George Orwell: Life of the Writer
George Orwell is perhaps best known to the public for his enormouslysuccessful novel Nineteen Eighty-Four and also for Animal Farm. Also,Orwell's reputation also rests as much upon his work as a critic ofliterature, of manners, of politics- in a word, of life. He was alwaysconcerned with the effects of class distinctions, with socialism- given thepromise inherent in its ideals and the disappointment of its practice. Eric Arthur Blair (later George Orwell) was born in 1903 in the IndianVillage Motihari, which lies near the border of Nepal. At that time Indiawas a part of the British Empire, and Blair's father Richard ,held a post asan agent in the Opium Department of the Indian Civil Service. In 1907when Eric had about eight years ,the family returned to England andlived at Henley, though the father continued to work in India until heretired in 1912. With some difficulty despite awarded scholarships ,Blair'sparents sent their son to a private preparatory school in Sussex at the ageof eight. During Blair's time spent at Crossgates, an English prepatoryschool, he developed his cynicism towards the social system of England. As a scholarship student, he was subjected to ridicule from the schoo
His first novel Burmese Days was almost theepitome of the kind of books Orwell wanted to write initially in his career : "enormous naturalistic novels with unhappy endings, full of detaileddescriptions and arresting similes, and also full of purple passages whichwords were used partly for the sake of their sound. Animal Farm satirized the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia. Week after week he remained in his unheated bedroom,thawing his hands over a candle when they became too numb to write. While on leave inLondon, he resigned. , Orwell was forced to become apamphleteer against totalitarianism. Therefore, Blair had a small interest in school. However, this was untrue to a certain extent: Blairapprenticed himself to the masters of English prose who most appealedto him including Swift, Sterne, and Jack London. It is not a horror story of theimagination but a warning against the effects of a totalitarian drift whichonly he among major writers was willing to measure. Constantly he was reminded of his position as poor. Heaccurately showed the means by which the Soviets came to power. Hissense of guilt never diminished. Every line of his work from 1936 waswritten, directly or indirectly, against totalitarianism and for democraticsocialism.
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