1949 dystopian novel Nineteen Eighty-Four. It describes a person's politically unorthodox thoughts, such as unspoken beliefs and doubts that contradict the tenets of Ingsoc, the dominant ideology of Oceania. In the official language of Newspeak, the word crimethink describes the intellectual actions of a person who entertains and holds politically unacceptable thoughts; thus the government of the Party controls the speech, the actions, and the thoughts of the citizens of Oceania. In contemporary English usage, the word thoughtcrime describes beliefs that are contrary to accepted norms of society, and is used to describe theological concepts, such as disbelief and idolatry, and the rejection of an ideology.
Ingsoc is the fictional ruling party of the totalitarian state of Oceania, in the dystopian novel Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell, which was published in 1949.
Telescreens are devices that operate simultaneously as televisions, security cameras, and microphones. They are featured in George Orwell's dystopian 1949 novel Nineteen Eighty-Four as well as all film adaptations of the novel. In the novel and its adaptations, telescreens are used by the ruling Party in the totalitarian fictional State of Oceania to keep its subjects under constant surveillance, thus eliminating the chance of secret conspiracies against Oceania.
The Theory and Practice of Oligarchical Collectivism is a fictional book in George Orwell's dystopian novel Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949). The book was supposedly written by Emmanuel Goldstein, the principal enemy of the state of Oceania's ruling party. The Party portrays Goldstein as a former member of the Inner Party who continually conspired to depose Big Brother and overthrow the government. In the novel, the book is read by the protagonist, Winston Smith who recalls that "There were ... whispered stories of a terrible book, a compendium of all the heresies, of which Goldstein was the author, and which circulated clandestinely here and there. It was a book without a title. People referred to it, if at all, simply as The Book."
In the dystopian world of George Orwell's 1949 novel Nineteen Eighty-Four, Oceania is split into three "classes": the Inner Party; the Outer Party ; and the proles. The Party is the privileged upper ruling class that makes up just 2% of the total population.
The Outer Party is a fictional social stratum from George Orwell's dystopian novel, Nineteen Eighty-Four, published on June 8, 1949.
In the dystopian novel Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949), by George Orwell, the Two Minutes Hate is the daily, public period during which members of the Outer Party of Oceania must watch a film depicting the enemies of the state, specifically Emmanuel Goldstein and his followers, to openly and loudly express hatred for them.
In the dystopian novel Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949), by George Orwell, the Thought Police (Thinkpol) are the secret police of the superstate Oceania, who discover and punish thoughtcrime, personal and political thoughts unapproved by the government. The Thinkpol use criminal psychology and omnipresent surveillance via informers, telescreens, cameras, and microphones, to monitor the citizens of Oceania and arrest all those who have committed thoughtcrime in challenge to the status quo authority of the Party and the regime of Big Brother. Orwell's concept of "policing thought" derived from the intellectual self-honesty shown by a person's "power of facing unpleasant facts"; thus, criticising the dominant ideology of British society often placed Orwell in conflict with ideologues, people advocating "smelly little orthodoxies".
Julia is a fictional character in George Orwell's 1949 dystopian novel Nineteen Eighty-Four. Her last name is not revealed in the novel but she is called Dixon in the 1954 BBC TV production.
1984 is a 1956 British black-and-white science fiction film, based on the 1949 novel Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell, depicting a totalitarian future of a dystopian society.
Winston Smith may refer to:
References to George Orwell's 1949 dystopian political novel Nineteen Eighty-Four themes, concepts and plot elements are also frequent in other works, particularly popular music and video entertainment.
Nineteen Eighty-Four, also known as 1984, is a 1984 British dystopian science fiction film written and directed by Michael Radford, based upon George Orwell's 1949 novel of the same name. Starring John Hurt, Richard Burton, Suzanna Hamilton, and Cyril Cusack, the film follows the life of Winston Smith, a low-ranking civil servant in a war-torn London ruled by Oceania, a totalitarian superstate. Smith (Hurt) struggles to maintain his sanity and his grip on reality as the regime's overwhelming power and influence persecutes individualism and individual thinking on both a political and personal level.
Oceania, Eurasia and Eastasia are the three fictional superstates in George Orwell's 1949 dystopian novel Nineteen Eighty-Four. All that Oceania's citizens know about the world is whatever the Party wants them to know, so how the world evolved into the three states is unknown; and it is also unknown to the reader whether they actually exist in the novel's reality, or whether they are a storyline invented by the Party to advance social control. The nations, so far as can be inferred, appear to have emerged from nuclear warfare and civil dissolution over 20 years between 1945 and 1965.
Emmanuel Goldstein is a fictional character in George Orwell's 1949 dystopian novel Nineteen Eighty-Four. He is the principal enemy of the state according to the Party of the totalitarian Oceania. He is depicted as the head of a mysterious and possibly fictitious dissident organization called "The Brotherhood" and as having written the book The Theory and Practice of Oligarchical Collectivism. He is only seen and heard on telescreen, and may be a fabrication of the Ministry of Truth, the State's propaganda department.
Doublethink is a process of indoctrination whereby the subject is expected to simultaneously accept two mutually contradictory beliefs as correct, often in contravention to one's own memories or sense of reality. Doublethink is related to, but differs from, hypocrisy.
Newspeak is the fictional language of Oceania, a totalitarian superstate that is the setting of dystopian novel Nineteen Eighty-Four, by George Orwell. In the novel, the ruling English Socialist Party (Ingsoc) created Newspeak to meet the ideological requirements of English Socialism in Oceania. Newspeak is a controlled language of simplified grammar and restricted vocabulary designed to limit the individual's ability to think and articulate "subversive" concepts such as personal identity, self-expression and free will. Such concepts are criminalized as thoughtcrime since they contradict the prevailing Ingsoc orthodoxy.
Nineteen Eighty-Four: A Novel, often referred to as 1984, is a dystopian social science fiction novel by the English novelist George Orwell. It was published on 8 June 1949 by Secker & Warburg as Orwell's ninth and final book completed in his lifetime. Thematically, Nineteen Eighty-Four centres on the consequences of totalitarianism, mass surveillance, and repressive regimentation of persons and behaviours within society. Orwell, himself a democratic socialist, modelled the authoritarian government in the novel after Stalinist Russia. More broadly, the novel examines the role of truth and facts within politics and the ways in which they are manipulated.
The Ministry of Truth, the Ministry of Peace, the Ministry of Love, and the Ministry of Plenty are the four ministries of the government of Oceania in the 1949 dystopian novel Nineteen Eighty-Four, by George Orwell.
The Ministry of Peace concerns itself with war, the Ministry of Truth with lies, the Ministry of Love with torture and the Ministry of Plenty with starvation. These contradictions are not accidental, nor do they result from ordinary hypocrisy: they are deliberate exercises in doublethink.
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