Why I Write
George Orwell
From a very early age, perhaps the age of five or six, I knew that when I grew up I should be a writer. Between the ages of about seventeen and twenty-four I tried to abandon this idea, but I did so with the consciousness that I was outraging my true nature and that sooner or later I should have to settle down and write books.
I was the middle child of three, but there was a gap of five years on either side, and I barely saw my father before I was eight. For this and other reasons I was somewhat lonely, and I soon developed disagreeable mannerisms which made me unpopular throughout my schooldays. I had the lonely child's habit of making up stories and holding conversations with imaginary persons, and I think from the very start my literary ambitions were mixed up with the feeling of being isolated and undervalued. I knew that I had a facility with words and a power of facing unpleasant facts, and I felt that this created a sort of private world in which I could get my own back for my failure in everyday life. Nevertheless the volume of serious — i.e. seriously intended — writing which I produced all through my childhood and boyhood would not amount to half a dozen pages. I wrote my first poem at the age of four or five, my mother taking it down to dictation. I cannot remember anything about it except that it was about a tiger and the tiger had ‘chair-like teeth’ — a good enough phrase, but I fancy the poem was a plagiarism of Blake's ‘Tiger, Tiger’. At eleven, when the war or 1914-18 broke out, I wrote a patriotic poem which was printed in the local newspaper, as was another, two years later, on the death of Kitchener. From time to time, when I was a bit older, I wrote bad and usually unfinished ‘nature poems’ in the Georgian style. I also attempted a short story which was a ghastly failure. That was the total of the would-be serious work that I actually set down on paper during all those years.
However, throughout this time I did in a sense engage in literary activities. To begin with there was the made-to-order stuff which I produced quickly, easily and without much pleasure to myself. Apart from school work, I wrote vers d'occasion, semi-comic poems which I could turn out at what now seems to me astonishing speed — at fourteen I wrote a whole rhyming play, in imitation of Aristophanes, in about a week — and helped to edit a school magazines, both printed and in manuscript. These magazines were the most pitiful burlesque stuff that you could imagine, and I took far less trouble with them than I now would with the cheapest journalism. But side by side with all this, for fifteen years or more, I was carrying out a literary exercise of a quite different kind: this was the making up of a continuous ‘story’ about myself, a sort of diary existing only in the mind. I believe this is a common habit of children and adolescents. As a very small child I used to imagine that I was, say, Robin Hood, and picture myself as the hero of thrilling adventures, but quite soon my ‘story’ ceased to be narcissistic in a crude way and became more and more a mere description of what I was doing and the things I saw. For minutes at a time this kind of thing would be running through my head: ‘He pushed the door open and entered the room. A yellow beam of sunlight, filtering through the muslin curtains, slanted on to the table, where a match-box, half-open, lay beside the inkpot. With his right hand in his pocket he moved across to the window. Down in the street a tortoiseshell cat was chasing a dead leaf’, etc. etc. This habit continued until I was about twenty-five, right through my non-literary years. Although I had to search, and did search, for the right words, I seemed to be making this descriptive effort almost against my will, under a kind of compulsion from outside. The ‘story’ must, I suppose, have reflected the styles of the various writers I admired at different ages, but so far as I remember it always had the same meticulous descriptive quality.
When I was about sixteen I suddenly discovered the joy of mere words, i.e. the sounds and associations of words. The lines from Paradise Lost —
So hee with difficulty and labour hard
Moved on: with difficulty and labour hee.
which do not now seem to me so very wonderful, sent shivers down my backbone; and the spelling ‘hee’ for ‘he’ was an added pleasure. As for the need to describe things, I knew all about it already. So it is clear what kind of books I wanted to write, in so far as I could be said to want to write books at that time. I wanted to write enormous naturalistic novels with unhappy endings, full of detailed descriptions and arresting similes, and also full of purple passages in which words were used partly for the sake of their own sound. And in fact my first completed novel, Burmese Days, which I wrote when I was thirty but projected much earlier, is rather that kind of book.
I give all this background information because I do not think one can assess a writer's motives without knowing something of his early development. His subject matter will be determined by the age he lives in — at least this is true in tumultuous, revolutionary ages like our own — but before he ever begins to write he will have acquired an emotional attitude from which he will never completely escape. It is his job, no doubt, to discipline his temperament and avoid getting stuck at some immature stage, in some perverse mood; but if he escapes from his early influences altogether, he will have killed his impulse to write. Putting aside the need to earn a living, I think there are four great motives for writing, at any rate for writing prose. They exist in different degrees in every writer, and in any one writer the proportions will vary from time to time, according to the atmosphere in which he is living. They are:
(i) Sheer egoism. Desire to seem clever, to be talked about, to be remembered after death, to get your own back on the grown-ups who snubbed you in childhood, etc., etc. It is humbug to pretend this is not a motive, and a strong one. Writers share this characteristic with scientists, artists, politicians, lawyers, soldiers, successful businessmen — in short, with the whole top crust of humanity. The great mass of human beings are not acutely selfish. After the age of about thirty they almost abandon the sense of being individuals at all — and live chiefly for others, or are simply smothered under drudgery. But there is also the minority of gifted, willful people who are determined to live their own lives to the end, and writers belong in this class. Serious writers, I should say, are on the whole more vain and self-centered than journalists, though less interested in money.
(ii) Aesthetic enthusiasm. Perception of beauty in the external world, or, on the other hand, in words and their right arrangement. Pleasure in the impact of one sound on another, in the firmness of good prose or the rhythm of 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 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.
(iii) Historical impulse. Desire to see things as they are, to find out true facts and store them up for the use of posterity.
(iv) Political purpose. — Using the word ‘political’ in the widest possible sense. Desire to push the world in a certain direction, to alter other peoples’ idea of the kind of society that they should strive after. Once again, no book is genuinely free from political bias. The opinion that art should have nothing to do with politics is itself a political attitude.
It can be seen how these various impulses must war against one another, and how they must fluctuate from person to person and from time to time. By nature — taking your ‘nature’ to be the state you have attained when you are first adult — I am a person in whom the first three motives would outweigh the fourth. In a peaceful age I might have written ornate or merely descriptive books, and might have remained almost unaware of my political loyalties. As it is I have been forced into becoming a sort of pamphleteer. First I spent five years in an unsuitable profession (the Indian Imperial Police, in Burma), and then I underwent poverty and the sense of failure. This increased my natural hatred of authority and made me for the first time fully aware of the existence of the working classes, and the job in Burma had given me some understanding of the nature of imperialism: but these experiences were not enough to give me an accurate political orientation. Then came Hitler, the Spanish Civil War, etc. By the end of 1935 I had still failed to reach a firm decision. I remember a little poem that I wrote at that date, expressing my dilemma:
A happy vicar I might have been
Two hundred years ago
To preach upon eternal doom
And watch my walnuts grow;But born, alas, in an evil time,
I missed that pleasant haven,
For the hair has grown on my upper lip
And the clergy are all clean-shaven.And later still the times were good,
We were so easy to please,
We rocked our troubled thoughts to sleep
On the bosoms of the trees.All ignorant we dared to own
The joys we now dissemble;
The greenfinch on the apple bough
Could make my enemies tremble.But girl's bellies and apricots,
Roach in a shaded stream,
Horses, ducks in flight at dawn,
All these are a dream.It is forbidden to dream again;
We maim our joys or hide them:
Horses are made of chromium steel
And little fat men shall ride them.I am the worm who never turned,
The eunuch without a harem;
Between the priest and the commissar
I walk like Eugene Aram;And the commissar is telling my fortune
While the radio plays,
But the priest has promised an Austin Seven,
For Duggie always pays.I dreamt I dwelt in marble halls,
And woke to find it true;
I wasn't born for an age like this;
Was Smith? Was Jones? Were you?
The Spanish war and other events in 1936-37 turned the scale and thereafter I knew where I stood. Every line of serious work that I have written since 1936 has been written, directly or indirectly, against totalitarianism and for democratic socialism, as I understand it. It seems to me nonsense, in a period like our own, to think that one can avoid writing of such subjects. Everyone writes of them in one guise or another. It is simply a question of which side one takes and what approach one follows. And the more one is conscious of one's political bias, the more chance one has of acting politically without sacrificing one's aesthetic and intellectual integrity.
What I have most wanted to do throughout the past ten years is to make political writing into an art. My starting point is always a feeling of partisanship, a sense of injustice. When I sit down to write a book, I do not say to myself, ‘I am going to produce a work of art’. I write it because there is some lie that I want to expose, some fact to which I want to draw attention, and my initial concern is to get a hearing. But I could not do the work of writing a book, or even a long magazine article, if it were not also an aesthetic experience. Anyone who cares to examine my work will see that even when it is downright propaganda it contains much that a full-time politician would consider irrelevant. I am not able, and do not want, completely to abandon the world view that I acquired in childhood. So long as I remain alive and well I shall continue to feel strongly about prose style, to love the surface of the earth, and to take a pleasure in solid objects and scraps of useless information. It is no use trying to suppress that side of myself. The job is to reconcile my ingrained likes and dislikes with the essentially public, non-individual activities that this age forces on all of us.
It is not easy. It raises problems of construction and of language, and it raises in a new way the problem of truthfulness. Let me give just one example of the cruder kind of difficulty that arises. My book about the Spanish civil war, Homage to Catalonia, is of course a frankly political book, but in the main it is written with a certain detachment and regard for form. I did try very hard in it to tell the whole truth without violating my literary instincts. But among other things it contains a long chapter, full of newspaper quotations and the like, defending the Trotskyists who were accused of plotting with Franco. Clearly such a chapter, which after a year or two would lose its interest for any ordinary reader, must ruin the book. A critic whom I respect read me a lecture about it. ‘Why did you put in all that stuff?’ he said. ‘You've turned what might have been a good book into journalism.’ What he said was true, but I could not have done otherwise. I happened to know, what very few people in England had been allowed to know, that innocent men were being falsely accused. If I had not been angry about that I should never have written the book.
In one form or another this problem comes up again. The problem of language is subtler and would take too long to discuss. I will only say that of late years I have tried to write less picturesquely and more exactly. In any case I find that by the time you have perfected any style of writing, you have always outgrown it. Animal Farm was the first book in which I tried, with full consciousness of what I was doing, to fuse political purpose and artistic purpose into one whole. I have not written a novel for seven years, but I hope to write another fairly soon. It is bound to be a failure, every book is a failure, but I do know with some clarity what kind of book I want to write.
Looking back through the last page or two, I see that I have made it appear as though my motives in writing were wholly public-spirited. I don't want to leave that as the final impression. All writers are vain, selfish, and lazy, and at the very bottom of their motives there lies a mystery. Writing a book is a horrible, exhausting struggle, like a long bout of some painful illness. One would never undertake such a thing if one were not driven on by some demon whom one can neither resist nor understand. For all one knows that demon is simply the same instinct that makes a baby squall for attention. And yet it is also true that one can write nothing readable unless one constantly struggles to efface one's own personality. Good prose is like a windowpane. I cannot say with certainty which of my motives are the strongest, but I know which of them deserve to be followed. And looking back through my work, I see that it is invariably where I lacked a political purpose that I wrote lifeless books and was betrayed into purple passages, sentences without meaning, decorative adjectives and humbug generally.
1946
THE END
____BD____
George Orwell: ‘Why I Write’
First published: Gangrel. — GB, London. — summer 1946.
- Reprinted:
- — ‘Such, Such Were the Joys’. — 1953.
- — ‘England Your England and Other Essays’. — 1953.
- — ‘The Orwell Reader, Fiction, Essays, and Reportage’ — 1956.
- — ‘Collected Essays’. — 1961.
- — ‘Decline of the English Murder and Other Essays’. — 1965.
- — ‘The Collected Essays, Journalism and Letters of George Orwell’. — 1968.
30 comments:
George Orwell knew from when he was a child that writing would be his career. Since Orwell grew up being a middle child barely seeing his father, he started to develop "disagreeable mannerisms," which made him unpopular during his school years. As he grew up, writing became his hobby. His escape from the "unpleasant facts" of everyday life was through writing poems. Throughout his writing, his imagination extended, since he "used to imagine that I [he] was, say, Robin Hood…" Orwell wrote because of the extent of images and ideas that formed in his mind as a young child and in his teenage years. In The Educated Imagination, Frye explains that "the writer of literature can only write out what takes shape in his mind" (p.46). Conjuring up imaginative thoughts allowed Orwell to link his personal life to literature.
Growing up, Orwell did not write because he had to, but because he enjoyed it as a hobby. Orwell describes four motives for writing which "exist in different degrees in every writer." These four motives that lead to pure writing are sheer egoism, aesthetic enthusiasm, historical impulse and political purpose. Orwell states that sheer egoism is a characteristic that writers share with different professionals in science, arts, politics, law, military and business. However, Orwell also mentions that humans living after the age of thirty begin to live for others because they begin to feel they are imbedded in their work or they have families to take care of. Moreover, Orwell explains that all writers belong to the minority of people who are gifted that will live their lives to the end. Their writings last until the end because generation after generation will eventually read their works for educational or leisure purposes, just like Orwell's well-known novel "1984." In aesthetic enthusiasm, sharing an experience with others is important and valuable. It should not be missed because of the feelings one has for another. Orwell also had the historical impulse and political purpose to store facts and to guide society in a certain direction.
