DOCSLIB.ORG

The Road from George Orwell: His Achievement and Legacy

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
The Road from George Orwell: His Achievement and Legacy The Road from George Orwell: His Achievement and Legacy Alberto Lázaro Editor PETER LANG The Road from George Orwell: His Achievement and Legacy This page intentionally left blank Alberto Lázaro (ed.) The Road from George Orwell: His Achievement and Legacy PETER LANG Bern • Berlin • Bruxelles • Frankfurt am Main • New York • Oxford • Wien Die Deutsche Bibliothek – CIP-Einheitsaufnahme The road from George Orwell : his achievement and legacy / Alberto Lázaro (ed.). – Bern ; Berlin ; Bruxelles ; Frankfurt am Main ; New York ; Oxford ; Wien : Lang, 2001 ISBN 3-906766-79-9 British Library and Library of Congress Cataloguing-in-Publication Data: A catalogue record for this book is available from The British Library, Great Britain, and from The Library of Congress, USA Cover design: Thomas Jaberg, Peter Lang AG ISBN 3-906766-79-9 US-ISBN 0-8204-5337-4 © Peter Lang AG, European Academic Publishers, Bern 2001 Jupiterstr. 15, Postfach, 3000 Bern 15, Switzerland [email protected], www.peterlang.net All rights reserved. All parts of this publication are protected by copyright. Any utilisation outside the strict limits of the copyright law, without the permission of the publisher, is forbidden and liable to prosecution. This applies in particular to reproductions, translations, microfilming, and storage and processing in electronic retrieval systems. Printed in Germany Contents Preface.............................................................................................7 Part I: Re-Evaluations FERNANDO GALVÁN The Road to Utopia, or On Orwell’s Idealism...........................15 CHRISTINE BERBERICH A Revolutionary in Love with the 1900s: Orwell in Defence of ‘Old England’...........................................33 MIQUEL BERGA Orwell’s Catalonia Revisited: Textual Strategies and the Eyewitness Account.........................53 ALBERTO LÁZARO George Orwell’s Homage to Catalonia: A Politically Incorrect Story ........................................................71 ANA MOYA George Orwell’s Exploration of Discourses of Power in Burmese Days ..............................................................................93 URMILA SESHAGIRI Misogyny and Anti-Imperialism in George Orwell’s Burmese Days ................................................................................105 Part II: Orwell, History and Dystopia ZOË FAIRBAIRNS 1984 Came and Went .................................................................123 BEATRIZ DOMÍNGUEZ GARCÍA The Retelling of History Through Her Story...........................139 ELIZABETH RUSSELL Looking Backwards and Forwards from Nineteen Eighty-Four: Women Writing Men’s Worlds..............................157 SONIA VILLEGAS ‘History Is Not a Thing of the Past’: The Theory and Practice of Historical Discourse in Alasdair Gray’s A History Maker............................................179 JUAN FRANCISCO ELICES The Satiric and Dystopic Legacy of George Orwell in Robert Harris’s Fatherland......................................................199 BEN CLARKE Orwell and the Evolution of Utopian Writing.........................225 Preface Following a tradition that goes back to 1987, the Department of English Philology at the University of Alcalá, Madrid, organised the VIIIth Conference on English Literature in May 2000. On this occasion, to mark the fiftieth anniversary of George Orwell’s death, a wide range of papers on this significant and controversial literary figure were presented. The main purpose of the conference was to re-examine George Orwell’s work and thought in the light of contemporary theoretical concerns, as well as to discuss the mark he has left in British literature in the second half of the twentieth century, particularly on political satire and the