1984

Winston writes in his diary that any hope of overthrowing the Party lies with the proles (89). The proletariat class makes up 85% of Oceania’s population, yet this segment of society is kept ignorant of how the Party works against them to maintain its own power. Winston refers to a Party-issued children’s history book that describes the terrors of capitalism before Party rule: Capitalists controlled all the money in society, they could enslave others and starve them by taking away their jobs, and they were rich from greed (93). Winston wonders whether life is in fact better now under the Party, but he has nothing to compare to the present. History books are not reliable accounts of historical facts, and decades of purges have eliminated the segment of the population that could have given an accurate account of pre-Party history.

Winston thinks back to a moment when he held a photograph that could have challenged the Party’s version of history. He recalls the “concrete, unmistakable evidence of an act of falsification” (96) and the vaguely terrifying fates of the men in the photograph. The men were tortured, dismissed from the Party, and eventually executed for anti-Party

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