If Orwell were living in a peaceful age, he would have had the ability to write "descriptive books" that would have abolished his political loyalties. Living in Burma, and serving in the Imperial Police, he adopted poverty and a "sense of failure." He disliked authority and was aware of what Imperialism is and does. Furthermore, throughout the events of Hitler, Stalin, Mussolini and the Spanish Civil War, he did not make up his mind on what to write. He wrote about totalitarianism and democratic socialism because he understood them. Orwell had a desire for politics. He had the ability to convince himself that all his writings are a piece of art. Orwell knew what goes on in political issues, such as propaganda and lies. He turned his political writings into art because he wanted to expose the hidden truths in politics to get people to hear him and to make them more aware of their surroundings. Art is more appealing to people than pure politics, so turning political documentaries and writing into that type of artistic form attracted more people to listen to what he had to say.
In Orwell's book "Homage to Catalonia", he explains the truth about the violation of his literary instincts. Orwell also states that language is a process that could take up too much time discussing. Writing exactly or creatively will lead a writer to outgrow the language. Writers must be well aware of what they are writing and very conscious of what they produce because of violations of issues such as accusations of other people. Additionally, Orwell states that "all writers are vain, selfish and lazy", which is true. Writers have all these habits because they know that writing is a process, just like mathematics and science, which takes time to accomplish. They become very lazy and selfish because they spend too much time writing, so they become exhausted and ignore their surroundings such as their children and community. However, every writer must, at the same time, be confident in his own work.
In order to be a good writer and produce exceptional literary works, one must know when each of the four motives deserves to be followed and used. As Northrop Frye stated in The Educated Imagination, "we need two powers in literature, a power to create and a power to understand".
As a child we all have crazy dreams that we want to fulfill. For George Orwell, it was to become a writer. But unlike most of us he followed through with his dream and has become a successful writer. The reason Orwell writes is because he has something important to say, which most of us are completely oblivious to the important issues. In ‘Why I Write’ Orwell says that “I think from the very start my literary ambitions were mixed up with the feeling of being isolated and undervalued,” This same feeling can be seen in his ‘1984’ novel with the character Winston, who is much like himself. This is another reason as to why Orwell writes.
Orwell writes to convey his own personal life story through characters in his novel, to show different hardships he faced, as well as controversial issues he witnessed. “This was the making up of a continuous ‘story’ about myself, a sort of diary existing only in the mind,” Orwell says in this quote that he writes a diary about himself that only exists in his mind. This idea of a diary can also be seen in ‘1984’ with the physical representation of the diary Winston uses to express his thoughts about Big Brother. Writing in the diary is not a conscious act for Winston it is a subconscious act, “I seemed to be making this descriptive effort almost against my will, under a kind of compulsion from outside,” Orwell descriptive thought process is uncontrollable and comes from his subconscious, much like Winston’s subconscious feelings expressed in the diary about Big Brother.
According to Northrop Frye, “Literature's world is a concrete human world of
immediate experience.” This is true because Orwell writes about what he sees in the world, whether it be his own life, or what’s happening to others, “This increased my natural hatred of authority and made me for the first time fully aware of the existence of the working classes, and the job in Burma had given me some understanding of the nature of imperialism.” We see Orwell’s thoughts on imperialism as well as Fascism and Stalinism in ‘1984,’ he shows us how he feels about these topics, through Winston living in a society in which all three “isms” are present. Orwell is not particularly fond of any of the “isms” which is shown in ‘1984’.
Orwell also says that there are four impulses that influence a writer to write, sheer egoism, aesthetic enthusiasm, historical impulse and political purpose. These four impulses are what lead to his writing of ‘1984’. With each being present throughout the novel, sheer egoism is definitely present because today we still recognize Orwell for his works like ‘Animal Farm’ and ‘1984’. In terms of ‘1984,’ aesthetic enthusiasm - Orwell was very fond of the way words sounded and picked them for that specific purpose as well as experiences he wanted to share with his readers. Historical impulse - the cold war and World War II bringing Stalinism, fascism and imperialism. Finally his political purpose was to push the world away from Stalinism, fascism, and imperialism.
Orwell writes because he wants to get his message across, with the things that outrage him, as well as the things that he feels are injustices to people. Frye gets across the point “the more advanced the civilization, the more literature seems to concern itself with purely human problems and conflicts,” this is true in Orwell’s 1984 because he wrote it post World War II, and pre Cold War. This is when fascism and Stalinism were present and at their peak in the world. Frye also tells us that an object can symbolize something bigger than what it actually is, which Orwell shows in ‘1984’ with the paperweight, which symbolizes humanity, which Winston happens to find it fascinating. So again Orwell writes to convey the message of injustice, as well as the wrongness he see in the world, through his experience.
What is it that drives authors to write? Is it the mere idea of recognition from there peers and audience? That cannot be the entire reason that motivates writers. It is hard to believe that George Orwell created master pieces merely for just appreciation or fame. Then why does Orwell write? Reading George Orwell’s essay “Why I write“, unveiled the writers true motives which are mainly focused on aesthetic enthusiasm and political purpose.
Aesthetic enthusiasm as described by Orwell is the beauty found within the aspects of the text itself. It is the connection of words in which the author is truly inspired to put pen to paper. George Orwell plays with several word combinations in the novel 1984, the most recurring word combination is “Newspeak”. This arrangement of words phonically manage to flow together and still sound out of place. Dictionary.com describes newspeak as “Deliberately ambiguous and contradictory language used to mislead and manipulate the public.”
The word “Newspeak”, phonically sounds contradicting similar to its meaning, that it is a contradicting word. These intricate combinations of word and their meanings truly motivate the author to write creatively. Orwell as an admirer of the arrangement of words, furthermore believes it is the imagery that draw authors to compose novels. Imagery is important in representing a deeper meaning as well as allowing the reader to relate to these images. Orwell uses imagery to evoke emotions out of his readers. In 1984, when the character Winston describes his dream of the Golden Country, the reader cultivates he’s/her very own golden country with he’s/her imagination. Orwell tries to demonstrate how important it is that Winston can dream of such beauty in the ugly reality he finds himself living in.. In George Orwell he says that these beautiful descriptions motivate authors and himself for the, “Desire to share an experience one feels is valuable and ought not to be missed.”(3) The appreciation of this beauty in writing is one of the significant reason for Orwell’s desire to write.
While distinguishing the aesthetic beauties within writing seems to be more evident there is an underlying message, the political view. The author has he’s/her own political view throughout he’s/her novel, which the author attempts get the reader to understand or agree with. George Orwell’s political message is against totalitarianism, “[…]since 1936 has been written, directly or indirectly, against totalitarianism and for democratic socialism, as I understand it.”(5) The political message is present in the novel 1984, through the novel the reader witnesses exaggerated ideals of Big Brother that can relate to recent dictators. One of the prominent ways Orwell displays totalitarianism is by using the figure Big Brother to lead Oceania. With all this power being given to one man, the power is often over taking. This power is overwhelming for that one person and leads them to taking complete and utter control of the people. In the novel 1984, the “thought police” are the governments police, that are under disguise amongst the civilians. This political view is exposed with thought police monitoring the public to ensure they follow Big Brother. The thought police ensure that the civilians follow daily routine without even thinking, this regulation of their daily activity is an active part of totalitarianism. BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING YOU,[…] (1984,4), in this type of government the people live in fear of persecution. Orwell talks about the historical impulse in his essay, as a way of discovering the truth in ones society. The historical impulse allows the reader to receive all the facts or ideas, they can then use these facts to establish what the political purpose is. The author tries to provide the reader with a vast amount of facts and then uses these facts to prove their political purpose. The overall message that is portrayed by George Orwell is that one man should not govern a country it should be a group of people controlled by the public. Orwell is encouraged to write in order to express his political views on the readers.
There are several reasons that encourage an author to write. While analyzing two aspects that motivate writers according to Orwell, it is easier to fully understand his/her motives. George Orwell expresses the importance of aesthetic enthusiasm and political view, that truly motivate a writer. By scrutinizing these two features, people can come to the conclusion that is not simply for popularity that comes with books but for the greater appreciation in the art of writing.
George Orwell wrote an essay, “Why I Write,” to describe his journey of becoming a writer. The given excerpt of this ‘coming-of-age’ essay provides us with enough information to discern the underlying reasons for Orwell to becoming a writer.
From young childhood, Orwell subconsciously knew that he had a literary calling and would end up becoming a writer. This belief probably stemmed from the fact that he spent much of his early years alone, and this loneliness was a ‘fertile ground’ for developing and using his imagination. “I had the lonely child's habit of making up stories and holding conversations with imaginary persons.” Orwell’s imaginative childhood is crucial to his literary aspirations and development, because, as we know from Frye, the imagination is the most important part of the writer; and everything stems from it. Imperative to writing well and engaging the reader is, first, to have an imagination vivid and developed enough to conceive an interesting story, and, second, to have the skill necessary to transfer that imaginative story into concrete words on paper. Orwell’s lonely childhood and ensuing imagination was the stimulus for his creative ideas, while his early exposure to writing and literature probably fostered early development of language to the extent that he could write poems at age of four. “I cannot remember anything about it except that it was about a tiger and the tiger had ‘chair-like teeth’ — a good enough phrase, but I fancy the poem was a plagiarism of Blake's ‘Tiger, Tiger’.” From his childhood recollections, readers infer that Orwell must have been read to, and also likely, read alone from a young, impressionable age. Furthermore, as Orwell notes himself, writing allowed him to escape from reality to resolve personal conflicts, loneliness and feeling of being undervalued, “I knew that I had a facility with words and a power of facing unpleasant facts, and I felt that this created a sort of private world in which I could get my own back for my failure in everyday life”. Therefore, Orwell’s childhood loneliness and perhaps feeling of awkwardness and being undervalued, along with his early development of language and understanding the power of writing, cultivated the idea of Orwell becoming a writer, at an early age; influencing his adolescence and adulthood.
This explains why, subconsciously and with ease, during his adolescent years, Orwell engaged in many activities of the literary nature, further developing his skills. “Apart from school work, I wrote vers d'occasion, semi-comic poems which I could turn out at what now seems to me astonishing speed — at fourteen I wrote a whole rhyming play, in imitation of Aristophanes, in about a week — and helped to edit a school magazines, both printed and in manuscript.” He was well read, reading many books during that period, such as Robin Hood and Paradise Lost. Also, during his childhood and early adolescence, he was actively creating a sort of story or ‘diary’ of himself in his mind—the ‘story’, he later recalls, was very like the novels that he had read in the past, imitating the various styles of authors of his childhood. This further supports Frye’s notion of literature being conventionalized, where the author draws his or her inspiration and templates from existing works and authors, and that, in essence, all literature imitates earlier works. This further development of Orwell’s creative mind and cultivation of his vocabulary and writing skills, fostered later a love for words furthering his early aspiration of becoming a writer.
Orwell’s continued association with reading, creating and writing throughout his childhood, finally resulted in a revelation at the age of sixteen, where he, “suddenly discovered the joy of mere words, i.e. the sounds and associations of words.” Shortly afterwards, Orwell not only decided that he would write books, but he also knew, in general terms, what kinds of books he would like write. “[Orwell] wanted to write enormous naturalistic novels with unhappy endings, full of detailed descriptions and arresting similes, and also full of purple passages in which words were used partly for the sake of their own sound.” His first book, Burmese Days, was just that type of novel. However, as Orwell matured both a person and a writer, he realized that he could not, and did not, write mainly for the sake of putting words together – which he feared would produce lifeless literature devoid of meaning. Instead, he himself, acknowledged four fundamental reasons to write. The first was sheer egoism; described as a desire to write in order to seem witty, talked about, and be remembered after your death. Understandably, it is common for one to desire acknowledgement, if not fame, in the world as it gives an exhilarating sensation of belonging, purpose, and importance to one’s existence. The second motive is aesthetic enthusiasm which involves, “Perception of beauty in the external world, or, on the other hand, in words and their right arrangement.” Writers write because they are fond of certain sounds of words, phrases and rhythm of prose, and truly enjoy incorporating those elements into their work to make as glamorous as possible. The third motive is historical impulse, an urge to discover and see the truth of the past, and put into literature, “for the use of posterity.” And lastly, the fourth reason for writing is political purpose is, “Desire to push the world in a certain direction, to alter other peoples’ idea of the kind of society that they should strive after.” By incorporating his or her political ideas and beliefs into literature, the author can spread and popularize those ideals, which can then gain acceptance and have the desired effect on the current political affairs. On the whole, writers, as Orwell described, are vain and self-conscious people that write to have their own ideas, beliefs, and whims of every sort popularized and acclaimed.
In Orwell’s earlier works, the first three motives always dominated, and “in a peaceful age I [...] might have remained almost unaware of my political loyalties.” Because of the lack of the fourth motive, he spent some time looking for his political loyalties. They were first influenced by his five years of servitude as Indian Imperial Police in Burma and the state of poverty he entered afterward, which further propagated his natural hatred of authority. After witnessing the Spanish revolution and the actions of Hitler, he finally decided that he was against totalitarianism and, instead, focused his attention to promote democratic socialism. From that point on, all his serious work was not only heavily influenced by, but also often expressed the current political struggles in the world. He believed that, at times like he was living in, it was complete nonsense to ignore politics in literature. Orwell’s main focus of writing altered, to instead, inform the public of the truths that were going on in the world, exposing lies, drawing attention to certain facts, denouncing tyranny, and promoting democracy. However, he did not just want to write down his political ideas, but, also, wanted to include an aesthetic experience. ``What I have most wanted to do throughout the past ten years is to make political writing into an art.`` He did not want to completely discard and forget his childhood ideals of writing useless information, associating words, and taking pleasure in solid objects. For example, in his novel Homage to Catalonia dealt with the Spanish Revolution, and he tried, and successfully managed, to tell the whole truth without going against any of his literary instincts and structure. That novel was extremely political and it informed the general public of truths that were not commonly known, such as the wrongful convictions and condemnation of innocent men. His extreme dedication for telling the truth is seen by the fact that he added a whole chapter composed of article and newspaper snips that supported his message, even though it ``Ruined a potentially good book.`` Lastly, in his novel Animal Farm, Orwell, for the first time consciously ``fused political purpose and artistic purpose into one whole,`` where he openly discussed the horrors of totalitarianism and the notion that such a society would not be agreeable to live in. Similarly, Orwell wrote 1984 to warn readers of a possible totalitarian future that his current Cold-War world was striving to, in the hope that his writing would have an effect on people and would somehow prevent such a future from realization.
