Photo by tim rich and lesley katon, Flickr, CC BY-NC-ND 2.0īefore anything else, however, we should pay some attention to the way Orwell himself approached language. Additionally, Orwell’s literary development will be touched on, and the language of Nineteen Eighty-Four confronted with his other novels Burmese Days and Animal Farm. This essay will concentrate on the language of George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four, its impact on the readers’ perception of individual social classes and the book itself, and the issue of whether it would stand up to its scrutiny under the stylistic guidelines Orwell laid out in his essay “Politics and the English Language”. At the same time, opting for overly formal language may make one indifferent to or detached from the reader, and texts rich with figurative language may be so pompous that their meaning is invariably lost under the layer of adjectives and metaphors. A whiff of colloquialism, despite being reader-friendly, might be viewed as a sign of sloppiness. The Importance of Language in George Orwell’s NovelsĬhoosing a proper style is one of the most crucial aspects of writing. The essay is published with the kind permission of the faculty. Rev Ed, Penguin UK, 2005.Written under the supervision of Lisette Allen, M.A., and submitted on, this essay was part of my total coursework at the Department of Anglophone Literatures and Cultures at Charles University’s Faculty of Arts. Great Ideas Why I Write (Penguin Great Ideas). However, in the last lines of the article, he explains that when reading his works, he sees only empty passages and beautiful, meaningless epithets on pages where the political is absent. He considers himself a writer and artist, not a propagandist. However, George Orwell does not want to consider himself, perhaps, exclusively a political author. ‘Animal Farm’ is a book where the author fuses political and artistic languages. Subsequently, George Orwell tries to find the right balance in these styles. Critics and editors disapprove of his stylistic experiments in the ‘Tribute of Catalonia’ because the work is the purest political statement wrapped in an artistic shell. The key to expression is the right style and language. Having survived the events that turned his mind upside down, he tries to express his position in the texts. The Spanish Civil War, the rise to power of Adolf Hitler, and the already mentioned service in Burma forced him to turn his attention to society and politics. George Orwell notes that he usually managed to balance the first three motives until political and social issues stirred his heart.

These motives include pure selfishness, aesthetic ecstasy, historical impulse, and political purpose. He identifies four motives for writers, from low to high. Between his formative periods, George Orwell lays out his position on the motivation of writers.

George orwell why i write essay