...The Works of George Orwell The Literary Canon is an authoritive list, as of the works of an author. To enter or actually be entered into the canon is to gain certain obvious privileges; it is governed by influential critics, museum directors, and their board of trustee’s as well as scholars and teachers. To appear in the Norton or Oxford anthology is not a sign of greatness but a status of accessibility to a public reading. Belonging to the Literary Canon confers status; social, political, economic, and aesthetic, belonging to the canon is a guarantee of quality. George Orwell was born Eric Arthur Blair, to English parents Richard Walmesley (a civil servant) and Ida Mabel (Limouzine) Blair in Motihari, Bengal (now Bihar) India in 1903 and died a year after writing Nineteen Eighty Four in 1950. He graduated from Eton College in 1921. His political beliefs follow those of a democratic socialist. His interests include fishing, carpentry, gardening, and raising animals. He served in the Spanish civil war as well as World War II where he held the rank of sergeant. George held many jobs during his career as a writer he was a police officer in Burma, a dishwasher in Paris, a teacher in England, as well as a shopkeeper, he also produced educational radio programs for the BBC. Among his writing accomplishments he wrote fiction as well as nonfiction novels his two most famous being “Nineteen Eighty Four” and “Animal farm” both of which have been adapted for film. In “Animal Farm” and...
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...Why This Person is Superior George Orwell as a Novelist George Orweel is one of the leading novelists of modern age. His novels express a powerful sattire on the political and social hypocrisies. By thw quality of his writing, he has achieved international fame and recognition. In his evolution as a novelist he moved from simple narration to symbolic expression. But he has been criticised by many critics due to the lack of sincere characteristics of a novel in his novels. It has bveen proved that he has failed as a novelist. Tom Hopkinson opines, “Orwell’s reputaion as awriter rests largely on his novels, but his gifts are not those of a novelist; and, if the novel had not happened to be the prevailing literary form during the twenty years when he was writing, he would proably never have been attracted to it. Orwell had little imagination, little understanding of human relationshipl, little sympathy with individual human beings- though much with humanity in general.” O.D. Leavis also found that he had “wasted a lot of energy trying to be a novelist. I think I must have read three or four novels by him and the only impression those dreary books left on me was that nature didn’t intend him to be a novelist.” Edward M. Thomas also found that he did not possess the temperment of a novelist. Thus Orwell, who wished to produce more than thirty novels, had to admitin aletter, written to his friend, Julian Symons, “You are perfectly right about my own character constantly intruding...
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...Im only uploadind this because i want to get onto this site.. lol Orwell Essay Draft The highly political and literary worlds constructed from the writer George Orwell has allowed audiences to see glimpses of themselves among these worlds, as well as provoking acts of analysis and reflection within themselves, decades after these worlds and opinions were initially established. The ongoing relevance of Orwell is due to an inspiring recipe of writing greatness. Orwell’s authentic craftsmanship, directness of expression, straightforward-simple style, methodical structure, pure honesty and most importantly textual integrity, marries together with his abilities to use his context and experiences as evidence for his ideas and argument. Essentially, it is Orwell’s universal and highly relatable ideas that allow his audiences to reflect upon Orwell’s arguments, amongst their own personal contexts for decades upon decades. These ideas constructed from the literary, political and nationalistic worlds, are derived from Orwell’s famous essays, Writers and Leviathan (W&L), Why I Write (WIW), Politics and the English Language (PATEL), Notes on Nationalism (NoN) and Sporting Spirit (SS), which are still studies and read worldwide today. Through Orwell’s essays Writers and Leviathan, Why I Write, and Politics and the English Language, Orwell has been able to establish a literary world for his audience to reflect their literary views and opinions upon. Writers and Leviathan, was a response...
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...was set back a few years for college because his family couldn’t afford it so he ended up joining the Imperial Police Force in 1922. After five years, he resigned and decided to continue his journey as a writer. He came up with his first book Down and Out in Paris and London which was about how life was living in the two cities. He didn’t want to embarrass his family’s name so he decided to use his pseudonym ‘George Orwell’ as the author for his future works. Orwell then wrote about his other experiences overseas, British Colonialism in Burma and part of the country’s Indian empire. In 1937 he married Eileen O'Shaughnessy and then later on went to Spain to battle in the Spanish Civil War. He got badly injured being shot at the neck and arm. After being partially healed, he later on battled another sickness-tuberculosis in 1938. Despite battling his sickness, he still decided to keep writing to support himself. Orwell found himself acting as a propagandist to advance the country's side. He loathed this part of his job and resigned in 1943. Around this time, Orwell became the literary editor for a socialist newspaper. In 1945, he published one of two of his famous works, Animal Farm, which was an anti-Soviet satire in a pastoral setting featuring two pigs as its main protagonists. These two pigs were said to represent Josef Stalin and Leon Trotsky. With the...