development of dystopian fiction. Fifty years after his death, George Orwell is generally recognised as a leading exponent of twentieth-century English prose and one of the most influential satiric writers whose works have merited detailed scholarly attention. A wide range of editions of his novels, essays, journalism and autobiographical works are within the reach of the general reader, and his art has been discussed by numerous critics and literature specialists from many different approaches. There is no doubt that one of the reasons for the lasting appeal of his work lies in the qualities of its prose, as John Fowler suggests in The Language of George Orwell (1995), an excellent study of the writer’s style. But it seems to me that Orwell is recognised more as a political writer than a master of style, although it cannot be denied that his writing is of excellent quality. Regarding his politics, Orwell seemingly managed to serve different Cold War political ideologies simultaneously, as Alex Zwerdling suggests in his analysis of the writer’s left-wing ideas entitled Orwell and the Left (1974). Then, when the year 1984 came, critics celebrated Orwell and discussed his dystopian ‘predictions,’ like Tom Winnifrith and William Whitehead in 1984 and All’s Well? 8 Preface (1984). Finally, in the closing years of the twentieth century political issues continue to be at the very forefront of Orwell criticism in such books as Paras Mani Singh’s George Orwell as a Political Novelist (1987), Adriaan M. de Lange’s The Influence of Political Bias in Selected Essays of George Orwell (1992) and Stephen Ingle’s George Orwell: A Political Life (1993). Most of the papers presented at the Orwell conference in Alcalá also testify to the political controversy that his work has continued to arouse. The present volume contains a selection of twelve of the papers that were read during the conference. They have been divided into two thematically arranged sections. While other divisions suggested themselves, I settled on the present organisation as best hinting at the central aim of the individual pieces. The essays of the first section entitled ‘Re-Evaluations’ provide new insights and fresh ways of viewing familiar issues such as Orwell’s controversial political thought, the representation of race and gender in his early fiction, the narrative strategies of his documentary prose and the impact of censorship on his writing. The second group of essays explores the legacy of Orwell’s dystopian fiction in later novelists like Zoë Fairbairns, Alasdair Gray, Robert Harris, Julian Barnes and Ben Elton, as well as issues of history and language that are raised in Orwell’s writings and dominate twentieth-century fiction. In the opening piece, ‘The Road to Utopia, or On Orwell’s Idealism,’ Fernando Galván offers a key to understanding the political and aesthetic contradictions of Orwell’s complex personality. The apparent inconsistencies and paradoxes in Orwell’s thought and work, it is argued, are the product of his inveterate idealism and the continuous process of change in which he lived. Galván also goes on to draw a parallel between Orwell’s idealism and the quixotic spirit. All this is thoroughly developed and supported with an analysis of some of Orwell’s essays and journalism, his war memoir Homage to Preface 9 Catalonia, and the traces left by his Spanish experience in his late fiction. In a similar vain, the second essay, ‘A Revolutionary in Love with the 1900s: Orwell in Defence of “Old England”’ by Christine Berberich, also addresses the apparent contradiction of a Socialist Orwell with revolutionary ideas admitting sentimental feelings for a pre-1914 England. Orwell is seen here as a writer who managed to combine in a unique way his adherence to progressive Socialist principles and a conservative patriotism for things English. Berberich thus provides a straightforward account of the centrality of ‘Englishness’ to Orwell’s world view, particularly as it is expressed in essays such as ‘My Country Right or Left,’ The Lion and the Unicorn, ‘As I Please,’ ‘Notes on Nationalism,’ ‘Such, Such Were the Joys,’ The English People and some of his London Letters to Partisan Review, as well as his novel Coming Up for Air. The following two essays are devoted to Orwell’s account of the Spanish Civil War, Homage to Catalonia. Miquel Berga, in ‘Orwell’s Catalonia Revisited: Textual Strategies and the Eyewitness Account,’ suggests that Orwell’s book on Spain should not only be viewed as a valuable historical document, but also as a central literary work of the 1930s that makes use of a series of carefully planned textual strategies. Berga shows how, more than sixty years after its publication, Homage to Catalonia can be read as a postmodernist text of metahistory, in which Orwell very effectively assumes the dual process of ‘narrativising history and historisicing narrative.’ On the other hand, my essay ‘George Orwell’s Homage to Catalonia: A Politically Incorrect Story,’ focuses on the troubled publishing history of this book in Spain and the difficulties it had with the Spanish censorship office during the Franco regime, until a much distorted version was published in 1970. After discussing the multiple cuts and changes indicated by the censors, the article ends with a denunciation of present-day Spanish and 10 Preface Catalan editions, which have consistently maintained the censored editions of the Franco regime. The two articles that follow seek to re-evaluate Orwell’s first novel, Burmese Days, from postcolonial and feminist perspectives. Ana Moya’s ‘George Orwell’s Exploration of Discourses of Power in Burmese Days’ deals with issues of race and gender and questions the extent to which Orwell’s critique of the Empire in the novel works effectively
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Marcelo Pelissioli from Allegory Into Symbol: Revisiting George Orwell's Animal Farm and Nineteen Eighty-Four in the Light Of
    MARCELO PELISSIOLI FROM ALLEGORY INTO SYMBOL: REVISITING GEORGE ORWELL’S ANIMAL FARM AND NINETEEN EIGHTY-FOUR IN THE LIGHT OF 21 ST CENTURY VIEWS OF TOTALITARIANISM PORTO ALEGRE 2008 2 UNIVERSIDADE FEDERAL DO RIO GRANDE DO SUL INSTITUTO DE LETRAS PROGRAMA DE PÓS-GRADUAÇÃO EM LETRAS ÊNFASE: LITERATURAS DE LÍNGUA INGLESA LINHA DE PESQUISA: LITERATURA, IMAGINÁRIO E HISTÓRIA FROM ALLEGORY INTO SYMBOL: REVISITING GEORGE ORWELL’S ANIMAL FARM AND NINETEEN EIGHTY-FOUR IN THE LIGHT OF 21 ST CENTURY VIEWS OF TOTALITARIANISM MESTRANDO: PROF. MARCELO PELISSIOLI ORIENTADORA: PROFª. DRª. SANDRA SIRANGELO MAGGIO PORTO ALEGRE 2008 3 4 PELISSIOLI, Marcelo FROM ALLEGORY INTO SYMBOL: REVISITING GEORGE ORWELL’S ANIMAL FARM AND NINETEEN EIGHTY-FOUR IN THE LIGHT OF 21 ST CENTURY VIEWS OF TOTALITARIANISM Marcelo Pelissioli Porto Alegre: UFRGS, Instituto de Letras, 2008. 112 p. Dissertação (Mestrado - Programa de Pós-graduação em Letras) Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul. 1.Totalitarismo, 2.Animal Farm, 3. Nineteen Eighty-Four, 4. Alegoria, 5. Símbolo. 5 Acknowledgements To my dear professor and adviser Dr. Sandra Maggio, for the intellectual and motivational support; To professors Jane Brodbeck, Valéria Salomon, Vicente Saldanha, Paulo Ramos, Miriam Jardim, José Édil and Edgar Kirchof, professors who guided me to follow the way of Literature; To my bosses Antonio Daltro Costa, Gerson Costa and Mary Sieben, for their cooperation and understanding; To my friends Anderson Correa, Bruno Albo Amedei and Fernando Muniz, for their sense of companionship; To my family, especially my mother and grandmother, who always believed in my capacity; To my wife Ana Paula, who has always stayed by my side along these long years of study that culminate in the handing of this thesis; And, finally, to God, who has proved to me along the years that He really is the God of the brave.
