“ So long as they continued to work and breed, their other activities were without importance. Left to themselves, like cattle turned loose upon the plains of Argentina, they had reverted to a style of life that appeared to be natural to them, a sort of ancestral pattern. ”
George Orwell, 1984 (1949). copy citation
| Author | George Orwell |
|---|---|
| Source | 1984 |
| Topic | nature work activity |
| Date | 1949 |
| Language | English |
| Reference | |
| Note | |
| Weblink | http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks01/0100021.txt |
Context
“But simultaneously, true to the Principles of doublethink, the Party taught that the proles were natural inferiors who must be kept insubjection, like animals, by the application of a few simple rules. In reality very little was known about the proles. It was not necessary to know much. So long as they continued to work and breed,their other activities were without importance. Left to themselves, like cattle turned loose upon the plains of Argentina, they had reverted to a style of life that appeared to be natural to them, a sort of ancestral pattern. They were born, they grew up in the gutters, they went to work at twelve, they passed through a brief blossoming-period of beauty and sexual desire, they married at twenty, they were middle-aged at thirty, they died, for the most part, at sixty.”
source
Meaning and analysis
