Who is The Oppressed from Pedagogy of the Oppressed and what is their importance?

Freire's book is meant to help enlighten the oppressed, and so the oppressed become the central figure in Freire's work. Freire believes that the oppressed are held back by an external situation of oppression that is self-sustaining because the oppressive situation surrounds the oppressed completely. They are submerged in a culture of oppression, and it is the only world that the oppressed know. The culture of oppression becomes internalized and seems so all-encompassing that it cannot be overcome or broken out of. The oppressed become fatalistic, blaming their situation on fate, their own incompetence, or God.