    [Show full text]
  • Download Critical Essays, George Orwell, Harvill Secker, 2009
    Critical Essays, George Orwell, Harvill Secker, 2009, 1846553261, 9781846553264, . Orwell’s essays demonstrate how mastery of critical analysis gives rise to trenchant aesthetic and philosophical commentary. Here is an unrivalled education in – as George Packer puts in the foreword to this new two-volume collection – “how to be interesting, line after line.”. DOWNLOAD http://bit.ly/1979wHt Some Thoughts on the Common Toad , George Orwell, 2010, English essays, 115 pages. In this collection of eight witty and sharply written essays, Orwell looks at, among others, the joys of spring (even in London), the picture of humanity painted by Gulliver .... 1984 A Novel, George Orwell, 1977, Fiction, 268 pages. Portrays life in a future time when a totalitarian government watches over all citizens and directs all activities.. George Orwell: As I please, 1943-1946 , George Orwell, Jan 1, 2000, Literary Collections, 496 pages. Animal farm a fairy story, George Orwell, 1987, Fiction, 203 pages. I belong to the Left 1945, George Orwell, Peter Hobley Davison, Ian Angus, Sheila Davison, 1998, Literary Criticism, 502 pages. Collected Essays , George Orwell, 1968, , 460 pages. Voltaire's notebooks, Volumes 148-149 , Theodore Besterman, 1976, , 247 pages. Selected writings , George Orwell, 1958, English essays, 183 pages. George Orwell, the road to 1984 , Peter Lewis, Jan 1, 1981, Biography & Autobiography, 122 pages. Shooting an Elephant , George Orwell, 2003, Fiction, 357 pages. 'Shooting an Elephant' is Orwell's searing and painfully honest account of his experience as a police officer in imperial Burma; killing an escaped elephant in front of a crowd ...
    [Show full text]
  • Orwell George
    The Collected Essays, Journalism and Letters of George Orwell Volume II: My Country Right or Left 1940-1943 by George Orwell Edited by Sonia Orwell and Ian Angus a.b.e-book v3.0 / Notes at EOF Back Cover: "He was a man, like Lawrence, whose personality shines out in everything he said or wrote." -- Cyril Connolly George Orwell requested in his will that no biography of him should be written. This collection of essays, reviews, articles, and letters which he wrote between the ages of seventeen and forty-six (when he died) is arranged in chronological order. The four volumes provide at once a wonderfully intimate impression of, and a "splendid monument" to, one of the most honest and individual writers of this century -- a man who forged a unique literary manner from the process of thinking aloud, who possessed an unerring gift for going straight to the point, and who elevated political writing to an art. The second volume principally covers the two years when George Orwell worked as a Talks Assistant (and later Producer) in the Indian section of the B.B.C. At the same time he was writing for Horizon, New Statesman and other periodicals. His war-time diaries are included here. Penguin Books Ltd, Harmondsworth, Middlesex, England Penguin Books Australia Ltd, Ringwood, Victoria, Australia First published in England by Seeker & Warburg 1968 Published in Penguin Books 1970 Reprinted 1971 Copyright © Sonia Brownell Orwell, 1968 Made and printed in Great Britain by Hazell Watson & Viney Ltd, Aylesbury, Bucks Set in Linotype Times This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher's prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser Contents Acknowledgements A Note on the Editing 1940 1.
    [Show full text]
  • The Mid-Twentieth-Century American Poetic Speaker in the Works of Robert Lowell, Frank O’Hara, and George Oppen
    “THE OCCASION OF THESE RUSES”: THE MID-TWENTIETH-CENTURY AMERICAN POETIC SPEAKER IN THE WORKS OF ROBERT LOWELL, FRANK O’HARA, AND GEORGE OPPEN A dissertation submitted by Matthew C. Nelson In partial fulfillment for the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy In English TUFTS UNIVERSITY May 2016 ADVISER: VIRGINIA JACKSON Abstract This dissertation argues for a new history of mid-twentieth-century American poetry shaped by the emergence of the figure of the poetic speaker as a default mode of reading. Now a central fiction of lyric reading, the figure of the poetic speaker developed gradually and unevenly over the course of the twentieth century. While the field of historical poetics draws attention to alternative, non-lyric modes of address, this dissertation examines how three poets writing in this period adapted the normative fiction of the poetic speaker in order to explore new modes of address. By choosing three mid-century poets who are rarely studied beside one another, this dissertation resists the aesthetic factionalism that structures most historical models of this period. My first chapter, “Robert Lowell’s Crisis of Reading: The Confessional Subject as the Culmination of the Romantic Tradition of Poetry,” examines the origins of M.L. Rosenthal’s phrase “confessional poetry” and analyzes how that the autobiographical effect of Robert Lowell’s poetry emerges from a strange, collage-like construction of multiple texts and non- autobiographical subjects. My second chapter reads Frank O’Hara’s poetry as a form of intentionally averted communication that treats the act of writing as a surrogate for the poet’s true object of desire.
