George Orwell is perhaps best known to the public for his enormously
successful novel Nineteen Eighty-Four and also for Animal Farm. Also,
Orwell's reputation also rests as much upon his work as a critic of
literature, of manners, of politics- in a word, of life. He was always
concerned with the effects of class distinctions, with socialism- given the
promise inherent in its ideals and the disappointment of its practice.
Eric Arthur Blair (later George Orwell) was born in 1903 in the Indian
Village Motihari, which lies near the border of Nepal. At that time India
was a part of the British Empire, and Blair's father Richard ,held a post as
an agent in the Opium Department of the Indian Civil Service. In 1907
when Eric had about eight years ,the family returned to England and
lived at Henley, though the father continued to work in India until he
retired in 1912. With some difficulty despite awarded scholarships ,Blair's
parents sent their son to a private preparatory school in Sussex at the age
of eight. During Blair's time spent at Crossgates, an English prepatory
school, he developed his cynicism towards the social system of England.
As a scholarship student, he was subjected to ridicule from the school
masters. Constantly he was reminded of his position as poor. The sole
purpose of Blair's presence at Crossgates was to win a scholarship to a
prestigious public school. "When they told me that I must win a public
school scholarship or become an office-boy at fourteen, I believed that
those were the unavoidable alternatives for me." ("Such, Such Were the
Joys...) At Crossgates the neurotic dread of poverty and the assumption
that not only money and privilege are the only things that matter, but it is
better to inherit them than have to work for them were implemented into
every child's way of thinking. Therefore, Blair felt that many...