The primary purpose Orwell`s serious works of writing was to convey the truth of what was going on in the world, campaign against totalitarianism, and warn of what the future can be if the world continues to follow the set trajectory. His works was always been influenced by his early developed imagination and childhood adoration of words, prose, and rhymes. However, Orwell was also motivated by pure egoism and the want of being remembered and acclaimed, `”All writers are vain, selfish, and lazy, and at the very bottom of their motives there lies a mystery.” The essay shows the development of his becoming a writer from the little lonely boy playing with imaginary friends, avoiding the reality of criticism and alienation, to a world renowned writer who wrote politically charged books.
The best way to explain George Orwell’s reasons for writing lays simply in his nature. Since a very early stage he wrote poems, plays and magazines. He “had a facility with words and a power of facing unpleasant facts” which made him unpopular during his school years, but at the same time helped him develop his imagination. The fact that he felt “a kind of compulsion from the outside” meant that he saw society as it was: full of failure and misused potential. During his isolation as a child he found more than enough time to think about these flaws, which he himself called “an emotional attitude from which he will never completely escape”, and which will help him further in his career to write about his own experiences and insights of the world.
This distaste for the world around him made him a great candidate to write with “aesthetic enthusiasm” which is a “desire to share an experience which one feels is valuable and ought not to be missed”. The experience he is talking about came not only from his early childhood, but also from the fact that he worked for the Indian Imperial Police which gave him an “understanding of the nature of imperialism” where he felt very unpleasant at how the money was being distributed as he expressed in his poem, “horses are made of chromium steel and little fat men shall ride them”, where the money was to be distributed only between politicians or those who are in charge. As well, the fact that he lived through World War II, the Spanish Civil War and the Great Depression gave him an “accurate political orientation”; an orientation in where he saw politicians as unjust and selfish. This angriness made him want to put things down in paper and speak to the world in order to let them know about these injustices. An example of this, would be his book about the Spanish civil war, Homage to Catalonia, where we see him clearly making an effort, through a lengthy chapter of newspaper facts, to communicate with England and let its population know that “innocent men were being falsely accused”.
The fact that he wrote with the purpose of expressing his political views is not the only reason he wrote, he also wrote with the desire to express the “beauty in the external world”, a world that he describes as been long forgotten. He express this frustration and disappointment in the lines, “I wasn’t born for an age like this; was Smith? Was Jones? Were you?”. In his poem, he also talks about trying to dream of happier times, ancestral times, where people could actually dream and who were not sentence to death as “Eugene Aram”, who was condemn and driven by the actions of his wife to commit murder. This poem is a representation of how George Orwell felt sentenced himself by his past generations, “but born, alas, in an evil time, I missed that pleasant haven”, where he wishes he was born in happier times, and so he feels as if he has missed his place of sanctuary and safety. A place that should be rightfully given to everyone. This forgotten beauty is also described continuously in 1984 where Winston dreams of a beautiful paradise which he remembers from his early childhood, but that he does not seem to understand anymore. Winston could not relate to this ‘paradise’ anymore, and Orwell could either because of all the horrible things that he live trough.
Orwell writes to express his own experiences and to express the beauty and the realities of the world but as he says, “all writes are vain, selfish, and lazy, and at the very bottom of their motives there lies a mystery”, meaning that he also wrote for “sheer egoism”, for the “desire to seem clever” and to rub everyone of his intellectual capacities. The mystery or the “demon” that drove him to write is simply his own nature. He was meant to write from the beginning and even when he does not write he does “with the consciousness that I [he] was outraging my [his] true nature”. The same instinct that makes a baby cry made him a writer: nature. And although “it is bound to be a failure, every book is a failure”, he still writes because that is simply what he wants to do and what he was born to do. It is his way of relating things he understands with things he does not understand. It is his escape, his nature and his vanity all together.
In order to understand whey novels are made, there must first be a minor understanding of the author’s history. In an essay written by George Orwell,
“Why I Write”, he explains why he and all authors write.
At a young age, Orwell was able to determine that his profession in the future would be as a writer. He was the middle child of three and was without the presence of a father figure for the majority of his childhood. Due to his lonely and isolated feelings, Orwell would manifest his feelings into imaginary characters and literature. “I knew that I had a facility with words and a power facing unpleasant facts, and I felt that this created a sort of private world in which I could get my own back for my failure in everyday life.”
Throughout his school years his literary talents developed and he continued to write poems and rhyming plays, and took a significant role in the production of school magazines. During his late teens, Orwell would create a “story” of his own life in his mind which stemmed from what he had read from the past and when he was presently reading. This “story” was what made him able to face his emotions from his childhood and early teen years.
Over the years, Orwell was able to develop a sense of what he wanted to write about and did so in his first novel: Burmese Days. Later on in his life he developed another emotional attitude which made him come to the conclusion that all literary works can be broken down into four categories which depends on the writer’s exterior influences.
the four influences are: Sheer Egoism is the desire to seem clever and to be talked about which is present in all works of literature and even in jobs such as politics. Aesthetic enthusiasm is the awareness of beauty in the world and in words. A historical impulse which is the yearning to see things how they are. Lastly, there is political purpose which shows the reader the author’s view on a specific situation.
Throughout George Orwell’s life, the experiences that he went through, such as poverty and the Spanish War, changed his political values and his views of our world. “It is simply a question of which side one takes and what approach one follows. And the more one is conscious of one’s political bias, the more chance one has of acting politically without sacrificing one’s aesthetic and intellectual integrity.”
“When I sit down to write a book, I do not say to myself, ‘I am going to produce a work of art’. I write it because there is some lie that I want to expose, some fact to which I want to draw attention, and my initial concern is to get a hearing.” The Main reason Orwell writes is that he wants to show his readers what his views of the world or a specific subject are. Every writer in the world uses their political views and opinions to show the readers what they believe. This is the main message of every novel and the reason why people write. “And at the very bottom of their motives there lies a mystery.”
Why does George Orwell write? If you asked Orwell why he wrote, he may answer your question with a question. Why does any writer write? Putting aside the need to earn a living, there are four great motives for writing. They exist in different degrees in every writer. They are: sheer egoism, aesthetic enthusiasm, historical impulse, and political purpose.
Nevertheless why did Orwell write? As a young child Orwell was rather lonely. To cope with this he developed habits to make up stories and hold conversations with imaginary persons, and from early on in his literary ambitions were mixed up with the feeling of being isolated and undervalued. He had competence in words, and the power of facing unpleasant facts, so he used writing to create a private world in which he could get back for his own failures in everyday life. Eventually Orwell rather became obsessed with writing because it was a way for him to escape the world he lived in and enter the world he wanted to live in. Throughout his life, Orwell sort of catalogued continuous stories in his mind that derived from his experiences and views he had in the world.
Orwell says: “background information of the writer is important because I do not think one can assess a writer's motives without knowing something of his early development. His subject matter will be determined by the age he lives in.” In a nut shell Orwell is saying that the writer always and can only write about his past experiences and what is known to him. His imagination can only go so far as to expand on ideas he may have acquired during his life time.
All of Orwell’s books were from his experiences and behind his stories there is always another story/message in which his whole book is structured around. His ideas and messages in his books derived from positions he developed throughout his life. Of the four writing motives, (sheer egoism, aesthetic enthusiasm, historical impulse, and political purpose) Orwell would say he is a person that in which the first three would out way the third. Many would see him as a writer who emphasized on the political purpose, however Orwell would say he focused much more on the first three motives, and was rather unaware of the political purpose of his writings. This is because while writing, Orwell’s messages were always bias as it derived from political positions he took in real life, and the books he wrote were just him expressing his school of taught.
“ The first thing our imaginations have to do for us, as soon as we can handle words well enough to read and write and talk, is to fight to protect us from falling into illusions that society threatens us with”(Frye, 87). This is essentially what Orwell does in his writing, he writes about the world he envisions. In “1984” he is able to write about the aspects of reality and give the reader a new viewpoint on reality and where it’s going based on the positions he had taking and the world he envisions.
To conclude the primary reasons why George Orwell writes is because he enjoys the use of words and is highly motivated by the aesthetic component of the four motives, and also he finds it as a way to express himself in his school of taught. Rather he is motivated by the political purpose, which contains the message and the true reason of his writings. As Orwell says, “no book is free of political bias”. Given this, one can say: George Orwell writes because he has a comfort zone in writing and views it as the best way to express himself and his political stance.
Due to the difference of personality in all human beings, we all have different ways of expressing our feelings and thoughts. As you grow older, you’re past experiences and surroundings also influence they way you carry yourself in everyday life. For example, the way in which a professional athlete relieves stress in his or her everyday life will often be much different compared to the way an author would. I believe that for authors, like George Orwell it is through practicing writing that stress is relieved for many different reasons.
In his essay titled ‘Why I Write’, Orwell discusses the fact that he used to narrate his life inside his head growing up as a child until he reached the age of twenty-five. “My ‘story’ ceased to be narcissistic in a crude way and became more and more a mere description of what I was doing and the things I saw.” What I found interesting in Orwell’s essay was the fact that he notes that this is a common act for children and adolescents, but not for an individual who is twenty-five. I believe narrating was his way of coping with the fact that his childhood was a little different compared to the rest of the children from school. The early separation from the other children started developing in his younger years and was something he was never fully able to abandon while becoming a man. The fact is that if he was not content with living this type of alienated life, he could have tried many different things to fix his social handicap. This narration in his head created an ever-changing story that only he could control and this was what brought him to be able to create his own world inside his head. The author of ‘The Educated Imagination’, Northrop Frye would praise this everlasting story Orwell wrote in his mind because in the end this is what helped Orwell develop his ideal world that he felt was best for him to live in. This sense of identifying his ideal world is one of the many reasons I believe Orwell decided to write.
Another possibility that motivated Orwell to become a writer was the reason I believe I would share if I were to become a writer. It is that he wanted to make people more aware of the world around them. The world he created in his mind is what gave him the ability to critique the world he was living in at the time the book was written. The perfect world he was able to create in his mind was what helped him identify major flaws in the real world. “Before he (an author) ever begins to write he will have acquired an emotional attitude from which he will never completely escape.” This emotional attitude is what inspires the author to write about and is also what keeps the passion in the writing. After going through a different variety of book topics, Orwell ended up relating a lot of his books to a political theme. In both the Animal Farm and 1984, themes like Stalinism (when there is a one man power government) and Imperialism (when a strong company takes over a much weaker one) are observed because these are what he as he grew up and developed an outlook on.
Altogether whether the motivation is to seem clever, share your experiences with someone else, find out facts about the past, or persuade someone to view you theories about social issues, all authors have different reasons for writing. I have also learnt that these motives can be changed depending on the stage of life he or she is in and that a book can be incredible to one reader and absolutely horrible to the other because it also matters what the reader is going through in their life.
Authors, athletes, teachers, principles, and even actors all have a talent. They all decide to be in specific fields because it is something they enjoy to do; it gives them a feeling of accomplishment. George Orwell the author of 1984, Animal Farm, and other pieces of literature gives us his argument and biography on why he writes, and when did it all begin.
George Orwell was five or six years old when he began to write. He was the middle child of three, and barley saw his father before he was eight. This made him lonely, and then he soon developed “disagreeable mannerisms”, which made him unpopular at school. Orwell was a very lonely child, he would tend to make up stories, have conversations with imaginary friends, and have the feeling of being isolated and undervalued. There is no doubt that Orwell’s upsetting emotions, influenced him to write.
Orwell was a very talented and different kind of writer. Even though he had a creative mind, and attempted several pieces of literature, in the end they were either badly written, or unfinished. All of Orwell’s life he had kept himself occupied by writing, he had written several poems of all different styles including: semi-comic and Georgian style. Also, other various pieces he had written were short stories, and when he was fourteen he had written a whole rhyming play, in about a week. When Orwell was sixteen years old, it was clear to him what kind of books he wanted to write. They were enormous naturalistic novels, with unhappy endings, full of detailed descriptions and arresting similes. When he was thirty, he did create a novel that revolved around his interests, which was called Burmese Days. Orwell had mentioned in his essay, that “I give all this background information because I do not think one can assess a writer’s motives without knowing something of his early development”, and of course he was right. During English class, we learn that it is very important to understand the author, or even research the author’s interests or background because the more you interpret the author, the understanding of the novel becomes more apparent to the reader.
George Orwell believed that there are four great motives for writing. Every writer adopts these motives in different degrees. They are:
Sheer Egoism - Desire to seem clever, to be talked about, and to be remembered after death
Aesthetic enthusiasm – Perception of beauty in the external world […] desire to share an experience which one feels is valuable and ought not to be missed.
