Tuesday, September 28, 2010

Power

"The Party seeks power entirely for its own sake. We are not interested in the good of others; we are interested solely in power. Not wealth or luxury or long life or happiness: only power, pure power.
-George Orwell, 1984

In the novel, there are two different, very definite senses of the word 'power'. There is power in the sense of power within the Party and there is power in the sense of having the capability of conscious thought in this strictly regimented society.

From the perspective of having power within the Party, submissiveness and compliance equal power. If one complies with the principle of doublethink and one accepts the Party and Big Brother as the ultimate ruler while still maintaining a certain mid-level intelligence one may rise in Party ranks.

In the other sense of the word, power is scarce. The Inner Party has the most power, mostly because they have the most knowledge of what is happening and why. Members of the outer Party, I would say actually have less power than the proles. Because the proles have significantly less surveillance than The Outer Party, they have the power to rebel against Big Brother if it occurred to them to do so. It would be extremely difficult for a member of The Inner Party to incite a rebellion without being caught by The Thought Police. From this perspective, knowledge and determination are synonymous with power.

1 comment:

  1. I agreed with most of your post. A description of the classes can easily be misleading and I thought you did very well. However I do disagree with the fact that there are only two types of power. While members of the outer party are constantly monitered they have one advantage to the proles. They are a higher breed of citezen in the eyes of big brother and therefore have more "social" power. While the proles are much more free, they are much less privilaged in many ways. I did love your post though, It was quite informing and I enjoyed it.

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