THE MAN
George Orwell (born Arthur Blair) was born in 1903 in Bengal, India, to a
family headed by a British imperial official. Although Orwell's childhood
was unhappy, he was a brilliant student. In recognition of his abilities,
he was awarded a scholarship to Eton, England's prestigious prep school.
Orwell completed his education in England. In 1922 he returned to Burma
where he served for five years with the Indian Imperial Police. Orwell used
his Burma adventures as the basis for a novel titled Burmese Days.
Perhaps Orwell's experience with the police helped shape some of his ideas
about authority figures - and authority in general. At any rate, he returned
to England, and, after working at several low-level, low-paying jobs, became
increasingly aware of the suppression of the working class. On the basis of
these firsthand experiences, Orwell formed his own thesis on the nature of
power. He believed that power corrupts and breeds an ever-increasing quest
for more power.
Like many other authors, Orwell was an idealist, joining
causes which sought to free the oppressed. He volunteered to fight during
the Spanish Civil War but became disenchanted with the Spanish Loyalties.
The experience changed his politics and left him with what he termed an
"accurate political orientation." With his conversion to the
democratic-socialist movement, his dislike for totalitarianism and communism
became even more intense. Orwell's strong political convictions would later
be used as a basis for much of his fiction.
Orwell's fiction is fraught with
vigorous social criticism. His acerbic pen is sometimes as venomous as
Jonathan Swift's. Animal Farm, which appeared in 1945, made Orwell a widely
known writer. 1984, published three years later, provided a chilling look into
the future. From a contemporary vantage point, Orwell's work seems prophetic
as well as political.
THE TECHNICIAN
Orwell wrote best about those things he had actually seen. Indeed, his writing
is more autobiographical than that of most novelists. His style is
straightforward, clear and uncluttered. His characters often seem
two-dimensional, largely because his writing focuses on issues rather than
specific characters; 1984 and Animal Farm exemplify this tendency. In Animal
Farm, the characters are animals who personify stereotyped human characteristics.
In 1984, the characters are flat personalities, in part, because life in
Oceania makes them so and, in part, because Orwell wished to develop the grim
possibilites the future held rather than the personalities of Oceania's
inhabitants.
In other respects, Orwell's craftsmanship is masterful. His
imagery is usually simple but effective. He evokes a feeling for the
atmosphere of 1984 through his descriptions of various sensory impressions.
One can nearly smell the ubiquitous boiled cabbage and feel the agony meted out
in the Ministry of Love.
Orwell could often evoke a mood through a single
gesture such as a furtive clasping of hands or Winston's awkward efforts to get
a cigarette to his mouth without losing all of the tobacco. Such gestures,
although minor, convey the despair and frustrations of Winston's life.
THE PHILOSOPHER
Orwell was politically and philosophically opposed to the oppression of the
poor by the rich and powerful. He was an opponent of totalitarianism in all
its forms and believed that totalitarianism's real goal was absolute power.
The hunger for power, he felt, is never satiated - each gain only whets the
appetite for more. Orwell was equally opposed to imperialism even though he
had served, at one time, as an agent of British imperialism in Burma.
Orwell's
ideology was more closely aligned with socialism. He believed that socialism
could do much to remedy the inequitable distribution of wealth and power which
permitted the suppression of the working class.
Later he was to become
disillusioned with socialist and communist regimes but not with the concept of
socialism. He felt the goals set forth in their ideologies were being obscured
by internal power struggles. Collectivism seemed to be yet another guise for
perpetuating the power of a select few.
Although Orwell had no difficulty
seeing flaws in existing power structures, he seemed to be at a loss for
alternatives. He felt individual rebellion was futile - an opinion clearly
expressed in 1984. And he believed that revolution, despite the fact that it
united people against a common enemy, provided only temporary change. It merely
substituted a new power elite for a previous one. This attitude is most
evident in Animal Farm - the pigs are as corrupt as the humans they once served.
Orwell analyzes and annunciates, but he offers few suggestions on how to
achieve his libertarian and egalitarian ideals.
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I'm not sure who the author of this short biography is, but I didn't write this.
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