Proles
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Proles
This article deals with Proles as appeared in 1984. The term is also used in Tom Wolfe's novel Bonfire of the Vanities, Jack London's novel Iron Heel, Harry Harrison's trilogy To the Stars (1991 novel), and the game Dark Conspiracy by GDW.
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Proles is a term used in George Orwell's novel Nineteen Eighty-Four to refer to the working class of Oceania (i.e. the proletariat).
In the novel, the society of Oceania is divided into 3 distinct classes: Inner Party, Outer Party, and proles (upper, middle, and lower classes, respectively). The proles constitute 85% of the population. They receive little education, work at jobs in which tough physical labour is the norm, live in poverty (but qualitatively richer than the Outer Party members with regard to certain freedoms inherent to their relative anonymity), and usually die 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 are constantly monitored by telescreens in both private and public places. By contrast, prole quarters are more or less free of telescreens, mostly because proles are not expected to understand that they are being exploited by the Party as a source of cheap labour and are unable or unwilling to organize resistance. Their functions are simple: work and breed. They care little about anything but home and family, neighbour quarrels, films and football, beer and lottery tickets. They are not required to express support for the Party, except for a mild form of patriotism. The Party creates meaningless songs, novels, even pornography for the proles (all written by machines, except pornography, which is compiled by members of the Outer Party and accessible only to party members working in Pornosec). Proles do not wear a uniform, can use cosmetics and have a relatively free internal market economy. Proles also have free sex lives, uninterrupted by the Party, and divorce is permitted. Despite the personal freedoms enjoyed by the Proles, the Thought Police moves among them, spreading false rumours and marking down and eliminating any individuals deemed capable of causing trouble. The Prole quarters consist of rundown apartment buildings, shops, and pubs. Though it is nominally illegal for Outer Party members to trade with proles, all do it because they are the only source for certain minor necessities (the novel mentions shoelaces and razor blades as examples).
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 protagonist, and his realization that proles are incapable of such an act. In Winston's words, “proles remained human”, i.e., they preserve the essence of life, human emotions (which Party members must avoid under the constant surveillance of telescreens), and even the English language (Oldspeak). However, the hope of liberation through the proles clashes with O'Brien’s view that the proles can never revolt because they would never have the need to do so. The novel also appears to support the view that proles are incapable of organizing (or unwilling to organize) a revolution. It is noted that any prole who exhibits tendencies towards rabble-rousing or independent thought is simply marked down by the Thought Police to be killed, making revolution from that group even more unlikely. It is not suggested by anyone in the novel that the Party could collapse by itself. It has too tight control over the Party members who have already lost their human feelings.
See also
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