GEORGE ORWELL
G'day folks,
Now, here's a thought-provoking author. George Orwell, (25 June 1903 – 21 January 1950) has proved
to be one of the twentieth century’s most influential and thought-provoking
writers. His relatively small numbers of books have created intense literary
and political criticism.
Orwell was a socialist, but at the same time, he did
not fit into any neat ideology. He is best known for his novels “1984” and
“Animal Farm” – which both warn about the dangers of a totalitarian state.
Completed just after the Second World War, they touched a chord because of
contemporary fears over the growing influence of state control. He was foremost
a political writer, but for Orwell, his object was not to promote a certain
point of view but to arrive at the truth; exposing the hypocrisy and injustice
prevalent in society.
Orwell’s Early life
Orwell
was born Eric Blair on 25 June 1903, in Motihari, Bihar, in India.
Shortly after his birth, he was taken by his mother back to Oxfordshire, England.
His family were financially poor, but an aspiring middle-class family. Orwell
described it as ‘lower-upper-middle-class’ – a reflection of the importance he
felt the English attached to class labels.
With his
family unable to afford fees to a proper public school, he was educated at St
Cyprian’s in Eastbourne, which served as a preliminary crammer to gaining a
scholarship for public schools like Eton. In a later essay “Such, Such were the
Joys” he was scathing of his time at St Cyprian’s noting how difficult it was
to be happy in such a mean-spirited environment. Aged 14, he was able to move
to Eton, where he had better memories because of the greater intellectual
stimulation. However, the awareness of being much poorer than many of his
school friends remained. He left Eton with firmly held “middle class”
values but at the same time a sense of unease with his social position.
After school, he was
unable to afford university, and for want of a better option, Orwell took a job
with the Burmese civil service. It was here in Burma, that Orwell would begin
to assert his independence from his privileged upbringing. Revealingly, Orwell
later told how he found himself rooting for the local population, and despising
the imperial ideology which he represented. He resigned from his position in
1927.
It was in
the nature of George Orwell to try and see a situation from other people’s
point of view. He was unhappy at accepting the conventional social wisdom. In
fact, he grew to despise his middle-class upbringing so much he decided to spend
time as a tramp. He wanted to experience life from the view of the gutter. His
vivid experiences are recorded in his book “Down and out in Paris and London”.
No longer could Orwell be described as a “Champagne Socialist”; by living with
the poorest and underprivileged, he gained a unique insight into the
practical workings of working class ideas and working-class politics.
The Road to Wigan Pier
In the
middle of the great depression, Orwell undertook another experience travelling
to Wigan; an industrial town in Lancashire experiencing the full effects of
mass unemployment and poverty. Orwell freely admitted how, as a young child, he
was brought up to despise the working class.
The Road to Wigan Pier
offered a penetrating insight into the condition of the working classes. It was
also a right of passage for Orwell to live amongst the people he had once, from
a distance, despised. The Road
to Wigan Pier inevitably had a political message, but
characteristically of Orwell, it was not all pleasing to the left. For example,
it was less than flattering towards the Communist party. This was despite the
book being promoted by a mostly Communist organisation – The Left Book club.
Orwell and the Spanish Civil War
It was
fighting in the Spanish Civil war that Orwell came to really despise Communist
influences. In 1936, Orwell volunteered to fight for the fledgeling Spanish
Republic, who at the time were fighting the Fascist forces of General
Franco. It was a conflict that polarised nations. To the left, the war was a
symbol of a real socialist revolution, based on the principles of equality and
freedom. It was for these ideals that many international volunteers, from
around the world, went to Spain to fight on behalf of the Republic. Orwell
found himself in the heart of the Socialist revolution in Barcelona. He was
assigned to an Anarchist – Trotskyist party – P.O.U.M. More than most other
left-wing parties, they believed in the ideal of a real Marxist revolution. To
members of the P.O.U.M, the war was not just about fighting the Fascist menace
but also delivering a Socialist revolution for the working classes. In his
book, “Homage to Catalonia” Orwell writes of his experiences; he notes
the inefficiency with which the Spanish fought even wars. He was enthused by
the revolutionary fervour of some of his party members; however, one of the
overriding impressions was his perceived betrayal of the Republic, by the
Stalinist backed Communist party.
Unwittingly he found himself engaged in a civil war amongst
the left, as the Soviet Union backed Communist party turned on the Trotskyite
factions like P.O.U.M. In the end, Orwell narrowly escaped with his life, after
being shot in the throat. He was able to return to England, but he had learnt
at first hand how revolutions could easily be betrayed; ideas that would later shape
his seminal work “Animal Farm.”
Orwell described himself as a secular humanist and could be critical of organised religion in his writings. However, he had a fondness for the social and cultural aspect of the Church of England and attended services intermittently.
He married Eileen O’Shaughnessy in 1936 and in 1944, they adopted a three-week old child – Richard Horatio. Orwell was devastated when Eileen died and sought to remarry – seeking a mother for his young son. He asked several women for their hand in marriage, with Sonia Branwell accepting in 1949 – despite Orwell’s increasingly poor health. Orwell was a heavy smoker and this affected his lungs causing bronchial problems. In the last years of his life, he moved to a remote farm on the Scottish island of Jura to concentrate on his writings. Orwell passed away on 21 January 1950. His friend David Astor helped him to be buried at Sutton Courtenay churchyard, Oxfordshire.
The two great novels of Orwell were “Animal Farm” and “1984”. Animal Farm is a simple allegory for revolutions which go wrong, based primarily on the Russian revolution. 1984 is a dystopian nightmare about the dangers of a totalitarian state which gains complete control over its citizens.
Clancy's comment: Certainly an interesting character.
I'm ...
No comments:
Post a Comment