Historical impulse- Desire to see things as they are, to find out true facts and store them up for the use of posterity
Political impulse- Using the word ‘political’ in the widest possible sense
Orwell had felt as if his writing alters between the first three motives in his writing, and the three of them outweigh the fourth motive which is Political impulse. Like most teenagers, we can relate to Orwell when he says that he had “remained almost unaware of his political loyalties”. By not voting during elections, being unaware with the government’s new laws, or our economic problems, makes it clear that our society is being ignorant to politics and the world that they live in. In the time period of Hitler, the Spanish Civil War, and other tragic political dilemma’s, Orwell had started to become more aware about Politics and the world that he lives in. Through all these experiences, Orwell was now able to write about Politics and the predicament he was in. There is a line in his poem that he had written, that we can relate to. “All ignorant we dared to own, the joys we now dissemble.”
Our society is always being compared to others, especially the United States. The United States is going through a recession, and we are too. However, people did not know that they are until it had to be said by the government. This is the relation to the above line, our ignorance makes us happy, and when we recognize the truth, we are not happy anymore.
When Orwell writes, he wants to expose a lie, or some fact that he wishes to draw attention to, and of course to get a hearing. Also, he says “I am not able, and do not want, completely to abandon the world view that I acquired in childhood”. Orwell wants to keep his past experiences alive, because it is what makes him who he is. What he feels strongly about, is put on paper and his experiences and thoughts are all compressed into great pieces of literature. Orwell enjoys writing about his likes and dislikes of the public.
To conclude, Orwell writes about things to educate people’s imagination. His writing consists of his own experiences, political purpose, and his opinion. The reason why he writes is because it’s a way to express himself. George Orwell said, “And yet it is also true that one can write nothing readable unless one constantly struggles to efface one’s own personality”. When you know who you are, or try to find out your purpose in life, then that’s when your writing portrays meaning, and that is why Orwell’s writing conducts meaning.
At a very young age, many people find that they have a passion to do something great in this world, whether it is in the world of math, science, law, engineering, literature, etc. George Orwell knew from a very early age that his passion was for writing. He didn’t write novels right away though, he tried to abandon the idea but it kept coming back to him that he needed to write.
Being the middle child with a wide gap between the ages made it difficult for Orwell to build a strong relationship with his siblings. He also had troubles making friends at school. This gave him the habit of writing stories and opening up his imagination with imaginary friends. His writing did not get much better over a span of about 5-10 years, although, he got an article published in the newspaper at the age of 11. He attempted to write poems, and a short story, but they were not very successful.
The experiences Orwell went through in his early years of life had a major impact on the way he wrote when he was older. His emotional experiences, as well as spiritual both impacted in what he wrote and the way he wrote. Orwell believes that there are four motives for a person to write. The first one is sheer egoism, which is the desire to put an impact on the reader’s mind, and to be remembered after death. Writers want to be able to live life until the end and use the time they have very wisely. Orwell had sheer egoism in him from the day he realized he was meant to write, and he fulfilled that ego by being talked about years after death. The second motive is aesthetic enthusiasm, which is to have beauty in the work. It is the beauty in the rhythm and style in the work. The writer has the desire to share experiences and life lessons with others through their beautiful writing. The third motive is historical impulse, which is to write about facts the way they are. The fourth motive is political purpose, which is to give people an idea of certain societies, and which one they prefer. We all want to be remembered after death, and writers do so through their writing, and their style, as they try to prove something they strongly believe in. Orwell looks over the four motives, and realizes that the first three suit him more than the fourth does.
After George Orwell went through a poverty stricken time in his life, he realized his dislike for power and authority. Also, he realized that he needed to write against totalitarianism following the Spanish war. He sees lies and injustices throughout politics, and therefore wants to expose them to the rest of society. He wanted to make a political writing a work of art, but never told himself that he would produce a work of art, “When I sit down to write a book, I do not say to myself, ‘I am going to produce a work of art.’” He had certain views on different political ideas and wanted to let others know of his views through his writing.
As a child, Orwell developed a style of prose, and continued to use it throughout his later works of literature. He finds it very important for a writer to keep childhood styles, and use them in later works. In his book Homage to Catalona, he incorporated a chapter with newspaper clippings in it, and many people argue that the book would have been a lot better without that chapter, but Orwell felt he needed to add it in as a part of his writing style.
George Orwell writes because he found at a young age that he was meant to write. Of the four motives, he follows the aesthetic enthusiasm influence the most. His views on politics are greatly shown throughout his novels. Animal Farm was his first attempt at showing the society what his views were through a novel, and following that came 1984. His intention was never to be remembered, but to just get his views across.
George Orwell’s journey to becoming a writer is described in his essay "Why I Write". The essay underlines George Orwell’s life experiences which in turn have a over all effect on his writing. Therefore the main purpose of the essay is to approach George Orwell’s life and discover the reasons leading to George Orwell becoming a writer.
From a young age Orwell felt that his purpose in life was to become a writer, he soon tried to abandon this idea, pushing the true calling of literature out of his subconscious, though it still lay in his unconscious mind. Orwell’s lonely chapter in his childhood lead him to resorting to such ideas as an imaginary person. One can conclude that Orwell’s imagination was an active one during his younger years of his life. “I had the lonely child’s habit of making up stories and holding conversations with imaginary persons, and I think form the very start my literary ambitions were mixed up with the feeling of being isolated and undervalued (George Orwell, Why I Write)”. Due to Orwell’s isolation of society he resorted to undervaluing himself, this became a major motif to Orwell’s writing. Literature became a escape to a private world where Orwell could deal with the failures of his life. As seen through psychoanalytic critism an authors past experiences, such as traumas, failures, and successes, will therefore manifest itself in the authors literature. Therefore Orwell’s lonely childhood will then have an effect on his style of writing. His first piece of literature was a poem written by his mother as he dictated it at the age of four, this poem resembled that of Blake’s ‘Tiger, Tiger’. “A writer’s desire to write can only have come from previous experience of literature, and he’ll start by imitating whatever he’s read, which usually means what the people around him are writing (The Educated Imagination.19)”. As Frye states in his critical thought on literature outlined in the Educated Imagination, a writer’s work will often times reflect that of a previous piece of literature. In George Orwell’s essay his unconscious act of plagiarizing ‘tiger, tiger’, shows his true calling to literature, this act is not merely plagiarism but it is defining George Orwell’s calling to literature. Therefore George Orwell’s true calling of literature stemmed from the imaginative mind he resorted to due to his feelings of inferiority and loneliness.
As Orwell reached his adolescent years, he engaged in literary activities such as producing the semi comic poems ‘vers d’occasion’, as well as a rhyming play in imitation of Aristophanes. “But side by side with all this, for fifteen years or more, I was carrying out a literary exercise of a quite difference kind: this was the making up of a continuous ‘story’ about myself, a sort of diary existing only in the mind (Why I Write)”. Orwell’s imagination began to manifest itself in his own life, through the mental diary he created. “As a very small child I used to imagine that I was, say Robin Hood, and picture myself as the hero of thrilling adventures, but quite soon my ‘story’ ceased to be narcissistic in a crude way and became more and more a mere description of what I was doing and the things I saw (Why I Write)”. Orwell often times compares himself with previous works of literature, which further relates back to Frye’s theory that literature is conventionalized, though Orwell’s imagination is proving to be endless, his mental diary is a form of literature that is conventionalized and based around that of pre-existing piece of literature. “The story must, I suppose, have reflected the styles of the various writers I admired at different ages, but so far as I remembered it always had the same meticulous descriptive quality”. Orwell is stating that in these mental diaries there are certain piece of literature embedded within them from previous ages. With the thought that literature can only exist within itself, and all literature derives from a previous form, Orwell’s imagination is proving to be the beginning of a great piece of literature. These mental diaries were a reflection of Orwell’s own life, this further relates to the psychoanalytic form of criticism in the fact that the authors subconscious thoughts such as, what he sees or hears everyday will in turn have and effect on his writing. Orwell’s imagination is further proving to be his motif and call to literature. Orwell’s imagination soon developed at the age of 16 leading him to the discovery of his literary gift. His passion soon became clear, which was geared towards naturalistic novels with unhappy endings. He soon began to incorporate similes while creating his first complete novel Burmese Days.
Orwell uses the psychoanalytic form of criticism when defining why he incorporated his background into his essay “Why I Write”. “I give all this background information because I do not think one can asses a writer’s motives without knowing something of his early development. His subject matter will be determined by the age he lives in- at least this is true in tumultuous, revolutionary ages like out own- but before he ever begins to write he will have acquired an emotional attitude from which he will never completely escape”. Orwell’s explanation for the background of his life being incorporated into his essay, follows that of a psychoanalytic critic. That is to say that the authors subconscious mind and emotions towards a subject will then manifest itself in the authors expressive work. As the essay approaches the key answer to why George Orwell writes, he introduces the four motives for writing. “ I think there are four great motives for writing, at any rate for writing prose. They exist in different degrees in every writer, and in any one writer the proportions will vary from time to time, according to the atmosphere in which he is living (Orwell)”. The first motive introduced is sheer egoism though it is a quite self centred one it is “the desire to seem clever, to be talked about, to be remembered after death (Orwell)”. Literature will live on past the writer, therefore the best way to be remembered for years to come after death is literature, this becomes one of Orwell’s motives to writing. The second motive is Aesthetic enthusiasm which Orwell defines as the “ perceptions of beauty in the external world, or, on the other hand, in words and their right arrangement. Pleasure in the impact of one sound on another, in the firmness of good prose or the rhythm of a good story (Orwell)”. Orwell has previously introduced this idea when stating “ When I was about sixteen I suddenly discovered the joy of mere words, I.e. the sounds and associations of words (Orwell)”. The third motive mentions is historical impulse which Orwell defines as the “desire to see things as they are, to find out true facts and store them up for the use of posterity”. Lesley Orwell introduces political purpose which he defines as the “desire to push the world in a certain direction, to alter other peoples idea of the kind political bias (Orwell)”. These four motives collectively form Orwell’s desire to become a writer, though the fourth motive is inapplicable to Orwell.
Orwell spent five years of his life in a unsuitable profession, the Indian Imperial Police, in Burma, which lead Orwell to poverty and a sense of failure. Orwell began to develop an increased natural hatred of authority, as well as an awareness of the working classes. His understanding of nature of imperialism soon began to develop but not into a accurate political orientation. Orwell soon retreated to the comfort of his own imagination, in order to write a poem addressing his dilemma. Orwell began to foster a desire to make political writing into an art. “When I sit down to write a book, I do not say to myself, ‘I am going to produce a work of art’. I write it because there is some lie that I want to expose, some fact to which I want to draw attention, and my initial concern is to get a hearing (Why I Write)”. Orwell began to foster a desire to bring fourth truth of any political lie to the public, while addressing certain injustices. Though this form of writing has proven to introduce many reoccurring problems Orwell continues to stick to this style of writing. When sticking to a certain style of writing one begins to outgrow it.
Though the process of writing is one of great difficulty, Orwell addresses exactly why he writes. When explaining why he writes, Orwell includes the four major motives that define the writer. In conclusion Orwell’s imagination has fully blossomed to form a critical writer who addresses the political untruths of the world that we live in today, the world of 1984.
Although we do not write eye-opening novels, or Nobel prize-winning novels, we are all writers. Each one of us carries reasons to why we write, whether it is a class blog, or a diary, or even letters to families. As an individual writer, I write to get a point across, or to just vent out my thoughts and feelings. “Why I Write” is an essay, written by George Orwell, revealing not only his passion but the very reason he writes. In this essay, the reason is given to us in a simple statement: “When I sit down to write a book, I do not say to myself, ‘I am going to produce a work of art’. I write because there is some lie that I want to expose, some fact to which I want to draw attention, and my initial concern is to get a hearing.”
Taken from a poem he had written in 1935, George says, “But born, alas, in an evil time, I missed that pleasant haven […] The greenfinch on the apple bough Could make my enemies tremble.” The greenfinch is a bird that has a cheerful chirp, and is very sociable. George Orwell reveals the depression, chaos, and loss of control in society, by stating that something so sweet and merry is enough to make others afraid. Instead of directly telling others this to, politically, hint out the negatives within his society, he voices out his opinion through his writing. “[…] the more one is conscious of one’s political bias, the more chance one has of acting politically without sacrificing one’s aesthetic and intellectual integrity.” This is not only seen in Orwell, but in poets and other authors. Although some books are fiction novels, certain facts take from the story connect to lead to a universal theme, truth, or message. As for poems, you can take out certain symbols and metaphors, and with proper understanding of them, it leads to, once again, a universal theme, truth, or message. This is why we can still relate to the books or novels that were written even before we were born—because they all contain a universal truth. For example: George Orwell’s 1984. As we have done in the previous blog discussion, there are many situations (or truths) within the novel that is not only portrayed in the novel, but within our own society (i.e. slang such as: lol; muhlik; ghetto; pimpin’ and how it affects our intelligence, or how we are unconsciously being surveilled through our traffic cameras, store cameras, cameras in our school, and even our personal records).
When George Orwell writes, he writes to expose a lie, or to catch the public’s attention and expose his thoughts and personal observations of his society or the revolving life around him. It is not his intention to teach a lesson, but to expose a lesson he has learned. It is through writing that he does this, and it is through writing that we learn.
