Orwell

Orwell

1. LIFE:

   • born as Eric Blair in India (1903) son of a minor colonial official
     • educated at Eton (UK) where develop an indipendent-minded personality (no accept valuse, atheist and socialist)
       • worked for the Indian Imperial Police in Burma
         • hated and retorned to England
           • started to writing as full time job (pseudonym of George Orwell)
             • 1936: married Eileen O'Shaughnessy and went in Catalonia to fight in SPanish Civil War (joined Workers'Party of Marxist Unification, by Aragon front)
               • Back in England: adopted a child (Richard), joined the BBC broadcasting programmes to India (1941)
                 • 1943: literacy editor of The Tribute (influential socialist weekly)
                   • 1950: died of tuberculosis

2. WORKS:

   • reports: (1933-38)
     • Down and Out in Paris and London: exp. with poors; Burmese Days: exp. colonial service; The Road to Wigan Pier: exp. miners of the North; Homage to Catalonia: exp. in Spanish War;
   • fiction:
     • Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949)
     • Animal Farm (1945)
       • historical background:
         • USSR of 1941-43)
           • stalin's Purge Trials (1930'), Stalin signature of the non-aggression pact with Hitler (1939)
       • Orwell's disillusionment with totalitarianism in form of an animal fable
         • influence; Gulliver's Travels, fables of Aesop and La Fontaine
         • oppressed animals in a farm want a rebellion (led by Napoleon)
           • but it beacomes a dictatorial regime: of the 7 commandments only 1 remains: all animals are equal but some animals are more equal than others
             • CHARACTERS:
               • Old Major: Marx/Lenin
               • Snowball: Trotsky
               • Boxer: loyal, hard-working man
               • Farmer Jones: Nicolas II
               • Dogs: mataphor of Terror State
               • sheeps: blind comformity
               • Banjamin the donkey: stoic detachment
               • raven Moses: religion taken back by Napoleon to controll animals
             • from community's POV
             • privileges and abuses of the old regime are restored systematic=totalitarianism

3. THEMES AND PHILOSOPHY:

   • 1. rejection of his English background; 2. middle class education but identification with working class; 3. role of the artist-> social function (reveal)
     • realistic language
     • social themes
     • misery caused by poverty
     • deprivation of society
     • criticism of totalitarianism and tyranny