In chapter 9 and 10 of 1984, the reader, and Winston for that matter, doesn’t learn all that much more about the proles as a category of people. However, these chapters lay out a few of the main points: the proles are not only thought of as too stupid to rebel, they are kept that way by the party’s systematic assassination of proles thought to be too intelligent; the proles are the “Low” class of people and because of their station in life, they have historically only been used as pawns for the “Middle” and will always be thrust back into servitude after any possible shot at rebellion; and, that despite all this, the future must lie in the proles by way of them somehow “realizing” their own oppression and rising up against the party.
My question is this: why have the proles not rebelled yet? Maybe they have tried and the movement was quickly eliminated by the party and erased from the global consciousness. I just find it incredibly unlikely that 85% of the population, that has been so drastically oppressed and forgotten about, has failed to even cause enough of a scene that an observant character such as Winston might be able to clock it. Ultimately, I am positive that were this book shown from the perspective of one of the proles, it would answer a lot of questions that Winston would not be able to.
It is quite a tease that Orwell sets us up to think there is hope in the proles, as Winston says, but so far through Part 2, there hasn't been even a glimmer of a prole revolution. I'm intrigued at the idea of 1984 written from a prole perspective. I'm not aware of any sequels or prequels written by other people taking this premise. Copyright will expire soon on this book. I think someone needs to write this. Hint hint.
ReplyDeleteI think that the perspective of a prole would be quite enlightening. The proles are looked at as animals, essentially, assumed to have little to no mental capacity or awareness of their living situation. Since Party members live in such a drastically different world than proles, basically everything we know about proles is hypothesis.
ReplyDeleteI agree, I think if we were to read the novel from the perspective of a prole we would learn so much more. I also believe a large part of why the proles have not rebel is because of the Party's constant surveillance. The Party deems the proles as stupid and unable to incite a rebellion, but I assume that if there were a spark of rebellion the Party would extinguish it immediately.
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