Outer Party

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In the world of George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four, The Party which controls Oceania is split into two halves: the Inner Party and the Outer Party. The Outer Party is restricted and poor. They drink Victory Gin instead of wine and have saccharine tablets instead of sugar.

The protagonist of the novel, Winston Smith, is a member of the Outer Party, as are most of the other characters we meet, though he does interact with a few proles (generally objects of contempt or disgust for Party members). The Outer Party represents the middle class in Oceanic society, bureaucrats who do most of the actual work in the Party government and its four ministries. Its members can be identified by their blue coveralls.

Interestingly enough, from a certain viewpoint, the members of the Outer Party, and not the "proles", are probably the worst off of the three classes. They lack the relative personal freedom and simple pleasures of the proles, as they are under constant supervision by the Inner Party, and do not have the small comforts of the Inner Party such as pleasant food and more comfortable (if spartan) homes.

Goldstein's book explains the rationale behind the class divisions.

Nineteen Eighty-Four v  d  e 
By George Orwell
Characters Winston Smith | Julia | O'Brien | Big Brother | Emmanuel Goldstein
Places Oceania | Eastasia | Eurasia | Airstrip One | Room 101
Classes Inner Party | Outer Party | Proles
Ministries Ministry of Love | Ministry of Peace | Ministry of Plenty | Ministry of Truth
Concepts Ingsoc | Newspeak | Doublethink | Goodthink | Crimestop
Two plus two | Thoughtcrime | Prolefeed | Prolesec
Miscellaneous Thought Police | Telescreen | Memory hole | The Book
Newspeak words | Two Minutes Hate | Hate week
Adaptations 1956 film | 1984 film | 1953 TV programme | 1954 TV programme
Opera
Parody Me and the Big Guy


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