The Proles and the Lottery of Hope

Observes Winston's encounters with the working class, from the old man in the pub to the singing woman in the yard, and the Party's methodical neglect of them.

increasingBearing stren­gth in each eventdecreasing

A Walk Among the Slums

A Walk Among the Slums The Ownlife Walk Winston skips an evening at the Community Centre and wanders through the run-down streets of London. He sees swarms of proles, ragged children, and women with brick-red arms, none of them paying him much attention. The Rocket Bomb A 'steamer' falls nearby, and Winston throws himself flat. He sees a severed hand on the pavement and kicks it into the gutter. The proles resume their lives within minutes. The Vision Winston feels a mystical faith: if there is hope, it lies in the proles, who are the only reservoir of human energy left. But he does not know a single prole personally.

The Old Man in the Pub

The Old Man in the Pub The Risk Winston follows an old man into a prole pub and buys him a drink, hoping to learn what life was like before the Revolution. The barman and customers stare at his blue overalls. The Useless Memory The old man remembers top hats, a lost rhyme, and a shove from a gentleman on Shaftesbury Avenue, but he cannot compare eras. He says the beer was better and cheaper, and that is all. The Impossibility Winston realizes that the past has been so thoroughly destroyed that even its survivors cannot testify. The proles live in an eternal present of petty concerns.

The Lottery's False Prizes

The Lottery's False Prizes The Absorbing Game Winston sees three men passionately arguing about the Lottery, and he knows it is the one public event the proles take seriously. They devote extraordinary mental energy to systems and forecasts. The Trick The prizes are largely imaginary; the big winners are non-existent persons. The Ministry of Plenty maintains the fiction with easy manipulation. The Anodyne Winston sees the Lottery as a perfect tool of social control: it gives a vast population something to hope for that will never arrive, and so channels their energies away from revolution.

The Singing Woman

The Singing Woman The Contralto From the yard below, a monstrous woman sings the drivelling songs of the Music Department in a tuneful contralto while pegging out diapers. Winston hears her on nearly every visit to the hidden room. The Unquenchable Voice Her singing is not rebellion but sheer vitality. She has no telescreen, no Party indoctrination, and no fear. She exists simply, like a bird or a tree. The Symbol Winston sees in her the immortality of the proles. They have stayed human because they have not been hollowed out by doublethink.

If There Is Hope

If There Is Hope The Vision of Millions Standing at the window with Julia, Winston gazes at the pale sky and imagines hundreds of millions of people, ignorant of one another but almost exactly the same, storing up in their hearts and bellies and muscles the power to overturn the world. The Final Faith He whispers, 'If there is hope, it lies in the proles.' The woman below is still singing, and her body seems to him as solid and unconquerable as a block of granite. The Interruption At that exact moment, the iron voice speaks and their world ends. Winston's faith in the proles is the last pure thought he will ever have.

late April 1984

the same evening

during the same walk

June and July 1984, at the room above the shop

the moment before the arrest