1984 - Mindless Obedience

1984 by George Orwell depicts a dystopian future England where Big Brother controls all aspects of life. The people are divided into educated Party members and common Proles. Through a simple literary style and simile that likens the Proles to animals, Orwell illustrates the loss of individuality that occurs in a totalitarian regime, which makes the people easy to control.
In this passage, Orwell talks about the lives of the Proles. His simple style of writing emphasizes the lack of sophistication and individuality in the lives of the Proles. Orwell uses plain, short phrases to tell the story of their lives. “They were born, they grew up in the gutters, they went to work at twelve…they died, for the most part, at sixty.” Orwell sums up Prole lives in their entirety in a single sentence. Each life is the same as every other. When he describes their various activities and pastimes, he uses the format of a simple list, again fitting everything into a single sentence. The Proles’ days are filled with “heavy physical work…petty quarrels with neighbors, films, football, beer, and…gambling.” The repeated short phrases demonstrate the uniformity and simplicity of Prole lives.
Orwell takes his description of the simple Prole lives a step further by using simile to relate the Proles to “cattle, turned loose upon the plains of Argentina, [who] had reverted to a style of life that appeared to be natural to them.” The Proles are portrayed as subhuman cattle, who, without guidance, are unable to enact any agency upon their lives except to fall back into their natural state. Cattle are herd animals, not distinct individuals, who live their lives in unison. This lack of individuality is described in the Proles as well. Even in their free time, the Proles are described as all partaking in the same activities, “heavy physical work…petty quarrels with neighbors, films, football, beer, and…gambling [which] filled up the horizon of their minds.” Orwell describes this group of people where, like cattle, each individual lives the same life, with mundane activities that fill their days and remove all individuality from their lives.
Orwell describes the effect of this lifestyle by saying that “all that was required of [the Proles] was a primitive patriotism.” The Proles are described as, “primitive,” with their simple lives that follow the same pattern every day for every person. The Proles are also primitive in their lack of person agency, like cattle. These primitive people are then trained to follow Big Brother through a sense of patriotism, Big Brother is able to use this blind loyalty to control the Proles, making them, “accept longer working hours or shorter rations,” without question, like a trained pet obeying his master. Though these conditions are undesirable, the Proles accept them unquestioningly because they have been taught to obey, and are too primitive to do anything else.
The simplistic style and cattle simile employed by Orwell in his description of the Proles illustrate the unintelligent and uniform lives led by the Proles. Because these qualities make the Proles easy to control, Big Brother actively perpetuates them in order to maintain power. With this description of a mindless society controlled by a small minority, Orwell paints a grim picture of life in a totalitarian regime, and warns that this future should be avoided at any cost.