    [Show full text]
  • Martha Gellhorn and Ernest Hemingway
    MARTHA GELLHORN AND ERNEST HEMINGWAY: A LITERARY RELATIONSHIP H. L. Salmon, B.A. Thesis Prepared for the Degree of MASTER OF ARTS UNIVERSITY OF NORTH TEXAS May 2003 APPROVED: Timothy Parrish, Major Professor Peter Shillingsburg, Minor Professor Jacqueline Vanhoutte, Committee Member Brenda Sims, Chair, Graduate Studies in English C. Neal Tate, Dean of the Robert B. Toulouse School of Graduate Studies Salmon, H. L., Martha Gellhorn and Ernest Hemingway: A Literary Relationship, Master of Arts (English). May 2003. 55 pp. Martha Gellhorn and Ernest Hemingway met in Key West in 1937, married in 1941, and divorced in 1945. Gellhorn’s work exhibits a strong influence from Hemingway’s work, including collaboration on her work during their marriage. I will discuss three of her six novels: WMP (1934), Liana (1944), and Point of No Return (1948). The areas of influence that I will rely on in many ways follow the stages Harold Bloom outlines in Anxiety of Influence. Gellhorn’s work exposes a stage of influence that Bloom does not describe—which I term collaborative. By looking at Hemingway’s influence in Gellhorn’s writing the difference between traditional literary influence and collaborative influence can be compared and analyzed, revealing the footprints left in a work by a collaborating author as opposed to simply an influential one. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I would like to thank Dr. Tim Parrish, who from its inception encouraged me to take on this project and whose encouragement throughout my degree work has been insightful and inspiring. Dr. Peter Shillingsburg served as a reader and mentor, and his high standards and personal integrity challenged me to make sure my own scholarship is a credible as his own.
    [Show full text]
  • Report to UCL Octagon Small Grants Fund Sarah Gibbs 1 Conference: Rebel? Prophet? Relic? Perspectives on George Orwell in 2019
    Report to UCL Octagon Small Grants Fund Sarah Gibbs 1 Conference: Rebel? Prophet? Relic? Perspectives on George Orwell in 2019 24-25 May 2019 University College London (UCL) Conference Programme Summary UCL’s first George Orwell conference, Rebel? Prophet? Relic? Perspectives on George Orwell in 2019, took place on May 24th and 25th. The event explored all aspects of the author’s oeuvre and presence in popular culture, from the continuing significance of his masterpiece, the political dystopia Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949), to his relationship to the British Empire and mid-century Fascism. Panelists discussed his reception history in different parts of the world, and adaptations of his work in a variety of media. The speaker list was international, and truly interdisciplinary. Presenters, who were academics, theatre directors, video game designers, authors, journalists, and members of the Armed Forces, traveled Report to UCL Octagon Small Grants Fund Sarah Gibbs 2 from Australia, Canada, Iraq, the United States, China, Germany, Scotland, and all parts of England to participate. The conference brought together a number of Orwell-focused organizations and institutions: the Orwell Foundation, the Orwell Society, and UCL Special Collections, holder of the Orwell Archive. Approximately forty members of the public also joined the event. The support of the Octagon Small Grants Fund not only allowed scholars to participate in a conference dedicated to Orwell, very few of which exist, but also enabled the University to positively engage with the community and publicize its projects and collections. Twitter: @UCL_Orwell_2019; #UCLOrwell2019 Report In 1945, George Orwell wrote of war-time rumours that American troops had come to England to thwart a communist revolution: “One has to belong to the intelligentsia to believe things like that.
