What follows is a THOUGHT-PROVOKING QUESTION about the first part of 1984. Please do your reading first, and then answer the question. This is not a piece of formal writing. This does not have to reference the text, although you can bring in evidence from it if you so desire. This assignment is only designed to get a conversation going.
Here's the prompt: At the beginning of chapter seven of Part One, Orwell describes a moment where Winston wanders into the "prole" quarters of London. There he experiences the following:
He had been walking down a crowded street when a tremendous shout of hundreds of voices--women's voices--had burst from a side street a little way ahead. It was a great formidable cry of anger and despair, a deep loud "Oh-o-o-o-oh!" that went humming on like the reverberation of a bell. His heart had leapt. It's started! he had thought. A riot! The proles are breaking loose at last! When he had reached the spot it was to see a mob of two or three hundred women crowding around the stalls of a street market, with faces as tragic as though they had been the doomed passengers on a sinking ship. But at this moment the general despair broke down into a multitude of individual quarrels. It appeared that one of the stalls had been selling tin saucepans. They were wretched, flimsy things, but cooking pots of any kind were always difficult to get. Now the supply had given out. The successful women, bumped and jostled by the rest, were trying to make off with their saucepans while dozens of others clamored round the stall, accusing the stallkeeper of favoritism and of having more saucepans somewhere in reserve. There was a fresh outburst of yells. Two bloated women, one of them with her hair coming down, had got hold of the same saucepan and were trying to tear it out of one another's hands. For a moment they were both tugging, and then the handle came off.We've been talking this week in class about "methods of control", and even though we haven't yet finished our conversation, this passage seems to stand out. But this quotation seems to say something different about who has power and how the Party keeps people under control from what we've already said in class.
So...what is Orwell saying about how the Party keeps the Proles (and others) under control? And...and this is more important...is Orwell actually talking about us? How do you know?
Who's gonna get it started?
I think that the Party keeps the Proles and others under control by leaving them alone which makes them ignorant since they have no knowledge of whats really going on.The Proles do not revolt because they simply don't know any better. They are kept in continuous shortages with everything so when a small supply of cheap cooking pots becomes available, it becomes a big deal to them. When people struggle sometimes the bigger ideas are not important since they are too busy struggling to survive. Since they are too busy truing to survive they are not thinking about revolting.
ReplyDeleteSam, I think you're onto something when you say "Since they are too busy trying to survive they are not thinking about revolting." Now I'm curious about how you might relate this allegorical image of the proles to the world around us. Do you think that people today are the same way? What might be an allegorical connection to those cooking pots that the proles are fighting over?
ReplyDeleteI agree with Sam. In addition, I believe that the government is keeping the proles weak as a away to limit the power that they have access too. The proles represent the weak and underprivades, of which many exist in todays world. Although their numbers exist in masses, do they really have the power to over throw those who have so many more recourses in todays world? As I said in class, a common saying of todays world is that, "the rich are getting richer, and the poor are getting poorer." Just like that saying, the party is keeping the poor, poor so ultimately they will never achieve enough potential power to over throw the party.
ReplyDeleteI think that the party doesn't have very much direct control over the proles. The only way that the Party is able to govern them is through indirect contact. To keep the proles from rebelling, the Party makes resources scarce and common necessities rare. The reason that the proles don't rebel demanding better treatment is that they don't know that there is a better life to be gained. They've lived their whole lives in the current system, and don't see a reason to rebel. The Party leaves them relatively alone, so the proles see no need to start a rebellion that would end up killing millions of their people. An allegory to our world is that the proles are lower class Americans, the Party is the Government, and the pots are the few jobs that can be found in our current economy.
ReplyDeleteSimilar to the comments above, I think that the Party is able to control the proles because of their ignorance. They are supplied with very little to begin with, so they are unaware of the big things that they don't have, and are excited by little things such as flimsy cooking pots. The Ministry of Truth uses the slogan, "War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength." I think that the last part about ignorance in this quote pertains to the proles because them not questioning the Party gives the Party strength. The proles in this passage are focusing on the little problem of who gets a pan which connects to many of the people in our society today. Most people just think of themselves and focus on self-preservation. This leads them to be blind of the bigger picture and how the government maybe influencing/controlling them.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Sam that the proles are to busy trying to stay alive to pay attention to whats going on. Unless the essentials in life are met, everything else goes to the back of the mind. The pots are merely a distraction to keep the proles ignorant and powerless. I also add that today in America things are different and people are preoccupied with unessential things like entertainment and fashion. I think that the pots could possibly be a symbol for our obsession with artificial things and it distracts us from whats going on in the world.
