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The Plebeians In George Orwell's '1984'

501 Words3 Pages

The Plebeians versus the Patricians In the novel 1984 by George Orwell, he talks about the idea that throughout history there is one thing that remains consistent: the age-old hierarchy of the rich, the middle, and the poor. It talks about how although the number of individuals in each group changes, as well as how they interact with each other, there is always a clear separation between these three classes. More specifically, he shows the flow of governments and rulers, where in each society, there is usually a time period when the middle class convinces the poor class to join them in their revolt against the rich, and when succeeding, push the poor right back to where they were, and themselves taking the place of the rich. (Orwell, 1944) I just struck me in this week’s readings this exact scenario. After driving out the kings, the plebeians (poor) were granted some additional liberties like voting in the comitia centuriata, but couldn’t hold office. The patricians (middle class) were now the rich class. (Morey, 1901) Tensions …show more content…

They came home to nothing, and lived in extreme poverty. To survive, they were forced to borrow from the patricians in the city, and thus most began to accumulate a terrible debt. Today, a debt unpaid will result in fees and higher interest rates. Poor farmers in these times became slaves to their Roman overlords, and were treated cruelly and tortured. A terrible situation, and one that benefited the patricians greatly. (Morey, 1901) Another tension was that the land that was won in the war was disproportionately given to the patricians. The plebeians had every right to the land, yet only gained some of it. The patricians were greedily owning the bulk of

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