    [Show full text]
  • Lights and Shadows in George Orwell's Homage to Catalonia
    Paul Preston Lights and shadows in George Orwell's Homage to Catalonia Article (Accepted version) (Refereed) Original citation: Preston, Paul (2017) Lights and shadows in George Orwell's Homage to Catalonia. Bulletin of Spanish Studies. ISSN 1475-3820 DOI: 10.1080/14753820.2018.1388550 © 2017 The Author This version available at: http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/85333/ Available in LSE Research Online: November 2017 LSE has developed LSE Research Online so that users may access research output of the School. Copyright © and Moral Rights for the papers on this site are retained by the individual authors and/or other copyright owners. Users may download and/or print one copy of any article(s) in LSE Research Online to facilitate their private study or for non-commercial research. You may not engage in further distribution of the material or use it for any profit-making activities or any commercial gain. You may freely distribute the URL (http://eprints.lse.ac.uk) of the LSE Research Online website. This document is the author’s final accepted version of the journal article. There may be differences between this version and the published version. You are advised to consult the publisher’s version if you wish to cite from it. Lights and Shadows in George Orwell’s Homage to Catalonia PAUL PRESTON London School of Economics Despite its misleading title, Orwell’s Homage to Catalonia is almost certainly the most sold and most read book about the Spanish Civil War. It is a vivid and well-written account of some fragments of the war by an acute witness.
    [Show full text]
  • Orwell on Poland and Political Controversies of His Time
    Orwell on Poland and Political Controversies of his Time Krystyna Wieszczek University of Southampton There could hardly be a more appropriate 20th-century British author to bring up for discussion under the theme of “conformity and controversy” than George Orwell. One of his well-known characteristics as an author and political commentator was that of striving to think independently and to boldly present his own conclusions to the public, irrespectively of how controversial they could be at the time. This paper will examine some of his texts that responded to specific issues concerning Poland during the turbulent period of Europe’s transition from war to post-war, in which his statements were not always compliant with those held by much of the British public or with the British censoring policy. It aims to discover more about how Orwell approached conformity and controversy surrounding some contentious problems of his time and, by doing so, also about their political contexts in both Britain and Poland. The texts taken into consideration include his responses to the Warsaw rising, the abduction and trial of sixteen Polish leaders by the Soviets, and the settlement of Polish refugees in Britain after the war. A Socialist’s Disappointment with the USSR Unappreciated at Home Orwell was one of few British left-wing intellectuals to question the government and left-wing press’s uncritical reception of Stalin’s politics in Britain well before the beginning of the cold war (the name of which he coined). His epiphany came during the Spanish civil war where he witnessed the insidious way in which a Soviet-sponsored communist organisation began eliminating fellow socialists, including members of the POUM1 in which Orwell had served, jeopardizing the whole socialist agenda only to gain more power.
    [Show full text]
  • Social Justice Sampler
    SAA SAAMPLER SAA SAASAMPLER MPLER LAWSOCIAL & ETHICS LAW & LAW & 6” 11/16” LAW6” JU &S TICE6” ETHICS.78” 6” PRIVACY & CONFIDENTIALITY PERSPECTIVES MPLER “ Today, legal issues are pervading archival administration more intensively and in more areas ETHICS ETHICS than ever before. Fortunately, a superb new manual, Navigating Legal Issues in Archives, “Privacy and Confidentiality Perspectives brings together a diverse selection of thoughtful and provocative essays that explore the legal, ethical, written by Menzi Behrnd-Klodt and published by the Society of American Archivists, is now administrative, and institutional considerations that shape archival available to guide archivists in facing such problems. While its predecessor, Archives and debates concerning the administration of access to records containing Manuscripts: Law, by Gary and Trudy Peterson, served the last generation well, the current personal information. It is essential reading for archivists, records impact of the law on archives has changed in both detail and extent. The coverage of this new managers, archival educators and students who wish to gain a deeper under-standing of this difficult archival issue—and it is bound to stimu- book reflects these changes well—its presentation is clear, thorough, and well-documented. late broader reflection and debate.” 9” The organization, index, and notes make the book easy to use and give assurance to its quality. — Nadine Strossen Its author and publisher are to be commended for an outstanding aid to their profession.” President, American Civil Liberties Union, and ORRIS OHEN Professor of Law, New York Law School – M L. C 9” ARCHIVISTS & ARCHIVAL RECORDS Professor Emeritus of Law, and Librarian (Retired), Yale Law School “Privacy and Confidentiality Perspectives fills a crucial void in the corpus of archival literature.
