Literature in English

1

• Literature in English
• The facts and anecdotes you need to know about
  George Orwell.

2
Some interesting quotes by George Orwell All
the war-propaganda, all the screaming and lies
and hatred, comes invariably from people who are
not fighting.Doublethink means the power of
holding two contradictory beliefs in one's mind
simultaneously, and accepting both of them.If
liberty means anything at all, it means the right
to tell people what they do not want to hear.
3
Things and facts worth knowing about George
Orwell.

• George Orwell was born at a time when the English
  Empire had already extended itself all over the
  world. Along with this empire, there was a
  colonialist spirit that persisted among many
  Englishmen of the upper and middle class.
• George Orwell was neither a capitalist, nor a
  communist. He considered himself to be a
  socialist, because,to him, socialism meant the
  overthrowing of tyranny everywhere.
• 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, 1946)
• Despite being strongly egalitarian and someone
  who was speaking against many forms of bigotry,
  he still was a bigot on some issues. For example,
  he was deeply homophobic.

4
Burmese days

• Orwell spent five years in the 1920's as a
  policeman in Burma, which was part of the British
  Empire.
• Christopher Hitchens said that the reason why
  Orwell resigned was that he would end up being a
  sadist and a racist if he had stayed in that
  police force.
• On the other hand, this experience may have
  helped him writing his books, as far as he had
  had an insight into the nature of fascism, into
  the thrill of domination as Hitchens put it.

• Last row, third from the left.

5
The Spanish Civil War

• Orwell, along with other intellectuals,
  volunteered to fight in the Spanish Civil War on
  the Republican side against the fascists.
• He nearly died when he took a bullet in his
  throat during the war, this injury impaired him
  for the rest of his life.

6
Orwell had never been to the USSR

• Orwell's account of the reality in communist
  Russia is outstanding considering the fact that
  he had never been there.
• However he had been acquainted to many communists
  ideologists when he fought in Spain. During that
  war he had seen what it was like to live under
  terror, censorship and fear.
• It seemed unbelievable to members of the
  communist party in eastern Europe who were
  reading copies of 1984 in secret, that an
  Englishman who had never been to USSR could have
  gotten it so right about the reality of Stalinism.

7
What are the important themes developed by Orwell?

• There are recurring themes in 1984 and Animal
  Farm
• Fear (of punishment, or of another form of
  dictatorship).
• The lack of education that allows the elite to
  manipulate the rest of the population.
• The loneliness of those who know the truth.

8
The importance of fear in totalitarian regimes

• Along with Marjane Satrapi, Orwell had perfectly
  understood that fear is the most efficient tool
  to keep people in line.
• Both 1984 and Animal Farm contain good examples
  of the use of fear. Winston Smith is always
  scared of something he doesn't really know much
  about (the thought police, what happens in the
  Ministry of Love?). And the animals were
  constantly scared that Mr. Jones might come back.

9
Education is the worst enemy of those who want to
manipulate people.

• In 1984 Newspeak is one of the tool that
  weakens people's ability to understand what is
  going on.

• Because it reduces the vocabulary and prevents
  people from being able to nuance/grade their
  sayings.

• Outsmarted by the pigs, and having no access to
  proper education, the animals are blind to the
  pigs' maneuvers to manipulate them, the same way
  we can be outsmarted by people more knowledgeable
  than us.

• In Animal Farm the animals's lack of education
  prevents them from seeing that the pigs are
  taking advantage of them.

10
Those who know the truth are lonely

• There are several lonely characters in 1984 and
  Animal Farm.
• The most obvious one is Winston Smith, who thinks
  he's the last man in the country who's impervious
  to the lies of Big Brother, the only human being
  who refuses to believe the lies of the party but
  who has nobody to talk to, for he knows that
  talking to somebody might cause his premature
  death.
• Snowball is also a lonely characters, because he
  was driven out of the farm because he stood in
  the way of Napoleon, which is unfortunate for he
  genuinely wanted to turn the farm into a paradise
  for animals.
• Benjamin, the donkey, is the only learned animal
  on the farm but he refuses to speak or exercise
  his faculty, because to him there's nothing
  worth reading.