Proles

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 (Which covers the British Isles, Australasia, the Americas and a large part of southern Africa) are proles. They were given little education, worked at jobs in which tough physical labour 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.

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 labour) 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, quarrelling with neighbours, 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.

Proles as the only hope

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 “vapourisation” (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 incapable of organizing (or unwilling to organize) 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 Thought Police 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.

ee also

*Nineteen Eighty-Four
*Inner Party
*Outer Party

References