    [Show full text]
  • WHY ORWELL MATTERS Coordinator: John Becker George
    WHY ORWELL MATTERS Coordinator: John Becker George Orwell was one of the most consequential writers of the 20th Century. As a novelist, journalist, literary critic and essayist, he exhibited an extraordinary range of interests. More effectively than any of his contemporaries, he posed questions about English society and politics that are still relevant, while also addressing the controversial history of the Russian Revolution and the Spanish Civil War. In this one-semester study group, we read the most famous works (Animal Farm, 1984) a 1930's novel (Keep The Aspidistra Flying), essays (some dealing with his role in the British colonial system), and excerpts from lesser-known works. Readings and other Required Materials: Animal Farm (Signet Classics, ISBN 978-0-451-52634-2, $9.99) 1984 (Signet Classics, ISBN 978-451-52493-5, $9.99) Keep The Aspidistra Flying (A Harvest Book - Harcourt, Inc., ISBN 978-0-15-646899-2, $14.95) Coursepack (under $10.00) John Becker has coordinated study groups in history (American Civil War, World War I), cinema (French and Italian, Film Noir) and literature (Marcel Proust, William Faulkner). * * * * * * * * Syllabus * * * * * * * * Week 1 Biography; Shooting An Elephant, A Hanging Week 2 Down and Out in Paris and London, England Your England Week 3 Keep The Aspidistra Flying - the story of a failed poet who must resolve the conflict between the dangers of a commercial civilization and the pull of family responsibilities and middle class values Week 4 Keep the Aspidistra Flying Week 5 Keep the Aspidistra Flying Week 6 Homage to Catalonia (excerpts), Inside the Whale Week 7 Animal Farm Week 8 1984 Week 9 1984 Week 10 1984 Week 11 1984 Week 12 1984 Week 13 Politics and the English Language, Such, Such Were The Joys..
    [Show full text]
  • George Orwell Why I Write
    George Orwell Why I Write [d] 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’.
    [Show full text]
  • Nineteen Eighty-Four
    Nineteen Eighty-Four This article is about the Orwell novel. For other uses, see 1984 (disambiguation). Nineteen Eighty-Four, sometimes published as 1984, is a dystopian novel by English author George Orwell pub- lished in 1949.[1][2] The novel is set in Airstrip One (for- merly known as Great Britain), a province of the super- state Oceania in a world of perpetual war, omnipresent government surveillance and public manipulation, dic- tated by a political system euphemistically named English Socialism (or Ingsoc in the government’s invented lan- guage, Newspeak) under the control of a privileged Inner Party elite, that persecutes individualism and independent thinking as "thoughtcrimes".[3] The tyranny is epitomised by Big Brother, the quasi- divine Party leader who enjoys an intense cult of per- sonality but who may not even exist. The Party “seeks power entirely for its own sake. We are not interested in the good of others; we are interested solely in power.”[4] The protagonist of the novel, Winston Smith, is a member of the Outer Party, who works for the Ministry of Truth (or Minitrue), which is responsible for propaganda and historical revisionism. His job is to rewrite past newspa- per articles, so that the historical record always supports A 1947 draft manuscript of the first page of Nineteen Eighty- the party line.[5] Smith is a diligent and skillful worker Four, showing the editorial development. but he secretly hates the Party and dreams of rebellion against Big Brother. As literary political fiction and dystopian science-fiction, his unforgiving novel” in 1944, the implications of divid- Nineteen Eighty-Four is a classic novel in content, plot ing the world up into Zones of influence that had been con- and style.
    [Show full text]