These are the questions for pages 69-117:
Winston repeats the phrase "If there is hope, it lies in the proles." What does this statement signify? Consider Winston's theories of the consciousness and rebellion of the proles in your answer.
On page 103 Winston says, "the issues that you fight for are always forgotten." What does this say about Winston, his rebellion, and how he will choose to act?
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Regarding the first question I think Winston is correct in saying, "If there is hope, it lies in the proles." The proles are the lowest class in society, yet they have the most freedom. The government does not watch their every move, control them, or even care about them. They are poor and struggle to survive, but I think freedom is greater than material goods anyway. They are the only ones who could try and rebel and fight against the government because of the fact that the government does not care what they are doing. The proles just have to realize their potential to actually make a difference.
For the second question, I think that Winston says that because he has a great fear of getting vaporized for fighting and rebelling against the government. If he did rebel and get vaporized, history would be erased. So, his fighting would not make much of a difference anyway. This shows that he is having second thoughts, but I think that in the end he will find a way to rebel and change the country for the good, because he knows that is the right thing to do.
I think that the statment "If there is hope, it lies in the proles" signifies that Winston is believe that the proles are most numerous and when they rise up no can stop them because they are the largest percentage of the country. Winston said that the proles make up 85 percent of the entire country. They just don't realize that they have all this power. They also don't understand that the country could be any better because no one remebers a time when it was any better and they are constantly being spoon fed information about how their lives are constantly improving and this is where they lose their consciousness. They don't realize that things can get any better. Someone has to show them that their lives can get better. I think this will become Winston's goal in the remaining part of this book to make the proles see that their is a better life waiting for them in the future if they just rise up against those who will let them have what is rightfully theirs.
I think that Winston relizes that there is a need for the proles to rebel. He belives that the are the only hope of the people that are trapped by the Party. The only hope that their society has is in the proles. In the question, you ask to consider the theorys of consciousness, I think that the proles have no thoughts of consciousness. They are just mindlessly wandering around and living their meger lives carefree. They are of almost no impact to how the rest of society works.
I think that this statement says a lot about what Winston has been thinking about. He has had rebellious thoughts and is trying to come up with a way to rebel. He has found his answers in the proles. They are the only ones in the society that have freedom and consciousness. They are pretty much the only ones who can break free from big brother, because they are not really under his control to begin with.
This statement really says that anyone who tries to revolt against big brother is vaporized and forgotten. So if they are not around to keep telling the stories and ideas to others, then the fight they were fighting will be forgotten. Because of how much power the party has, and the party’s ability to make things never happen is why the fight they are fighting will be forgotten. This also says that however Winston decides to fight must involve lots of people so the party cannot make all of them forget and whatever he does must work and over throw the party.
"If there is hope, it lies in the proles." To me, this excerpt explains how much potential control the proletarians could have if they were to stage a revolt. This conclusion can be drawn from two factors, first, the proletarians are somewhat neglected in the party surveillance and two, because of the large percentage of proles in Ociana’s population, strength in number would be inevitable. Party members are a minority when compared to remaining population of Ociana and they are all heavily monitored, thus rendering revolution conceivable only for proles.
"the issues that you fight for are always forgotten." After seeing that this quotation was on page 103 of the book, I began to skim the page and ultimately came to a conclusion. This quotation in context is basically reiterating the fact that strong emotion obscures the memory of avocation. This quotation has high value in the book. As the reader progresses further into the text, they will discover that Winston is referencing himself; he states that life is a constant struggle. And of course, struggle ends up in forgotten avocations. Essentially, Winston is realizing the fact that he can not initiate any rebellion, for the enduring painful life of the party members will not nurture any attempts for revolution. It will be forgotten; life for a party member means struggle. This is valued higher than a probable fruitless rebellion and will lead to the demise of the mere thought of uprising.
Winston's views about the proles being a lone source of hope show that he believes that only the vast majority can have any hope of overthrowing the Party. Party members, however traitorous, can only realistically meet in very small groups and can't really organize themselves because of the threat of the Thought Police. For the proles to revolt, they must gain a consciousness about their overall situation, instead of focusing on petty injustices and the lottery. Winston may feel that this is hopeless based on his experiences with proles, but it is his only hope nonetheless.
"The issues you fight for are always forgotten." I think this shows that Winston fears the limits of a human body relating to rebellion. When dissent leads to torture or another physical harm, all of the ideals being fought for are forgotten, no matter how important. Winston thinks that "the body swells up until it fills the universe". He relates this to his belly ache, which at the time was making consecutive thought impossible. He thinks life is a struggle against these physical problems. I think to overcome them to Winston would mean a successful revolution, or simply a successful life.
I think this statement signifies how different the proles' lives are to that of the average citizens. There are more people that are proles that remember the events that occured before the Revolution, leaving the proles with more defense. Also, the proles have so much more freedom than the average person, because of their lack of funds for telescreens. I believe this to be a huge advantage, as they still have the ability to think independently and can organize a far more efficient revolt than people like Winston.
This quote says a lot about Winston's character. I think it mostly shows that he is an easily shaken spirit, saying that the issues that revolting citizens fight for and bring to the Party members' attention can always be erased or vaporized. I think in this Winston's rebellion is weakened because in this quote I think that Winston feels that he and his revolting comrads will never really break through the Party. He will probably choose to fight mediocrodly and give up easily.
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