As most people should know, George Orwell was a brilliant writer who knew exactly what he liked and what he wanted to write about. Politics, for example, was an enormous preference. However, as Orwell explains in his essay “Why I Write”, this was not always as obvious as it is now. His novel, 1984, which was written after this essay, was perhaps not only his best politically based novel, but his best novel overall. When he admits, “I have not written a novel for seven years, but I hope to write another fairly soon [...] I do know with some clarity what kind of book I want to write,” he is referring to 1984, which was published three years later. His essay explains literature as his career and simply as a part of his life, both of which unfold a structured story as to why George Orwell wrote.
Orwell knew at the early age of five or six that he should be a writer. Typically a boy of this age dreams about being a firefighter or an astronaut, not a writer. But Orwell did, and he had good reason to. Because of rare contact with his family, he developed a habit of making up stories and imaginary characters. He wrote his first poem when he was four but believes most of it came from a poem entitled “Tiger, Tiger.” Orwell goes on to mention what he calls “bad and usually unfinished poems” and a short story which was a “ghastly failure” which he wrote during his childhood. He explains that, “for fifteen years or more, I was carrying out a literary exercise of quite a different kind: the making up of a continuous ‘story’ about myself [...] and became more and more a mere description of what I was doing and the things I saw.” This was happening against his will, until he was twenty-five years old, during the years where Orwell made the effort to abandon the idea of literature. He could not help but make a descriptive effort of everything around him, and the ‘story’ mentioned earlier, according to Orwell, “reflected the styles of the various writers I admired at different ages.”
On an interesting note, in The Educated Imagination, Northrop Frye makes a point that “there’s nothing new in literature that isn’t the old reshaped.” (40) Orwell admits that the way he wrote when he was a young man resembled that of writers which he admired. It is fair, then, to assume that he was directly affected by the writers who came before him, proving Frye’s point.
Before the time where Orwell was “outraging his nature” by leaving the world of writing, he believed he knew what kind of books he wanted to write. He wanted to write novels with unhappy endings, with detailed descriptions, and with words only for the sake of their sounds. His first novel, Burmese Days, was indeed that kind of book. Orwell then makes a point that a person cannot understand a writer’s motives without knowing his early development. He then adds, “before he ever begins to write he will have acquired an emotional attitude from which he will never completely escape [...] but if he escapes from his early influences altogether, he will have killed his impulse to write.” Frye is worth mentioning again because he says, “we need two powers in literature, a power to create and a power to understand [...] and behind our responses to individual works, there’s a bigger response to our literary experience as a whole, as a total possession.” (63) Both the writer and the reader need to understand literature as a whole, so if someone abandons his early literary influences, he can no longer write or understand what he is reading.
Orwell suggests that, besides the need to earn a living, there are four motives for writing. “Sheer egoism” which is the desire to seem clever and to be talked about and remembered, “aesthetic enthusiasm” which refers to the desire to share an experience, “historical impulse” which is the desire to see things as they are, and finally “political purpose”. This last motive is the desire to push the world in a certain direction and to convince people that a particular society should be the one they want. George Orwell was a person for whom the first three motives outweighed the fourth. However, because he “underwent poverty and a sense of failure,” he says, “this increased my natural hatred of authority and made me for the first time fully aware of the existence of the working classes.” Orwell then admits that every piece of work that he has done since 1936 have been written against totalitarianism and for democratic socialism. He argues that “the more one is conscience of one’s political bias, the more chance one has of acting politically.”
“Writing a book is a horrible, exhausting struggle.” This statement was said by George Orwell, one of the best authors of all time. There obviously must be something else, some other motive to write. In his essay “Why I Write”, he answers that question quite clearly. “What I have most wanted to do throughout the past ten years is to make political writing into an art. [...] I write because there is some lie that I want to expose, some fact to which I want to draw attention. [...] Looking back through my work, I see that it is invariably where I lacked a political purpose that I wrote lifeless books.” The next novel that Orwell wrote after writing this essay was 1984, a very politically based book with very possible and very challenging ideas. As stated before, he wanted to expose a society that people should consider. Today, in 2008, the world in 1984 is becoming more and more obvious, which is what Orwell wanted the people of his time to see. He left his mark in the world of literature, as 1984 was his last attempt to express what he wanted to when he wrote, which was the world of politics and all of the corruptions be believed it to contain.
Growing up, children are asked what they would like to be when they grow up. Boys want to become firefighters or policemen, while girls dream of being ballerinas or teachers, Orwell however was not like any other child, he wanted to become a writer. Every writer has their own reason for writing. One may chose to write because they knew that they were born to do it, some may chose to simply tell stories about their life events or memories, they may just want to create stories that contain non fictional attributes, while others may just have the passion to write what they desire the most.
His decision to write began as a child “From an early age of five or six, I knew that when I grew up I should be a writer”. Growing up Orwell was bored and alone since his siblings were either too old or too young to play with him. He began making up stories and creating imaginary friends. His first steps to becoming a writer started as a child while writing a poem at the age of four or five. He wrote the poem based on “Blake’s Tiger” which as a child is something that he is familiar with. Orwell writes about the things he understands because the topic interests him and is something he understands as a child. Children still do the same things today, boys that watch superhero movies such as Spiderman create stories or even draw picture that involve flying heroes or superpowers. Girls that read fairytale books tend to write stories about princesses and princes. Orwell was born to write because he uses writing as a tool to help express his feelings and tell stories that he has already seen just like any child would do now.
At the age of fifteen Orwell began a form of writing that simply told a story about himself. He described it as “this was the making up of a continuous story about myself, sort of a diary existing only in the mind”. The writing device helps with telling a story about life events that take place within his life. Adolescents write in a journal or diary to preserve the ideas and thoughts that occur at specific times or places in a persons life. It was also the reason that Orwell included the part about the journal that Winston wrote in within the novel “1984” or the journals written of how it was like to live without technology. The reason that diaries were written was so that life events could be told through the first persons point of view or the excitement of reading another persons life story or perspective about an experience.
Historical influences help create a better understanding of how it may have been in the past. Orwell writes in historical impulses to allow the generations after him understand their past and the effects it may have on the people. As World War One began, he wrote a patriotic poem, which explains that non-fictional events do affect many individuals. It is also a way for him to express his thoughts and feeling through poems. Poems are beautiful pieces of work which tell a story in a short but strong manner. It was the beginning of war and many individuals would write poems not novels because there was not a lot of time to write. This is the reason why maybe World War One poets such as Brooke or Owen wrote poems rather then long literary writings.
Orwell writes novels not because he knows they will do well but simply because he enjoys writing. He explains: “I write it because there is some lie that I want to expose, some fact to which I want to draw attention, and my initial concern is to get a hearing. But I could not do the work of writing a book, or even a long magazine article, if it were not also an aesthetic experience”. He creates his format of writing through the things he believes in this is the reason that he writes “unhappy endings, full of detailed descriptions […] and also full purple passages in which words were used partly for the sake of their own sound”. He shows through “1984” that the world relates to the society we are living in today such as the telescreen or the division of higher and lower parties. He writes novels like these to spread a message and to demonstrate the reality in a different context.
In Orwell’s “Why I Write”, he explains the four different reasons for writing and how they apply to him and the things he prefers to write about. His reason for writing is not to gain popularity but only to write about the things that inspire him or interest him to write. Ever since he was a little boy he knew he was going to become a writer and since then his influences were his knowledge, experience, environment and the ultimate reason was because he enjoyed writing. His decision to write novels has given another perspective of the reason why anyone may write.
The art of writing is sublime. There are no boundaries posed on writing, nor are there limits. A writer is free to expose his most honest thoughts and ideas through a medium which has the ability to camouflage or reveal whole-heartedly, depending entirely on what the author feels is most appropriate for the message. Why is it that writers choose this particular medium for their work? Why is it that writers write? George Orwell, an internationally renowned author of inspiring and ingenious politically savvy novels, has attempted to give us an answer. Orwell’s essay, entitled Why I Write, is a peek into the mind that has produced such remarkable and innovative novels as 1984 and Animal Farm.
As Orwell explains it, writing was essentially a fate of his, “From a very early age, perhaps the age of five or six, I knew that when I grew up I should be a writer.” This statement, however simple, says a lot. Becoming an author is not a typical childhood dream. It is evident that Orwell, as a child, was different from most, unfitting of the status quo. Loneliness helped to trigger a craving for literature in Orwell’s young life. Orwell outlines his loneliness and explains its relevance to his career, “I had the lonely child's habit of making up stories and holding conversations with imaginary persons, and I think from the very start my literary ambitions were mixed up with the feeling of being isolated and undervalued.” Orwell wrote a lot as a child. Through his preteen years, Orwell had two poems published dealing with the Great War. These poems proved to be presages of Orwell’s literary political commentary which dominated his later work.
In his essay, Orwell describes a habit he had throughout his years as a young adult, “[…] I was carrying out a literary exercise of a quite different kind: this was the making up of a continuous ‘story’ about myself, a sort of diary existing only in the mind.” Orwell was constantly defining and illustrating his life, describing every detail in his mind as it approached. “Although I had to search, and did search, for the right words, I seemed to be making this descriptive effort almost against my will, under a kind of compulsion from outside.” This inability to control the habit is unquestionably part of the reason why Orwell writes, and is recognized as a literary genius.
Orwell defines what he refers to as the four reasons for writing: sheer egoism, aesthetic enthusiasm, historical impulse and political purpose. Orwell labels these elements impulsive, explaining how the combination of the four differs from person to person. It is clear, particularly within his later work, which of these four aspects has the greatest weight for Orwell. “What I have most wanted to do throughout the past ten years is to make political writing into an art,” Orwell states in his essay. Orwell’s later work dealt heavily with his viewpoints on totalitarianism and democratic socialism. His work typically exploited the injustice of political systems present in the world at the time in which they were written. “When I sit down to write a book, I do not say to myself, ‘I am going to produce a work of art’. I write it because there is some lie that I want to expose, some fact to which I want to draw attention, and my initial concern is to get a hearing.” This need to draw attention to the flaws of society is undoubtedly a large portion of Orwell’s reason for writing.
There is no one particular motivation for writing, for Orwell, or anyone else. Orwell defines four reasons. My belief is that there is more to it than that. In the case of George Orwell, I believe his loneliness played a significant role. The fact that he was unable to live life for years without depicting it as a story is, without question, another reason for writing. Finally, the four reasons for writing which Orwell has outlined in his essay, particularly the fourth, political purpose, are monumental. The combination of these incentives produced some of modern literatures most renowned works of art.
When one reads Why I Write by George Orwell, it shows the makings of one of the greatest literary geniuses of all time. The reader can see the true motives behind literature using the essay. When the reader dissects the essay they can derive much meaning. One can use The Educated Imagination to interpret this essay further, as it follows Northrop Frye, as it’s theme is “the loss and regaining of identity is, I think the framework of all literature.”(The Educated Imagination, 30).
As early as the second paragraph of the essay, George Orwell tells us that he “was somewhat lonely” as a child, and had the “habit of making up stories and holding conversations with imaginary persons”, this played a big influence in his writing career. George Orwell found a refuge in literature and it “created a sort of private world in which I could get my own back for my failure in everyday life.” It is not too surprising that George Orwell found his refuge in literature, as Northrop Frye tells us, literature can be a “refuge or escape from life” (57), as it is linked quite closely with the human imagination. Later in George Orwell’s life, one can see that he uses literature as a refuge to escape from the problems facing society. Orwell uses his novels such as Animal Farm and 1984, to give the reader an insight into the world that they live in, one that he discovered as a soldier in Burma. Orwell uses the world he constructs as a metaphor to the world he lives in. Orwell uses literature to point out the social, political and economic problems he has experienced.
Throughout George Orwell’s teenage years, literature never ceased to be present in his life. When Orwell was sixteen he “discovered the joy of mere words”. The books he read at this time influenced how he wanted to write. He decided he wanted to write books “full of detailed descriptions and arresting similes”. This is aesthetic enthusiasm, as the beauty contained within the words of the English language gave Orwell motivation to write. However there is another motivation that he acquired during these years. As Orwell says you can not “assess a writer's motives without knowing something of his early development”, this coincides with Northrop Frye’s theory that “literature can only derive its forms from itself”(19) It is also a motivation, as “A writer’s desire to write can only have come from previous experience of literature”(19). According to Northrop Frye the real reason that one writes comes from previous experiences in literature. Those stunning words that George Orwell saw while reading Paradise Lost, as well as the countless other books he must have read, are the underlying reason why he, and everyone else that writes does so. As Orwell says, if one “escapes from his early influences altogether, he will have killed his impulse to write”.
In conclusion, the reader can see from Why I Write by George Orwell and The Educated Imagination by Northrop Frye, why George Orwell wrote. Throughout this blog, one can see that he writes from his current conditions, social experiences, the aesthetic pleasure he finds in words, and the previous experiences he has encountered in literature. By analyzing why this literary genius writes, one can see why many authors write and can better take meaning out of their works.
Why I Write - George Orwell
Taken from George Orwell’s essay Why I write he demonstrates the foundation and reasons why he writes.
Orwell knew right from an early age that he was meant to be a writer when he grew older. In his early adulthood eh attempted to abandon the idea of being a writer, knowing in his conscious mind that he was defying his true nature, and would soon enough have to start writing books. Even during his non-literary years he took part in a literary exercise in which he was continuously creating mental stories and diary entries. He would create descriptive passages in his mind of the things he saw and did. “He pushed the door open and entered the room. A yellow beam of sunlight, filtering through the muslin curtains slanted on the table, where a match-box, half-open, lay beside the inkpot, with his right hand in his pocket he moved across to the window.” In Northrop Frye’s The Educated Imagination, he explains the difference between the world we want and the world we have. When you try to apply the world you want to the one you have, your intellect and emotions become fused together in the same activity. “the important categories are no longer the subject and the object, the watcher and the things being watched: the important categories are what you have to do and what you want to do - in other words, necessity and freedom.”(pg 6) Orwell knew that the necessity in his life was to write, and his freedom was to conduct his literary experiment.