ReplyDeleteI think that the Party controls the Proles because they're the ones who stepped up to take power, while the Proles are so concerned with themselves that they couldn't care less about who controls them. In the society they're living in, it's the Party, and everyones else is simply on their own. They don't know any better than to care for the little things they can get like cooking pots. The Proles are so concerned with these little things, that they don't even notice the corruption around them, and don't realize they can rebel. The Party has the Proles wrapped around their finger in a sense because the Proles are so occupied with the scarce amounts they can receive, that they don't even noticed they're being tricked, and controlled. If they actually stopped to think for a minute, they might realize how irrationally they're living and rebel.
ReplyDeleteThe proles are looked upon as weak and powerless. The government controls them by their ignorance. The proles, being ignorant, don't see the potential, better life they could live. And they in a way "praise" the government as they sort of own their happiness. They are completely obessesed with these pans and they don't realize how ridiculous this is. It's a parallel world to our worldly world that we live in. The 21st century and the future will most likely never grow up knowing what it's like not to live mateialistic lives. Although some people are more materialistic then others, everyone is slightly obessessed with getting 'new' stuff and finding happiness through these things. A constant supply of meaningless entertainment keeps our minds occupied, and this prevents us from trying to see if there is another way of life.
ReplyDeleteI agree with what is said above. The proles are unaware of a better life because the government makes sure to keep them ignorant. They don't know of another life that can be better because the government makes sure to edit the past to make the world and lives before them sound worse than what they have now. Why would a prole want to revolt when the Party actually helped the poor people like them lives? Winston realizes "Until they become conscious they will never rebel, and until after they have rebelled they cannot become conscious" (70). I think this is saying proving that the proles are used to the life they live and do not know of better, and therefore do not wish to rebel. This is an indirect way of keeping the proles in control. In addition, the government keeps basic materials that people need for survival (such as these pans for cooking) to a minimum. According to Maslow's hierarchy of needs, a person needs to meet physiological needs (food) and have a sence of security of resources before they can worry about accepting facts. By limiting the resources they have and therefore making food harder to get, the proles can't accept the fact that there is something better out there worth a rebellion. Therefore, Maslow's hierarchy of needs further proves that the Party keeps control over the proles.
ReplyDeleteThis is like us because without some of our needs being met in todays world such as security of jobs, the government has the upper hand on citizens. Just like how the women are fighting amongst themselves for the pans, we as americans fight amongst ourselves and compete for jobs. This preoccupation with the competition between citizens keeps the government in the clear for people being unhappy with them, and therefore keeps the government in control in our society.
The Proles are kept oblivious to whats going on outside of their own society. They aren't watched and worried about, and are considered weak lower class. They are the ones with the potential, as Winston mentions many times, to change Oceania. They have the ability to rebel smartly and secretly, since they aren't being closely watched, if they held deeper knowledge. If they thought outside the box and opened their eyes to acknowledge who they are as individuals and where they stand in this place. This oblivion is success in one of the Party's mission- to prevent rebellion. The Proles live such a dull life that pans being sold was the riot and loudness coming out of them. Rather than causing riots against the government, they find the pans to be the significance in their world. In a bigger image, they focus on the little things rather than seeing the bigger image and therefore allow the Party to keep them under control and the party to stay strong, important, and successful.
ReplyDeleteThis connects to the world today because the small issues are our essential focuses and therefore the bigger problems lose their importance. We lack the ability to notice what is going on around us and make things better because of our time spent on the small things and our acceptance of the way things already are, similar to the Proles.
-Rina Rabinovich D block
In my opinion, the Party does not keep control over the proles at all. There is a lot of crime and terrible things happening in the proles, but the Party does nothing about it because they don't care. They don't care because the proles are not a threat to the Party and their beliefs. The only reason that the Party has any power over the proles is because the proles live in London where the Party is the government. Even though the Party is the government, there are no specific laws that are enforced. Even things that are not considered laws, but are things that people know they cannot do does not apply to the proles. The proles have very few telescreens and the Thought Police does not check on them very often. All of the things that Winston often talks about hiding from the Party is not a concern amongst the proles.
ReplyDeleteThe things that don't concern the proles that Winston has to be careful about are things such as writing in a diary and thinking negatively about the Party. The proles don't seem to really care about the Party and many of them are illiterate so they would not be able to write in diaries anyway.
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