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...1. Would you read another novel by this author? Why? Why not? a. Yes, George Orwell has impressed me thoroughly. Through both the complexity of his writing and his use of vocabulary, I felt a wide range of emotion including sadness, anger, surprise, happiness, curiosity, and fear. Orwell has proved to be a proficient user of the English language, as well as a creative visionary with a depth to his writing. It appears as though his novel 1984 is non-linear entirely. Although it has a general plot, given the characters names and possibly a brief description; one could pick the novel up at any point and capture its meaning. The clarity of his objective in writing as well as his upfront attitude about delicate subjects is precisely the style of...
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...George Orwell, pen name for Eric Arthur Blair, was an excellent British author who was born in India. In "Shooting an Elephant" he shows just how bad imperialism really is. Showing examples of hate, oppression, and guilt that Orwell felt and faced as an India Imperial Police Officer. Being a police officer Orwell was an easy target to hatred. The Burman people would trip him and laugh very loudly. There would be insults yelled at him and they would get badly on his nerves. Orwell hated his job very much. In "Shooting an Elephant" Orwell says "All I know was that I was stuck between my hatred of the empire I served and my rage against the evil-spirited little beasts who tried to make my job impossible." Along with all the hates Orwell...
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...Lakoff, George. "What Orwell Didn't Know About The Brain, The Mind, and Language." EScholarship. UC Berkeley, 2008. Web. 23 Oct. 2015. Lakoff tells of George Orwell’s 1984 and how he used to love the book, but now since he has more knowledge of the mind and how it works his opinion has changed. George Lakoff is Goldman Distinguished Professor of Cognitive Science and Linguistics at the University of California, Berkeley, and Senior Fellow at the Rockridge Institute. This paper seems reliable from the credential he has and how he voices his opinion with facts to back it up. The uses of this article helps show by the authors facts and opinion how Orwell didn't know much about the brain. That how Orwell describes how the mind is working within the citizens is inaccurate, because the lack of knowledge in the time period the book was wrote. This sources is good to compare with the knowledge we have now about the brain and how realistic was Orwell's version of mind control compared to what mind...
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...George Orwell’s political views have been developed throughout his life based on personal experiences, although some may argue Orwell had no political label, due to his many different facets and aspects. Orwell witnessed Stalin’s Soviet Russia, the dictatorships of Mussolini and Hitler, the Spanish civil war and World War 2. Orwell’s literary works such as 1984 and many others, touch on aspects of imperialism, anarchism, socialism, Nazism, capitalism and totalitarianism. “The Theory and Practice of Oligarchical” in 1984, is a text within a text that Winston reads to understand many things about the totalitarian world he lives in. The purpose of the text within a text is to parallel the corrupt socialist world of 1984 with that of Stalin’s USSR, expand on Orwell’s ideas of imperialism, and to sound an alarm to warn readers of what a worst case scenario totalitarian world could be like. Firstly, “The Theory and Practice of Oligarchical” was to provide greater insight, for Winston and the reader. Goldstein’s text takes apart each section of the party’s slogan “War is Peace, Freedom is Slavery, Ignorance is strength” (Orwell, 1), and explains what they mean to the party. After reading the text, Winston learned some new things, but the text mostly just reinforced things he already assumed or knew. Secondly, when thinking from a political standpoint, one could say that the point of this text within a text was to parallel the corrupt socialist world of 1984 with that of Stalin’s USSR...
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...In the essay “Shooting an Elephant” by George Orwell Orwell sees imperialism in multiple points-of-view. First off, while Orwell is describing the prisoners he shows a hidden the cruelty of imperialism. Orwell draws the picture of “wretched prisoners huddling in the stinking cages of lock-ups” some with “scarred buttocks [...] had been Bogged with bamboos” (2). Orwell is showing that the prisoners, treated as animals, being humiliated by their oppressors. In addition, Orwell believes imperialism ‘destroyed the freedom’ of the native population. In the moments before shooting the elephant Orwell perceives “that when a white man turns tyrant it is his own freedom he destroys”(7). By saying this Orwell points out the irony of imperialism. Orwell...
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...Orwell’s Cruelty George Orwell is an Indian police officer worked East of Burma where he served 20 years as a dependent officer around the town. While, being in there unarmed he was hated by a large number of people in his neighbor’s yard the only time in his life that he felt so important around town. Orwell had been tripped up once or twice by a nimble Burman on a steep field where the elephant is about to be killed. However, his main focus to keep a story of lies that came from a young woman away from him during the attack toward the elephant. They were waiting for him in the quarter where the elephant had seen and ready to be torque by Orwell. It was a very poor town and people were ready to see the killing take place of the mannequin...