When he was in his mid-teens he discovered joy in the sounds and associations of words. With this he established what type of books he wanted to write. “I wanted to write enormous naturalistic novels with unhappy endings, full of detailed descriptions and arresting smiles, and also full of purple passages in which words were used partly for the sake of their own sound.” Orwell gives this background because he believed it was essential to understanding before we can gauge a writers motives without knowing where they came from. The content and subject matter of the piece is based on the age that the writer lives in. Before they even being to write they will have to obtain an emotional attitude that they will never be able to fully escape. It is therefore the job of the writer to discipline and control the way they think and act to prevent themselves from getting trapped in an immature state in an unreasonable frame of mind. If they are able to escape the early influences, they will have destroyed and reason or impulse to write.
Orwell manages to break down writing as a whole into four motives. These motives are: sheer egoism, aesthetic enthusiasm, historical, and political purpose. He determined that each writer uses all of these motives in different degrees. Major events in Orwell’s lifetime seriously changed the way he writes. He discovered which was the most influencing motive, and thus became a more political purposed writer. Every piece of work he has written since the Spanish war has been against totalitarianism, and for democratic socialism. When he writes a book, his purpose is not to ‘produce a work of art’, but to expose some lie, or draw attention to a reality that exists in our world. And the reason he writes this is because he wants to create an awareness. He sees that each writer has a ‘demon’ that drives them to write, this demon can never be resisted or understood. Orwell believed that the demon that pushed him to write is the political purpose, although he doesn’t write merely for public-spirit. “So long as I remain alive and well I shall continue to feel strongly about prose style, to love the surface of the earth, and to take pleasure in solid objects and scraps of useless information. It is no use trying to suppress that side of myself. The job is to reconcile my ingrained likes and dislikes with the essentially public, non-individual activities that this age forces on all of us.”
“I do not think one can assess a writer's motives without knowing something of his early development. His subject matter will be determined by the age he lives in — at least this is true in tumultuous, revolutionary ages like our own — but before he ever begins to write he will have acquired an emotional attitude from which he will never completely escape.” – George Orwell
All writers, including Orwell, have many reasons for writing. Orwell believed that in revealing his background information, his reader would be able to assess his reasons for writing. Orwell was specifically influenced by four great motives. These four influences are: sheer egoism, aesthetic enthusiasm, historical impulse, and political impulse. Although the degree of motivation might be weighed differently from author to author, they all share the same four great motives for writing. As well, their desire and inspiration for writing comes from past and current life experiences.
Orwell wrote his first poem about a tiger, and years later he realized the poem was a plagiarism of Blake’s ‘Tiger, Tiger’. This shows unconscious influence of existing literature. A current example of this was the March 2000 lawsuit against J.K. Rowling over the use of the word “muggles” and other similar characteristics to another previously published novel. Another author, Nancy K. Stouffer claimed to have created the word “muggles” before and argued in her federal lawsuit that ideas for the “Potter” series were lifted from her 1984 book “The Legend of Rah and Muggles,” which included a character named Larry Potter. In the end, the courts ruled that there was no merit for this lawsuit. Interestingly enough, there were quite a few similarities.
Orwell does concede that his writing is based on his past experiences, as well as any literature that he had already read. Orwell grew up as the middle child in his family. Due to the 5 year age difference between him and his siblings, he always felt lonely. His feelings of isolation created greater issues at school, resulting in “disagreeable mannerisms” which made him unpopular with his classmates. Therefore, he created imaginary friends who he could talk to/ converse with. Orwell wrote “I think from the very start my literary ambitions were mixed up with the feeling of being isolated and undervalued.” In his writings, Orwell created his own private world, where he could succeed and be in control.
In The Educated Imagination, Frye states that “a writer’s desire can only come from previous experience of literature, and he’ll start by imitating whatever he’s read, which usually means what the people around him are writing. This provides for him what is called a convention, a certain typical and socially accepted way of writing.” (p.19) In his article, Orwell states that there are four motives: sheer egoism, aesthetic enthusiasm, historical impulse, and political purpose. Orwell commences his writing career by being motivated by the first three factors, but shifts weight to the fourth later in his career.
Sheer egoism is a strong motive for writing. It is the desire to leave something behind to be remembered by and be talked about even after death. In Orwell’s case, he was lonely throughout his childhood and unpopular in his schooldays. This would fuel his literary ambition through the feelings of being isolated and undervalued. Orwell states that “all writers are vain, selfish, and lazy, and at the very bottom of their motives there lies a mystery.”
Aesthetic enthusiasm is the “desire to share an experience which one feels is valuable and ought not to be missed.” During his life, there were instances in which Orwell felt the desire to convey to the public things that would otherwise pass by unacknowledged or ignored. An example would be his book about the Spanish war, Homage to Catalonia, where he felt the overbearing desire to inform people of the injustice happening where (innocent) men were being convicted of crimes they never did. He states in his essay “If I had not been angry about that I should never have written the book.” Orwell claims that he was not able to write unless the process was also an aesthetic experience. In his article, he highlights the poem Paradise Lost by John Milton that employed “hee” for “he”. This simple substitution, gave him enormous pleasure due to the association between the word “he” and the sound “hee”. It lent a gleeful twist to the poem. Orwell states that he did not want nor was able “to abandon the world view that [he] acquired.”
A historical impulse aims to educate future generations to see things as they are, and to find out the whole truth from facts viewed from both sides. George Orwell lived through being an Imperial policeman in Burma, the Spanish Civil War, WWI, and WWII. He utilized his war experiences to add a gritty realistic dimension to his written works. Through his literature he illustrates the horrors of the past and possible futures. If nothing is learned from past mistakes, no action will be taken in the present to ensure a brighter future.
Later in life, political impulse became Orwell’s main motivating factor. Political impulse is the drive to guide the world in a certain direction, “to alter other people’s idea of the kind of society that they should strive for.” Orwell’s goal was to mould his political writing into an art. His starting point became “a feeling of partisanship, a sense of injustice.” Since 1936, Orwell has mainly focused on directly or indirectly writing for democratic socialism, and against totalitarianism and apathy of such matters. This is evident in the novel 1984, where his natural hatred of absolute authority is revealed, through Winston’s rebellion against “Big Brother”. His employment in Burma forced him to become fully aware of the reality of the working class and the horrors they endured. This position also allowed him an understanding of the “nature of imperialism”. Orwell indicates that “the more one is conscious of one's political bias, the more chance one has of acting politically without sacrificing one's aesthetic and intellectual integrity.”
Orwell reveals that he writes “because there is some lie that I want to expose, some fact to which I want to draw attention, and my initial concern is to get a hearing.” The impulse to write is something that motivates you, it becomes an ambition. Orwell realizes that if he acknowledges no other society except his own, than he can never be anything more than a leech on society. Frye also confirms this concept of transforming, through the power of words, the society one has to live in to a society one wants to live in. In other words, writing poems and literature gave Orwell an outlet to express his feelings about the world around him, the injustices he experienced and saw, and this is how he tried to influence people to become more aware of their society.
Sources cited:
Orwell, George. “Why I Write.” 2004. http://www.orwell.ru/library/essays/wiw/english/e_wiw
Frye, Northrop. The Educated Imagination. Toronto: House of Anansi Press Inc, 1993.
U.S. author sues over Harry Potter: Federal suit cites many similarities between 1984 book, Rowling’s series.
Associated Press, March 16, 2000
http://www.cesnur.org/recens/potter_019.htm
All human beings have talent in one aspect or another. They are what make individuals unique from those around them and are revealed to people at different times. An individuals talents can be a strong force in driving one to use them to do great things.
For writer George Orwell his talent of writing was discovered to him since the time he started preschool. He used his talent to write many essays and books, the most famous one being 1984. One essay of his is ” “Why write” which details his reasons for writing his work and the effect it had on his life. George Orwell says that writers write for many different reasons. Sometimes it is Sheer Egoism which is the motive to make a name for themselves and be talked about after their deaths through their work. Other times, it is to give the reader the perception of the world which is known as Aesthetic Enthusiasm. Lastly a motive for writer to write is for historic or political purposes. Historic purposes are a desire for us to see things as the way they are and political purposes are used to change the readers view of society and make them think about a society they should strive for. George Orwell writes simply because he wants the world to know what he believes about the age he lived in. In the essay he states “ Every line of serious work that I have written since 1936 has been written, directly or indirectly, against totalitarianism and for democratic isolation, as I understand it.” From reading this quote one could surmise George Orwell wrote for mostly political reasons and also to make a name for himself and to give the reader his perception of the world around him. George Orwell loved political writing and even stated he viewed it as to an art form. It I fitting that politics played a major role in many of George Orwell’s works as he lived through the age of the Spanish war, Hitler, Mussolini, Stalin and The Second World War. Two very famous works of his that relate heavily to war and a world of imperialism because both books are about the effects of two beliefs, totalitarianism and imperialism, on the world. These events are what inspired him to write about the world around him which at that time was a world filled with totalitarianism and imperialism . This leads one to think that the main reason why any writer puts pen to paper is to share their views on the world around them and also their political views on it. George Orwell wrote both these books in first person which shows the reader that he is relating the main character to himself.
George Orwell’s main reason for writing was because he was living through tough times and had something to say about them. This is simply the reason why many authors write in accordance with the other motives George Orwell discussed. Orwell stated that “ at the very bottom of their motives their lies a mystery”. What that mystery is , is a mystery itself. Northrop Frye states that all good writers need to know when to use and emplace one of the four motives. Frye also stated that all writer need to have “the power to create and the power to understand”. George Orwell had both of these powers and he utilized them with great skill and made works that became instant classics.
Great writers tend to write about their experiences or their feelings towards an event that occurred that may have affected them as they have a thought that they want to pass on to the reader through their writing. George Orwell is one of these great writers who knew he was born to write since he was a child. Orwell was nearly estranged from his father and hardly saw him prior to the age of 8. He was also a middle child with a five year gap between his older and younger siblings and due to this he was a somewhat lonely child. In Orwell’s essay, he explains that he was so lonely that he “soon developed disagreeable mannerisms which made me unpopular throughout my school days.” Orwell also claims that he had “the lonely child’s habit of making up stories and holding conversations with imaginary persons, and I think from the very start my literary ambitions were mixed up with the feeling of being isolated and undervalued.” Ever since Orwell was a child, he had been creating stories and exercising his imagination without even realizing this, as he held conversations with imaginary people and he created an imaginary world in which he could be happy and truly understand and that it is a universal human characteristic to want to be in a world which you can truly understand.
When Orwell was a child he would imagine that he was Robin Hood. I can relate to one having this narcissistic vision of one’s self since, when I was a child, I used to imagine that I was Peter Pan. I believe that this narcissistic vision of Orwell as Robin Hood as a child could be reflected in the creation of the character of Winston in the novel 1984. Winston is a hero without even realizing it as his heroic acts are unconscious. Even though INGSOC and O’Brien try to beat the ideals of the party into Winston, he will just not accept these ideas because they cannot take away from him, what it is to be human. Winston is a man who is unconsciously writing a revolution through his diary similarly to the way in which Orwell consciously writes about what it is to be human in 1984. Orwell wrote 1984 while he was pretty much on his death bed because before he died he realized that there is more to life than just yourself and, in this novel, he wanted to express a greater message to readers of what it truly is to be human and how powerful the human spirit is. In 1984, it seems as if INGSOC could never be defeated as the party goes against everything which defines what it is be human and there seems to be no hope for Winston as O’Brien is torturing him and claims that the party will never be defeated, Winston says “Life will defeat you”(p.282). Winston knows that there is something in the party that will defeat it and he claims that it is “The spirit of Man.”(p.282). Through this, Orwell is showing that the human spirit cannot be taken out of someone because the human spirit is the most powerful thing in the universe.
In Orwell’s essay, he expresses his desire to “write enormous naturalistic novels with unhappy endings” as is evidenced in his novel 1984. The hopelessness of the situation Winston finds himself in when he is being tortured by O’Brian, combined with the prospect of his eventual demise as he awaits his death at the end of the novel, further illustrates this point.
In Orwell’s essay he claims that there are “four great motives for writing” which are: sheer egoism, aesthetic enthusiasm, historical impulse and political purpose. He says that for himself the first three motives outweighed the fourth, due to the fact that he hadn’t had quality experiences that gave him an accurate political orientation. However, this changed once Hitler, and the Spanish Civil War came. In his essay, Orwell states that his experience of poverty and failure, as a result of his job in Burma, intensified his hatred of authority and made him aware of how the working class existed. This is evidenced in Orwell’s 1984 by the way in which he focuses on the mundane work of the working class under the rule of the totalitarianism rule of Big Brother. Orwell goes on to state that events such as this that occurred in 1936-37, and the Spanish War “turned the scale and there after I knew where is stood.” To Orwell it seemed impossible not to write about such subjects. From this point on, Orwell’s writing focused on striving for democratic socialism while fighting against totalitarianism. This is clearly evident in Orwell’s 1984 through the character of Winston, as the theme of the novel focuses on his fight against totalitarianism. Of the four great motives for writing, I feel that I am most motivated by political purpose.
