Book 3 Chapters 1-3: "Prison Hierarchy"

"He had sat silent against the wall, jostled by dirty bodies, too preoccupied by fear and the pain in his belly to take much interest in his surrounding, but still noticing the astonishing difference in demeanor between the Party prisoners and the others. The Party prisoners and the others. The Party prisoners were always silent and terrified, but the ordinary criminals seemed to care nothing for anybody. They yelled insults at the guards, fought back fiercely when their belongings were impounded, wrote obscene words on the floor and ate smuggled food which they produced from mysterious hiding places in their clothes, and even shouted at the telescreen when it tried to restore order. On the other hand, some of them seemed to be on good terms with the guards, called them by nicknames, and tried to wheedle cigarettes through the spy-hole in the door. The guards, too, treated the common criminals with a certain forbearance, even when they had to handle them roughly. There was much talk about the forced labor camps to which most of the prisoners expected to be sent. It was "all right" in the camps, he gathered, so as long as you had good contacts and knew the ropes." (Book 3 Chapter 1, pg. 186)

In this quote, Winston is talking about the differences between the prisoners and how people differ in the prison. He is noticing that those who were Party members are very different than the rest of the prisoners because their demeanor is more reserved due to the fact that they are more frightened about being in their so they are more compliant when they are told to do something and do not go out of line. While with the other prisoners they are the complete opposite- they do not care about what they are being told and function more like a prison we see nowadays- they are doing what they want, express their emotions and are defiant. With this, we can pull out: the conditioning of the Party is still shown in the prison, a new hierarchy,  and a parallel to modern prisons shown on television.

When the description of the Party members in prison is given we can automatically see why they act that way. We are told throughout the book how these Party members are conditioned to follow everything they are told, thus this means that they hold more fear towards the higher ups. By being put into prison they know the repercussions that will follow because they broke the law. This means that they are more afraid to break any more rules because now after facing the consequences of their actions they know that the Party does hold a lot of power they have more of a subconscious fear that stems from their conditioning, so they are more willing to follow what they are told. This is why there is such a huge contrast between the party member prisoners and the rest, the others have not been conditioned the same way, they do not hold the same view towards the authority. This conditioning to be loyal to the Party or face the repercussions is what sets them apart- they are more afraid because they have more knowledge than the rest in a sense.

Another very important thing we can note from this scene is that there is some sort of hierarchy between the prisoners. It is mentioned how the guards have more tolerance for the common criminals- they can get away with more because even when they are supposed to be handled roughly they do still try to be patient with them. We can see because of this the Party prisoners are in a way considered lower-rank: they do not get the same treatment from the guards. This means that not only is there a hierarchy in society but also in prison and like society there is still people above the Party prisoners. It seems that in every hierarchy they seem to be lower and it may have to do because they have decided to follow the Party and what they have told them and it seems to be a set back for them. This is why I think it is important to see the hierarchy in the prison as well.

Lastly, another thing that can be seen is the parallel between the dynamics in this prison and the dynamics in real life prison. Usually when we see portrayals of real prison we usually see in prison shows the same things prisons who are scared and follow the orders and prisoners that could not care any less and act out. The other thing that is similar is the hierarchy although we do not know the hierarchy in an actual prison there are prisoners that are more tolerated by the guards and those we are not. The prison talked about in 1984 seems to emulate a lot a real-life prison and its dynamics and I really thought that was interesting.