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Proles is a term used in Orwell's novel Nineteen Eighty-Four to refer to the working class of Oceania (i.e. the proletariat).
According to 1984, the society of Oceania was divided into 3 distinct classes: Inner Party, Outer Party, and proles (upper, middle and lower classes, respectively). In the novel, 85% of the population of Oceania (former Britain, Ireland, Australia, the Americas, New Zealand and a large part of southern Africa) are proles. They were given little education, worked at jobs in which tough physical labor was the norm, lived in poverty (but qualitatively richer than the Outer Party members with regard to certain freedoms inherent to their relative anonymity), had plenty of children, and usually died by the age of sixty. They are represented allegorically in Animal Farm by Boxer, Benjamin and all the working animals.
[edit] Control by The Party
The Party's slogan in regard to proles is "Proles and animals are free." This is a sharp contrast to the control of the members of Inner and Outer Parties. The Party members were constantly monitored by telescreens - a Television that could receive and send information simultaneously. These telescreens were placed everywhere, in both private and public places. However, prole quarters were more or less free of telescreens. That is mostly due to a fact that proles were not considered to be human beings. They did not have the intellectual power to understand that they are exploited by the Party (as a source of cheap labor) and were unable and/or unwilling to organize resistance. Their functions were simple: work and breed. They did not care much about anything else than taking care of home and family, quarreling with neighbors, watching films and football, drinking beer, and buying lottery tickets. They were not required to express their support to the Party. The Party created meaningless songs, novels, even pornography for the proles (all written by machines, except pornography, which was compiled by humans in the Outer Party and only ever readable by party members who worked in Pornosec.) Proles did not have to wear a uniform; they could use cosmetics; they had a free market where Outer Party members could get some deficit product (including shoelaces and razor blades); they were free because they posed no danger to the Party.
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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, without general ideas, they could only focus it on petty specific grievances. The larger evils invariably escaped their notice. Even the civil police interfered with them very little. There was a vast amount of criminality in London, a whole world-within-a-world of thieves, bandits, prostitutes, drug-peddlers and racketeers of every description; but since it all happened among the proles themselves, it was of no importance. In all questions of morals they were allowed to follow their ancestral code. The sexual Puritanism of the Party was not imposed upon them. Promiscuity went unpunished, divorce was permitted. For that matter, even religious worship was permitted (and many of London's historic Churches, which were in Prole areas, were still standing) They were beneath suspicion. |
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[edit] Proles as the only hope
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If there is hope, it lies in the proles. |
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— Winston Smith
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One of the recurring themes in the novel is if proles revolted they could establish a better world. It's a struggle between a wild hope carried by Winston Smith, the main character, and his realization that proles were incapable of such an act. Winston admired proles because as he said, “Proles remained human.” That means that they preserved emotions which Party members had to avoid because they were in constant surveillance of telescreens. Any “non-patriotic” emotion expressed, even involuntarily, by a Party member resulted in “vaporisation” (i.e., total deletion from all the records – such people, for all intents and purposes, never existed). Thus Winston believed that if there were any hope, it lay with proles. Proles preserved the essence of life, human emotions, and even the English language (Oldspeak) and the Party could not control it. However, Winston's hope clashes with O'Brien’s view that the proles would never revolt because they would never have the need to do so. Winston also recognized that proles were not capable and/or willing of organizing a revolution. It is also important to note, that nobody (even Winston) had any thoughts that Party could collapse by itself. It had too tight control over the Party members who had already lost their human feelings (Winston himself recognized that he no longer felt compassion; children reported their parents to the Thoughtpolice on a daily basis; sex became a “duty to the Party” with the only purpose to produce children). The younger generation (represented by Winston’s love of Julia) showed a rapid degradation of humanity.
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Until they become conscious they will never rebel, and until after they have rebelled they cannot become conscious. |
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