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...Is our technology taking us closer to the world of Big Brother? People may answer yes or no but it all depends on how the way you think of it. In the book 1984 written by George Orwell, he talks about the government is presented as a totalitarian state and how it is set up in this book also how George Orwell describes the life in Oceania. Some allusions that Orwell uses are deliberately used to describe Oceania of what it is and what it should not be “Though Winston is technically a member of the ruling class, his life is still under the Party’s oppressive political control. In his apartment, an instrument called a telescreen—which is always on, spouting propaganda, and through which the Thought Police are known to monitor the actions of...
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...Sylver Baker 2016 Professor Hendrix ENC 1102 23 May 2016 Formal Assignment 1: Analysis of “A Hanging” by George Orwell “A Hanging” by George Orwell is a short story based on the author’s experience while working as a police magistrate. In the story he talks about the experience of witnessing an execution. The prisoner is escorted to the gallows by the warders for his hanging. Once there everyone is ready for the execution to be done so that they can all go have a drink. Using descriptive words so that one feels and experiences what he experienced Orwell argues that Capital Punishment is wrong. Orwell focuses on the negative to set the tone of how unpleasant and depressing an execution is. He describes the day “a sodden morning of the rains. A sickly light, like yellow tinfoil” which sets a gloomy tone. He describes the cells, “condemned”, “a row of sheds fronted with double bars, like small animal cages”. In creating such a gloomy setting Orwell proves he is concerned and nervous about the execution. If he was not affected by the hanging, then the mood would not be so melancholy. Orwell can’t simply ignore the capital punishment and nor can anyone else. All people feel some kind of anxiety about the inhumane and cruel punishment. Orwell describes the superintendent and other characters’ emotions before and after the hanging, who is against capital punishment. The prisoner cries out in a rhythmical tone, “Ram! Ram! Ram! Ram!”, not out of fear or for help but as though...
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...Response to “Politics and the English Language” In this essay, George Orwell brings to light common mistakes that are found in contemporary English style of writing and argue that we, users of the English language, have the power to fix these problems through adjusting our own writing habits. The mistakes that Orwell brings up are not the typical mistakes of grammar, punctuation or spelling. No, he attacks the very way that a whole generation of English writers has grown accustom to writing and expressing their ideas, and I could not agree with him more. Orwell breaks these simple mistakes into four major types: dying metaphors, verbal false limbs, pretentious diction and meaningless words. When used, these mistakes create sentences that do not express ideas clearly and use common terms and phrases “copied and pasted” from one writer to another. This leads to a lack of originality and writing that is more of a conglomerate of catchy phrases and buzzwords rather than cohesive, well thought-out sentences. I agree with this school of thought. I have seen many students my age who are afraid of writing the wrong thing or having their ideas rejected, so they write in the manner which Orwell is concerned with as to mask their inner writing insecurity. Many also think that using dying metaphors, verbal false limbs, and pretentious diction makes them sound smarter or acceptable at the college level. However, these habits do nothing but make the readers’ job harder and make the...
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...In George Orwell’s “1984”, reality is not always what you perceive it to be. Orwell uses a theme that is comprised of the horror of a totalitarian dictatorship, which is demonstrated throughout the novel in the laws, and leaders of “The Party”. There is also a Big Brother character that helps to accentuate the totalitarian theme and brings a reality to the reader that the world is hidden behind this figure. The theme of reality versus appearance is a theme that is displayed throughout the novel in many different ways, such as characters, slogans and war. I will examine a couple of examples of reality versus appearance in George Orwell’s “1984” over the next several paragraphs. We are introduced early in the novel to a character by the name of Julia. Julia’s relationship with Winston mixes love and partnership in the strife against Big Brother. Julia is a survivalist and a rebel, she is a Party supporter, and very sexually promiscuous. Julia says, “Have you done this before? Of course. Hundreds of times – well, score of times, anyway.” (Page 104) In this quote from Julia it is first presenting to be another foolish drone of the party but Julia is uncovered to be an insurgent that uses her sex appeal and anatomy as a way to rebel....
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... He compares today's society to the scary futuristic community Orwell imagined. Lewis tells on how today's society is willing to give up freedom and their right to privacy because of fear. That the government uses fear to spy on everyone, he gives the example of the government using terrorism as way to spy on citizens through social media. With this article being opinion based, Beale makes it clear and understandable for the reader to see his viewpoint. It has a easy to read layout with bold titles making it clear on what each paragraph is about. The Fact that the article was published on CNN, makes it...
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