Orwell, George — Nineteen eighty-four [558]

One had the feeling that she would have been perfectly content, if the June evening had been endless and the supply of clothes inexhaustible, to remain there for a thousand years, pegging out diapers and singing rubbish. It struck him as a curious fact that he had never heard a member of the Party singing alone and spontaneously. It would even have seemed slightly unorthodox, a dangerous eccentricity, like talking to oneself. Perhaps it was only when people were somewhere near the starvation level that they had anything to sing about. — Orwell, George, Nineteen eighty-four, 558

Note

The prole woman’s contentment as indictment — spontaneous song is impossible for the Party because surveillance makes solitude a crime, and self-expression a dangerous eccentricity. ‘Only when people were somewhere near the starvation level that they had anything to sing about’ inverts the usual economics.