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George Orwell's Novel As Ignorance And Powerless People

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The portrait of proles in George Orwell’s 1984 novel as ignorant and powerless people In George Orwell’s novel, 1984, the Proles - 85% of the IngSoc population - are portrayed as powerless and incapable of rebelling against Big Brother due to the manipulation of the Inner Party. This portrait is evident in the dialogues between characters, in Winston’s thoughts and the way The World State society is divided and separated. In essence, the proles provide a background to highlight the author’s critique to citizen's passivity and manipulation. The representation of the proles as ignorant and incapable is evident through Winston’s flawed intention to ask an old prole man how was life before the Inner Party took control of Oceania, in the first act. The inability of the old man to understand a simple question evidences the extreme ignorance of this group. He only says useless informations to Winston and is not capable of recalling how the past was like, not only because the past has been erased by the Ministry of Truth, but due to his lack of education and …show more content…

It is of extreme importance that the theme of ignorance is noticed in the text, as it demonstrates how a society without education can lead to unfair governments such as the World State, where the state denies individuals basic rights, including the freedom of thought and speech. The text leads the reader to personal reflections about politics, freedom and mass media manipulation as it also warns the reader to a future that might be close: totalitarian governments that do not provide what the population needs, leaving them isolated in poverty while only a restrict percent of the population enjoys privileges. 1984 is important not only for English culture, but for world culture as a

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This is another connection to the ideology found in “1984”. It is the concept that Winston happens upon while reading the manifesto of the Brotherhood; “…the key lies in the proles.” This is the response the Winston finds after reading the book, and it is an answer that he believes unequivocally. However, Winston also considers that there is a strong unlikeliness of the proles ever rebelling, (potentially due to the instilling of “doublethink”). The proles are distracted by the everyday struggle to survive; they can never be bothered or take the necessary time to organize.

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He hopes that people will rebel and stop believing and listening to the party's ideas. Winstions thought of rebellion and the party being taken begins with the proles. As Winston thinks that along with his journal and trying to expose the lies of the Ministry of truth that if the proles come together they could maybe overthrow the party. Winston writes “If there was hope, it must lie in the proles, because only there, in those swarming disregarded masses, 85 percent of the population of Oceania, could the force to destroy the Party ever be generated.” (Orwell 72)

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Demonstrating how the party’s ideals have caused Winston to automatically make the assumption that all proles are subhuman. In the text, Winston never actively challenges this presumption; consequently, displaying his unconscious superiority complex caused by the government's orthodoxical ideals. Correspondingly, the use of the third-person in the second quotation serves to distance Winston from the proles; further empathizing the class division between Winston and the proles, which distinguishes the likelihood of insurgency to

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The word humanity refers to the human race as a whole and the qualities that make us human, such as the ability to love and have compassion. In our modern world, we take human nature for granted, but in George Orwell’s 1984, he shows us a society in which there is no humanity, and those that fight for it die trying. The totalitarian government, known as the Party, uses isolation, fear, and lies to destroy the humanity in their citizens and maintain absolute power over Oceania.

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Joseph Goebbels once said,”Propaganda works best when those who are being manipulated are confident they are acting on their freewill”. This statement is proven to be true in 1984. The author, George Orwell, creates a fictional dystopian society in which the population is manipulated into thinking they live in a great world, whereas the government has full control over them. In 1984, George Orwell’s prime message, supported by the article called Liberty in North Korea by Hae Re, was the lack of individualism gives power to the applicable leader, which is conveyed using the characters speech and symbolism. Orwell’s dystopian society showed the author 's message through what a character was saying and symbolism.

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The proles form 85% of the population offering the prospect of resistance but they are caught in the revolutionary paradox, ”Until they become conscious they will never rebel, and until after they have rebelled they cannot become conscious”. Ironically their lack of political consciousness prevents them from mobilising, reflecting Orwell’s concern that the absence of mass education undermines democratic systems in his context. Orwell also laments the demise of human connection through Winston’s relationship with Julia. “The coral” symbolises” Julia’s life and his own”, a moment of intimacy in defiance of state control that is tragically extinguished by O’Brien’s interrogation, “Do it to Julia! Not to me!”

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What is a hero? A hero is someone who has the ability to rise above challenges and is brave enough to sacrifice himself for others. In the novel 1984 by George Orwell, by definition, Winston Smith can be considered the novels hero. This is because of his strength and bravery to go against the party. While reader can admire Winston, they can over exceed his actions.

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Winston reflects back on how the party alters the history of the country: “the lie passed into history and became truth” (Orwell 34). Although Winston knows that Oceania and Eurasia were in alliance before, he also believes that they did not have an actual alliance because of what the Party imposes onto the citizens’ memories of the past. Orwell’s use of the word “passed” possibly shows that the lies they create can easily to history and be masked as the truth. It can be inferred that Winston now knows exactly how the party paralyzes anyone from actual thinking, which is by changing the history.

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In 1984, a dystopian novel written by George Orwell, proles are represented as being generally incompetent in the ability to think and rebel against their stolen rights. However, as the story progresses, Winston comes to a realization that proles are the only ones with the character of human beings and the strength to gain consciousness to overthrow the party. Through this characterization of the proles, Orwell satirizes the detrimental effects of Stalin’s totalitarian government in employing total control and perpetual surveillance of the people in USSR to maintain an established hierarchy. The nature of how the system views the proles is clearly visible through the treatment and description of the proles in the eyes of Winston.

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In 1984, George Orwell depicts a dystopian society pervaded by government control and the obsolescence of human emotion and society. Winston is forced to confront the reality of a totalitarian rule where the residents of Oceania are manipulated to ensure absolute government control and servitude of the people. The theme of totalitarianism and dystopia is employed in 1984 to grant absolute power to the government and ensure the deference of the people through the proliferation of propaganda, the repudiation of privacy and freedom, and the eradication of human thought and values. The repudiation of privacy and independent thought and the ubiquity of government surveillance is employed to secure absolute power to the government over the populace

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