Orwell finishes his essay on “Why I Write” by stating that “every book is a failure, but I do know with some clarity what kind of book I want to write.” With that said, Orwell writes because it is something which he has a great appreciation for and a gift for, in which he can express a truth to readers which may influence their way of thinking so that they can realize how beautiful and powerful they are and help them to understand that the human spirit exists in everyone.
“Why I Write” by Sir George Orwell is arguably one of the best pieces of evidence that explore the mind track of George Orwell. The essay explains, by the great Orwell himself, why he found it necessary to write. Furthermore, the passage also dictates the process which Orwell went through to become one of the greatest writers in Literature.
As a child, Orwell had predicted his future. He knew from the days of his childhood that he would eventually be a writer. He grew up in a family consisting of 3 siblings, in the middle of whom he existed. George Orwell barely came to see his father, which resulted in him being a lonely child and later developing “disagreeable mannerisms” (Why I Write, George Orwell), which resulted in Orwell being the unpopular one in School. It is evident that a person who may have more time to themselves have more time to think and this was the case in the construction of Orwell’s imagination. He took popular characters from comics or other pieces of literature and made himself that character in the world of his imagination, “I had the lonely child's habit of making up stories and holding conversations with imaginary persons, and I think from the very start my literary ambitions were mixed up with the feeling of being isolated and undervalued” (Why I Write, George Orwell). As children, we have all surely encountered situations like that because it is a part of our imagination, a process which cannot be eliminated as long as we are referred to as humans, i.e. I as a child always imagined myself as Sherlock Holmes with John Watson right beside me in the cold streets of London. Orwell had a strong literary sense as he came of age. This combining with his loneliness resulted in him creating his own world within his imagination where he could assess his success and failure and combine it as a fruit of his imagination, “(…..)This created a sort of private world in which I could get my own back for my failure in everyday life” (Why I Write, George Orwell). George Orwell’s unserious works became known when he starting writing patriotic poems for his school during the Great War. Although these works had no great significance, they evolved into greater works of Orwell’s genius as he aged. Throughout this process, Orwell formed an imagination of a genius which consisted of a constant journal of his daily life. This monologue in his mind kept growing and further enhanced Orwell’s method of putting his thoughts on paper. Later on in life, as Orwell went through the process of individuation, which we all go through, he realized that writing literature would not be a realistic occupation for him and tried to suppress his strong feelings towards writing. His feelings towards literature were always strong and stayed in his subconscious mind even when he tried to suppress them.
As I mentioned above, George Orwell always knew that someday he would become a writer because that is what he loved ever since he was a child. The type of a book Orwell wanted to write someday, was the kind of book which would consist of naturalistic plots and “purple passages”, meaning that it would have an amazing amount of literary elements and details used for setting the ambiance of the novel, not the plot only, “I wanted to write enormous naturalistic novels with unhappy endings, full of detailed descriptions and arresting similes, and also full of purple passages in which words were used partly for the sake of their own sound” (Why I Write, George Orwell). Orwell fortunately achieved his goal when he published Burmese Days, a novel heavily influenced by his un-literary days spent in the Burma, the colonized country we now know as Myanmar. In the essay, Orwell states that writing is a mean of escaping the everyday life to a world totally dependent on our imaginations, which completely corresponds with Frye’s interpretation in Educated Imagination. After George Orwell’s “un-literary” era, he finally realized the 4 reasons that an author writes for. The first reason is “Sheer egoism (Why I Write, George Orwell)”, which means to leave a mark on the society. All humans have a desire to do so but many fail. Writers do this by simply leaving a mark in the society by a creating a magnificent piece of work which people can remember them by after their demise, just like all of the works by William Shakespeare and 1984 by Orwell himself. This motive is always there no matter how hard the writer denies it because everybody wants fame and success; it is a part of human psyche after all. The second motive, “Aesthetic enthusiasm” (Why I Write, George Orwell), makes a writer share his thoughts with the world. We all have certain glimpses of the world’s beauty which we think are unique and should not be missed. In 1984, the theme of the book itself was unique to Orwell which influenced him to write such an influential piece of literature. Orwell’s third motive for become the great writer was “Historical impulse”, which simply means preserving history in literature. The fourth and the final motive mentioned in “Why I Write”, is “Political purpose” (Why I Write, George Orwell). This motive for writing was the hardest for Orwell to capture as he wrote in his growing years. He believed that a book should give a political message to the world that people may not be aware of. He was able to take a political stance when he later wrote Homage to Catalonia.
A major influence to Orwell’s writing came from his life in the imperialized Burma, Adolf Hitler’s acts as a dictator, and the Spanish civil war. These three and more experiences gave George Orwell the needed sense of politics to almost overcome the fourth motive for writing. “(….) and the job in Burma had given me some understanding of the nature of imperialism: but these experiences were not enough to give me an accurate political orientation. Then came Hitler, the Spanish Civil War, etc.” (Why I Write, George Orwell). By 1936, Orwell finally took a political stance and decided to send a message to the world against totalitarianism and for democracy, “Every line of serious work that I have written since 1936 has been written, directly or indirectly, against totalitarianism and for democratic socialism, as I understand it” (Why I Write, George Orwell). 1984 can be explained by this fact since it is evident that Orwell wanted to take a stance against totalitarianism, imperialism and fascism, when he wrote 1984. The successful works of George Orwell can be explained with a simple analogy of chemical synthesis. Orwell’s gorgeous imagination with his political view resulted in 1984 and Animal Farm. His final and most potent novel 1984 reflects his own life completely. His genius for writing combined with his hatred for imperialism, fascism and totalitarianism is truly vivid in 1984 as he lays himself in Oceania with the identity of Winston smith. Orwell’s love for writing is the most evident motif in 1984 since writing one’s thoughts on paper is a crime and Winston Smith writes as a way of keeping humanity alive.
Why does Orwell write? He writes because one cannot change who they are. Winston smith will be Winston Smith no matter how many times he is processed, I will be myself no matter how hard others may try to change me and similarly Orwell wrote because literature completed him and he, literature. His genius for writing was evident from the days of his childhood, and throughout his adulthood when his suppression for writing did not work. The sense of politics in his literature completed him and induced a series of marvellous works that resulted in George Orwell’s recognition as one of literature’s finest novelists.
It is said that our early life experiences help to make us who we are today. Everything we go through has an affect on us, either making us stronger or weaker. In George Orwell’s case I believe his experiences made him stronger as a person and helped develop his motivation to write. He turned his opinions and bad experiences into literature using facts and stories derived from his life. As a child Orwell may have been perceived as odd, having imaginary friends and other peculiarities which no doubt forced him deeper into his loneliness. In my opinion Orwell’s loneliness as a child impacted his career as a writer. Using his novel 1984 as an example, Winston, the main character’s loneliness and emptiness seemed so real that it gave thought as to how one could come up with the words to put together unless one had experienced something relevantly close.
As he grew up and began to see the world, his reasons for writing did not change, they just grew. He saw things from a more political perspective which helped to develop his sense of social injustice. Just as his early years helped to form his desire to write, his later years where he experienced poverty, an unsuitable profession, Hitler and the Spanish Civil War really formed the political side of his writing. In his essay ‘Why I Write’ he gives the 4 motives for writing: Sheer egoism, Aesthetic enthusiasm, Historical impulse, and Political purpose. “By Nature […] I am a person in whom the first three motives would outweigh the fourth. In a peaceful age I might have written ornate or merely descriptive books, and might have remained almost unaware of my political loyalties. As it is I have been forced into becoming a sort of pamphleteer.” His life experiences changed the course of his thinking and broadened his motive for writing.
Orwell talks about the 4 things that he believes motivates writers to write. It would seem to me that egoism and his political views are what really drive him to write. Literature is a way for him to express his imagination and his views. George Orwell as an adult writer is no longer the weird child with imaginary friends, he is a savvy, brilliant intellectual with strong political views and a vision for the future. As his writing grows, his need to see his superior writing on paper grows, which keeps creating better literature, hence the ego.
A person’s motive for writing is unique to each individual. However Orwell’s 4 motives for writing have a way of being unique to him as a writer. It’s certainly clear how the political side of his writing grew and made him the unique and outstanding writer that he became. The odd, unpopular child through his own life experiences became a legend in the world of literature.
When you were a child you had dreams about becoming something great. Not all your dreams come true from your childhood, but for some they do. George Orwell knew from the ages five or six that he wanted be a writer, and many years later he did exactly what he wanted to do, he became a writer. The question being asked is "Why Write?", you can also ask the question " Why does a dancer dance?", some will say because they are passionate about what they do , some will say it is a way for them to express themselves. George Orwell states that he write because "there is some lie that I want to expose, some fact to which I want to draw attention, and my initial concern is to get a hearing."
Orwell was the middle child, he was lonely child who made up stories and had conversations with imaginary people. But that's where it all began. When he was eleven, he wrote a patriotic poem, which was his first piece of work published. After that he states he wrote some bas poems and never finished them and also attempted a short story. Every one has a few bumps in the road, but practice makes perfect. After that Orwell kept writing.
Orwell states that there are four great motives for writing: sheer egoism, aesthetic enthusiasm, historical impulse, and political purpose. "In a peaceful age I might have written ornate or merely descriptive books, and might have remained almost unaware of my political loyalties", Orwell says that he might have not written about the political world if it were not for the events happening in the world around him, such as Hitler and the Spanish Civil War. Due to all those events that had happened Orwell knew exactly what he should be writing about, and since 1936 it is exactly what he did. Orwell's experiences through those events had changed his view of our world , and his view of the political world.
Orwell writes to show his readers and the public around him the world that we are living in, he is trying to show people the things that they do not know of , such as the innocent men being falsely accused in England. He writes because he wants to " expose " the lies that are being told around him by the people in power. Orwell states that "All writers are vain, selfish, and lazy, and at the very bottom of their motives there lies a mystery.", I don't know if I would agree with the beginning part of the statement, but I do agree with the end part. I believe that in every piece of work we read there is a hidden message, or mystery , that we need to figure out.
We asked " Why Write" and Orwell wrote an essay on Why he write and stated he writes because "I write it because there is some lie that I want to expose, some fact to which I want to draw attention, and my initial concern is to get a hearing." His statement is completely true, but I also believe he writes because it is something he enjoys doing, and he expresses they way he feels through his writing, the same way a dancer expresses herself through her dancing , or an artist through their piece of art work. We all have our own way of expressing how we feel, and Orwell's way had made him a very inspiring man.
In the year of 1946, a renowned English author and proponent of democratic socialism composes an essay to discuss the purpose his writing. He attempts to classify the innumerable motives behind literature’s creation into four categories- the more superficial of which include a, “Desire to seem clever, to be talked about, to be remembered after death, to get your own back on the grown-ups who snubbed you in childhood, etc., etc”. According to the man who became known as George Orwell, these “innate” desires inspire scientists, artists, politicians, and similar professions to strive for achievement in their respective fields. Are we really to believe, however, that Orwell’s literary triumphs exist under a similar pretext? An individual of such profound intelligence and political insight, one who has faced his own mortality, who has fully recognized the implications of communism in developing nations of the 20th century, would not condemn his literature to a purpose as trivial and inconsequential as self-indulgence. Orwell writes, “I cannot say with certainty which of my motives are the strongest, but I know which of them deserve to be followed”. We must therefore concern ourselves with a purpose that extends beyond the author himself- one intended to direct society along a path of political development through illustrating the consequences of its deterioration.
Perhaps the most suitable explanation of Orwell’s motives begins with Northrop Frye, a distinguished literary critic and theorist of the 20th century. Within The Educated Imagination, an analysis of the purpose behind literature, Frye defines the imagination as, “the power of constructing possible models of human existence” (Frye, 1997, p.8). At an early age, Orwell manifests this aspect of the creative intellect while exploring his propensity for literature. This aptitude is reflected in Why I Write, where Orwell recalls, “I knew that I had a facility with words and a power of facing unpleasant facts, and I felt that this created a sort of private world in which I could get my own back for my failure in everyday life”. Through examining his childhood, we begin to see Orwell develop one of his primary motives for the composition of literature- to envision a possible mode of existence that addresses these “unpleasant facts”, and in turn highlights the imperfections of the world that currently exists. These “imperfections” of the existing world become progressively more apparent as Orwell ages. He develops an opposition to authoritarianism while serving 5 years with the Indian Imperial Police of Burma, and shortly after succumbing to poverty. The Spanish Civil War of 1936-1939, along with the rise of Adolf Hitler and the Nazi party from 1933-1945, serve only to reaffirm Orwell’s aversion to totalitarianism. At the conclusion of 1935, Orwell composes a poem to express the world’s political condition during the mid-20th century, an excerpt of which describes that, “...born, alas, in an evil time, / I missed that pleasant haven, [...] It is forbidden to dream again; / We maim our joys or hide them: / Horses are made of chromium steel / And little fat men shall ride them”. We may therefore postulate a theory as to why George Orwell writes: the employment of literature as a form of commentary- a method of drawing attention to political oppression, with particular reference to Stalinism, communism, and totalitarianism.
