f a good story. Desire to share an experience which one feels is valuable and ought not to be missed. The aesthetic motive is very feeble in a lot of writers, but even a pamphleteer or a writer of textbooks will have pet words and phrases which appeal to him for non-utilitarian reasons; or he may feel strongly about typography, width of margins, etc. Above the level of a railway guide, no book is quite free from aesthetic considerations. (CEJL 1: 3-4)
             What I have most wanted to do throughout the past ten years is to make political writing into an art. ... I could not do the work of writing a book, or even a long magazine article, if it were not also an aesthetic experience (CEJL 1: 6)
             could not have been indifferent to literary artistry, including literary style. In fact, Orwell's writing style is a carefully constructed complex of various linguistic devices that contribute importantly to the central themes of Nineteen Eighty-Four.
             One of those themes is the powerlessness of the individual under a totalitarian government. Orwell illustrated that futility through the fate of Winston Smith; however, it is not at the level of plot that the reader can best appreciate that powerlessness. Rather, it is through the language that Orwell used to describe Winston, to narrate his actions, and to develop his character that the reader perceives not only the futility of struggle but also Orwell's sensitivity to both the use and meaning of language. Specifically, Orwell manipulated the expression of AGENCY so that Winston Smith is never seen as active or in control of any situation.
             AGENCY is one of the most widely used techniques to control a literary theme in a text (Cluysenaar 1975: 63-65, Dillon 1978: 9-21, Empson 1963: 1-47, Enkvist 1973: 115-118, Halliday 1971: 330-365, Leech and Short 1981: 189-191). It can be expressed (or suppressed) by a number of syntactic constructions, and Orwell employed them all to establish the complete abo...