A second motivation of arguably equal importance concerns the completion of Orwell’s final literary work, 1984. The premise of this novel involves a dystopian incarnation of the United Kingdom, where the influence of an authoritarian government referred to as Ingsoc permeates all aspects of Oceania. Orwell utilizes this fictional progression of society as a means of cautioning against the support of communist ideologies. It is through his condemnation of totalitarianism and avocation of democratic socialism that Orwell finds “political purpose”, “[The] Desire to push the world in a certain direction, to alter other peoples’ idea of the kind of society that they should strive after”. In his explanation of the literary process, Orwell professes, “I write [...] because there is some lie that I want to expose, some fact to which I want to draw attention, and my initial concern is to get a hearing”. Within the final years of his life, George Orwell struggles to draw the world’s attention to an issue of immense importance, and profound implication for the future of social democracy. He attempts to reveal the impact of technology on political and societal freedoms- the prediction of which is astonishingly accurate. In the wake of September 11, 2001, for instance, we have witnessed a dramatic shift in the governing policies of North America. Those suspected of terrorism have been imprisoned and questioned for weeks without an explanation for arrest, while others have been sentenced to prison camps without legal representation or proper trial. The United States government has exploited its political status to invade Iraq, a country vaguely implicated in the 9/11 terrorist attacks, with the clear intention of acquiring the nation’s oil fields. This political trend has pervaded even the boundaries of the “civilized” world, where entire populations are continuously monitored and analyzed through internet and television. Reflecting on the social, political, and economic conditions of the modern world, one finds an environment distinctly reminiscent of Oceanic society in 1984- the bitter recognition of a prophecy fulfilled more than 50 years after its prediction. We may consequently speculate as to a second motive behind Orwell’s literary career: to impart future societies with a warning of totalitarian influence through advancement in technology.
During the Christmas season of 1947, a renowned English author is hospitalized in Glasgow, Scotland, and is diagnosed with tuberculosis. With his health deteriorating, he returns to the Scottish island of Jura to complete the manuscript of his final novel, a cautionary tale for a civilization in the throes of technological and political turmoil. On January 21 of 1950, George Orwell suffers a pulmonary haemorrhage in London, England, and dies at the age of 46. Thus, Orwell spends his final years envisioning a novel of the future, and in essence, for the future. The statement he conveys within 1984 transcends its physical confines to reveal the global implications of totalitarianism in today`s society. It is therefore our fundamental responsibility to recognize the purpose behind Orwell`s literature, or risk further proving his prophecy of authoritarian control, a second fall of man, correct.
Works Cited
Frye, Northrop. The Educated Imagination. Toronto: House of Anansi Press, 1997.
Orwell, George. (1946). Why I Write. Retrieved December 7, 2008, from
http://www.orwell.ru/library/essays/wiw/english/e_wiw.
Everyone has reasoning for the lifestyle they have chosen, usually because it is a passion of theirs. Authors are no exceptions to this, although the reasoning for their style of writing may vary. In George Orwell’s essay ‘Why I Write’, he gives readers a background of his life and what led him to writing about the things he did.
As you read Orwell’s ‘Why I Write’ you realize that part of the reason is to relieve stress. Orwell found that at a young age he loved to write, whether it being poetry or for his schools’ magazine. “From a very early age, perhaps the age of five or six, I knew that when I grew up I should be a writer”, Orwell knew writing was a passion of his from a young age, but as he got older realized it was also a way for him to release his emotions. Orwell goes on to write that he was unpopular as a child but that’s what was what led him to make up stories. As Orwell says, he was lonely and separated socially and as a way to get out of reality he would narrate his life and actions throughout his day, which he continued until he was the age of twenty five. Orwell goes on to mention that he had to fight to search for the right words during his narrations and getting as descriptive as he could, and that the styles came from his favorite authors, showing us that writing was something that he continued to be interested in into his late teenage years. Narrating his life was a way to entertain himself and as well as get him away from his social life, and in the developed his literary ability. In his late childhood years, Orwell wrote to get away from the reality of war going on. Orwell shows us that for him, writing was a way to escape reality.
Another reason Orwell writes was to teach readers about the world. As we see in 1984, Orwell is giving us a warning of what our world is becoming. Orwell writes about things he has knowledge of, and their opinions of events happening in the world. In ‘Why I Write’, Orwell goes on to say “Every line of serious work that I have written since 1936 has been written, directly or indirectly, against totalitarianism and for democratic socialism, as I understand it. “ Readers gain knowledge from what authors write about, which is why Orwell wrote. Authors write about things they know or things that interest them, which is why we often see Orwell’s literary work relates to politics and power, because it’s something that interests him and he wants to teach the rest of world about it.
After reading George Orwell’s ‘Why I Write’, we see that Orwell was motivated to write by things he knows, as Northrop Frye of The Educated Imagination mentioned. We often find ourselves interested in things we have experienced or can relate to, as do authors when it comes to writing.
Eric Arthur Blair’s Motives for Writing
Eric Arthur Blair, also known by his pen name ‘George Orwell’, became aware of his vocation to write at a tender age. He experienced a lonely childhood lacking a father figure and suffered from disagreeable mannerisms, which were the cause of his social isolation throughout his schooldays. His solitary adolescence resulted in multiple literary trials including the creation of a short story, which Blair deemed a ‘ghastly failure’, play writing, nature poetry and WWI poetry, which was published in his local newspaper. Simultaneously, Blair found enjoyment in mentally documenting his life as a “hero of thrilling adventures,” (Orwell, 1946). His intangible diary slowly developed from a narcissistic self-portrayal to an intensely descriptive narrative. Composing these fictional accounts soon led to Blair’s fascination with word association, and later to arrangements of purple prose.
In “Why I Write” Blair confesses to obsessive word choice and claims to have been compelled to write in such a manner “almost against [his] will,” (Orwell, 1946). As I write my response to his essay, I find myself doing just the same. More than often, I will spend a large amount of time finding appropriate words and altering my word arrangements. I am contented with my writing when it is factual, proven and reflects my own opinion, however if it lacks fluidity and is not aesthetically pleasing I feel the response is inadequate.
I agree with Blair that one of the main reasons anyone writes is because they want their opinions and research to be recognized. However, when he suggests a general motive may be “to get your own back on the grown-ups who snubbed you in [your] childhood,” my reading paused and I began to reflect. We all want to show up the people that doubted our capability, but the way this is described, by a writer who is so particular with words, seems childish. In my opinion, that specific line leads me to believe that Blair wrote because he lacked attention at a young age. His writing was means of expression without confrontation. As he grew older, this practice continued and it was difficult for him to maintain social relationships.
As mentioned previously, Blair claims to have known he was destined for writing at an early age. In my experience, most people do not know what their calling is until late adolescence or even until their early twenties. This suggests that Blair was very self-aware. He remembers writing his first poem in which his mother was responsible for “taking it down to dictation,” (Orwell, 1946). This proves his mother’s interest in his writing. However his father’s absence for years at a time made the young writer feel “undervalued” (Orwell, 1946) and inadequate, resulting in the aspiration to make his writing as compelling as possible. Blair exposes this longing when he recalls that he “barely saw [his] father before [he] was eight. For this and other reasons [he] was lonely," (Orwell 1946). Since Blair felt it was necessary to include that information, I feel it must be significant in the way his writing developed.
Another major influence on his writing was the time he spent in Burma working for the Imperial Police and the events that followed after he was discharged. In those five years, his service had “ruined his health […] [and eventually] he left in 1927 on a medical certificate,” (theorwellprize.co.uk, 2007). By that time, Blair had “grown to hate imperialism,” (george-orwell.org, 2003) and had returned to England in search of a more suitable occupation. Upon his arrival he found it very difficult to find long-term work. He periodically came across “itinerant work,” (george-orwell.org, 2003) which forced him to lead a lonely nomadic life.
In my opinion a nineteen-year-old should not be handling weapons and have military responsibilities. This was a life changing, horrifying, and desolate experience. However, had he not experienced the division of classes and the horrors of imperialism, he would have not developed his political perspective as a “democratic socialist,” (george-orwell.org, 2003).
Discovering his personal perspective on the political spectrum was crucial to Blair’s writing career. Following his duty in Burma, the Spanish Civil War and various other events, his writing began to focus “directly or indirectly against totalitarianism and for democratic socialism,” (Orwell, 1946). The discovery of his political perspective was a turning point, which enabled him to begin writing text that was worthwhile. Blair reflects on his early writing: “where I lacked a political purpose I wrote lifeless books and was betrayed into purple passages…” (Orwell, 1946). Following this development, Blair had discovered what he needed to write two of the most influential novels of the 20th century.
Orwell’s enormously successful novels, entitled Animal Farm and Nineteen Eighty-four, were highly based on his opposition against injustice, totalitarianism and imperialism. His isolated childhood, duty in various military events, the encapsulation of revolutionary events through his esteemed journalism, and the development of his political perspective, were all crucial experiences that added to the novels’ creation. He claims that “Animal Farm was the first book in which [he] tried […] to fuse political and artistic purpose into a whole,” (Orwell, 1964). Following the landmark, came another: Nineteen Eighty-four. In this novel, we are introduced to an opinionated, troubled, revolutionary Winston Smith. Personally, I cannot find one fragment of Blair’s life that is not emulated through this character’s life during the rule of Ingsoc. The reason Blair underwent such an “exhausting struggle” was to tell his story and illustrate his opinions. Even though Blair feels that “every book is a failure,” (Orwell, 1946) we can, without a doubt, accredit Nineteen Eighty-four to be an extremely intelligent and influential novel.
To me, the failure Blair feels is misinterpreted, for we know he is a widely successful writer. I do not believe he ever overcame his feelings of being under appreciated or lonely. Fortunately, he did have these feelings throughout the duration of his life, which was one of the main causes for his writing. The second, being his love for word associations and writing as an artistic expression. And thirdly, the most crucial, were his strong opinions regarding irrationally and danger of imperial and totalitarian governments.
Sources
http://eng4u1.blogspot.com/
http://www.george-orwell.org/l_biography.html
http://www.theorwellprize.co.uk/home.aspx
It is ignorant to think that George Orwell writes because he wants the world to know how he feels. If that were the case, then there is no barrier to separate Orwell from amateur journalists or teenage garage bands that also try to ‘convey their feelings’. In his essay ‘Why I Write’, he separates himself from every other writer by describing his progression into becoming a literary genius.
Firstly, Orwell’s childhood is what guided him into writing. As a middle child of three, he had no familial closeness to his siblings, who were not close to him in age. In addition to that, he was also isolated in school, which left him lonely. From Frye’s talk, ‘The Educated Imagination’, it repeatedly makes the point that one must always open his or her minds. A great example of opening a mind is talking to imaginary friends, which is exactly what Orwell does. Of course, he did not conjure up these make-believe people in practice of becoming a writer. He did it because he did not have anyone to express his thoughts to. One basic human need is to have someone to talk to so that one may be able to identify with his or her society. That is the reason Frye believes people read. George Orwell takes it a step further by becoming a writer.
Secondly, another reason why he wrote is essentially the reason why every writer writes: “Sheer egoism” and “aesthetic enthusiasm”. In 1984, both motives are found. The first evidence of sheer egoism found in the novel happens in the very beginning, when Winston writes in a diary. His purpose of writing is to communicate with the future, but under the watch of Big Brother he wonders how he could “communicate with them? Either the future would resemble the present, in which case it would not listen to him.” (9). In the Educated Imagination, another of Frye’s point is man’s need to be able to understand the past. Since there is no truth in the past in Oceania, Winston worries that the people of the future would be lacking a sense of human quality. The future generation would not know anything about its environment. “They will understand how, but they will not understand why.” (83). Frye’s point is that one must understand one’s past to be able to understand the present.
The other incident is when O’Brien describes what the Party does to heretics. Orwell claims that he writes “to seem clever, to be talked about after death, to be remembered after death.” In 1984, it is seen when that desire is eliminated. The Party deals with the concept of martyrdom because they “convert him, capture his inner mind, reshape him. They burn all evil and illusion out of him; they bring him over to their side, not in appearance, but genuinely, heart and soul.” (267). This way, the party abolishes the sense of being an individual. According to Frye, that would mean that they are abolishing a human quality.
The aesthetic enthusiasm impression in the book is Winston’s idea of the “Golden Country.” He recreates the room above Mr. Charrington’s shop because he feels that it is something “valuable that ought not to be missed.” Winston is creating a world he wants out of what he has, a notion that Frye repeatedly makes throughout the Educated Imagination. However, Winston knows that it will not last because the oppressive nature of Big Brother prevents it from happening.
That is to say, Orwell writes to show the reader a world where the power to write is not there.
Lastly, Orwell’s objective is “to make political writing into an art”. His books like 1984 and Animal Farm are both politically based, which most people would find uninteresting. However, Orwell’s way of revealing his political stance is so innovative that readers do not acknowledge the fact that his works are basically propaganda. The imaginative way of telling his point of view draws the readers into his stories, meanwhile appealing to their sense of imagination as well as enlightening them. At a first glance, the novel Animal Farm just seems like a story about a corrupt farm, but an in-depth analysis reveals that it is about being anti-communism. The relation between a farm run by drunken pigs and communism seems ludicrous, yet Orwell chooses this subject because it is something that a reader can relate to easily. In Frye’s talk “Motive for Metaphor”, he says that people put human qualities on things that they cannot relate to in order for them to understand things easier.
Orwell may understand the atrocities of a communist leader, but his readers do not. He uses the imagery of farm animals because “there is some lie he wants to expose, some fact to which he wants to draw attention, and his initial concern is to get a hearing.” The only way he will get a hearing is if the reader understands him.
Therefore, the works published by George Orwell relate to Frye’s The Educated Imagination. Frye’s talks tell the readers the reasons why they read and George Orwell’s books show what happens when this desire is eliminated.
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