George Orwell: Sociopolitics of the 1930's

The Road to Wigan Pier’, an autobiography written by George Orwell, was first published in 1937. The first half of this book documents Orwell’s observations about the poor living conditions amongst some working class families belonging to Yorkshire and Lancashire, in the period before World War Two had begun. In the second half, Orwell wrote a long essay about his own experiences in the book where he covered topics such as his middle-class upbringing, the developing ideas regarding his political conscience and also questions British attitudes towards socialism. As well as this, Orwell wrote about his own political beliefs about socialism and also explained how he felt that people would be able to benefit from socialism. Orwell addresses many issues that were prevalent during this period, allowing a historian to gain more of an insight about the impact that this had on people’s lives as well as beginning to understand the effects that this may have had on British society as a whole. In many ways, Orwell’s detailed and vivid descriptions allow a historian to see and understand British society from a different perspective. It can also be identified that to some extent the autobiography allows a historian to be able to begin understanding more about the ways in which British society had become divided during the wars and to be able to understand exactly how this can be shown throughout the text. Although there are many interesting and useful ways of interpreting this document

Political press can play such crucial role in the viewpoints of citizens; with an impact like this, it is essential to have explicit information. George Orwell’s 1946 essay “Politics and the English Language” he argues that Politicians have manipulated the English language, thus making their points euphemistic. He explains that these that, “...it is broadly true that political writing is bad writing” and results to a politician being “unconscious of what he is saying” (Orwell). Even though this essay was written in 1946, Orwell’s six basic rules are still broken. For instance, Donald Trump’s immigration speech is prime example of what Orwell would conclude as “nonsense”. The speech breaks the elementary rules by using unfamiliar phrases,

Novelist, essayist, and journalist, George Orwell, in his essay, “Politics and the English Language”, argues that the language we use effects politics and government. Orwell’s purpose is to convey the idea that people must avoid bad habits in written English, especially writing in politics, because people lack thinking their words through, and how political writers mislead people with the decline in the value of the English language. The author creates a serious and dictator tone in order to persuade his audience that he is in charge of his writing and what he is saying is right.

The Depression changed social structure in America forever. “The real story of the 1930’s is how individual families endured and survived, whether battling the despair of hunger and unemployment in the city of the fear of unending drought and forced migration in the dust bowl of the Great plains.” (Press, Petra pg 6)

Thinking back upon his experiences as a man in a supposed high authority position, Orwell comes to the realization that he was being pushed around by the people he thought he controlled. Through the writing of this essay, Orwell shares with his audience his idea that imperialism is not everything that it seems to be on the outside because the oppressor is often restricted by this relationship as

Orwell lived in an age where totalitarianism was a reality in countries such as Spain, Germany and the Soviet Union, where the governments kept an ‘iron fist’ around its citizens, suppressing their freedoms and controlling their actions, furthermore, hunger, forced labour and mass executions were prevalent. That is the reason for the novel being swamped with the ideas of hunger, forced labour, mass torture and imprisonment, and everlasting monitoring by the authorities. It is through the poverty and living conditions of the proles and party members in dichotomy to the conditions in which the inner-party members live in that Orwell highlights the true motives behind totalitarianism. For example,

1984's dystopian world may be purely fictional but our reality is being morphed into a superficial twin that relates in nearly all fashions. Futuristic technology of today has become more similar to the world of Big Brother's such as the many cameras that survey people through everyday life. Telescreens that George Orwell described vividly are now real with people having the knowledge to be able to view everyday people through computers and track phones. However, the decision still remains; has this advancement in technology allowed for the downfall of our privacy and limited our daily lives, or has it aided our existence?

To maintain absolute power over society, authority will exert their powers in an oppressive manner to enforce conformity and control over individuals within the population. Written in 1949, “Nineteen Eighty-Four” by George Orwell is a dystopian novel that follows the life and experiences of protagonist, Winston Smith, in the cruel and dangerous totalitarian superstate of Oceania. The English Socialist Party’s (INGSOC, the government) extensive control over individuals is established in the opening scene through symbolism and personification, “BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING YOU.” ‘Big Brother,’ an embodiment of the government, evidently abuses its power with omnipresent surveillance to perpetuate fear; thus, it reflects a dictatorial regime and the

Orwell’s first step in seeing the English working classes as people and not “subhuman”—which he had been taught as a child—was not fully recognized until his return to England from Burma. During his time in Burma, Orwell worked as a British police officer, which allowed him to observe the oppressive system Britain had imposed upon the people of Burma. Taking part in this oppressive system caused Orwell to grow increasingly guilty as well as harbor a deep hatred for oppression in all its forms. The culminating result of this was that Orwell decided to live among the oppressed lower classes of Britain. This was in part to alleviate some of his guilt, but primarily to stand with the oppressed lower

In “Politics and the English language,” George Orwell portrays “various tricks by which the work of prose construction is habitually dodged.” (Orwell 583). Orwell’s argument is the English language is being deformed by modern writers thus mocking the use of the language. Orwell relates this topic to political and economic issues to show how the use of English is critical with these aspects. He refers to this topic as a “reversible” process (Orwell 581) if writers’ follow his six rules; without them the writing contains staleness of imagery and lack of precision. (Orwell 582). Orwell names these tricks: dying metaphors, operators or verbal false limbs, pretentious diction, and meaningless words. In “Shooting an Elephant,” Orwell uses these tricks to provide rhetorical motives. Orwell mentions “He wears a mask, and his face grows to fit it” (Orwell 853) to refer to himself when he was a police man in Moulmein, Burma.

What Orwell has accomplished in his book Down and Out in Paris and London is a narrative of the conditions of the life of the poor, without any explicit blame placed on a group or entity in society. Orwell offered his understandings he deducted while being without a job and while working as a plongeur. Thus, Herbert Gorman’s claim of Down and Out in Paris and London being an indictment by Orwell is decidedly false under careful examination of the book up to Chapter XXVII. The book serves to offer a new perspective to those who have falsely judged the life of the

To understand the bleak outlook many held on life in the industrial North, you had to have a clear look at the most prevalent position, coal mining. Orwell himself said about coal mining “More than anyone else, perhaps, the miner can stand as the type of the manual worker, not only because his work is so exaggeratedly awful, but also because it is so vitally necessary and yet so remote from our experience, so invisible, as it were, that we are capable of forgetting it as we forget the blood in our veins” (Orwell). What he meant was that every industry at the time depended on coal for a power source, it was the backbone of life, and the miners were tasked with back breaking labor. To understand the life of the poor in England, without compromise, the first people you would have to look

The Road to Wigan Pier, a novel by George Orwell is a masterpiece depicting the working class of England during economic depression from Orwell’s experience and perspective. In the novel Orwell dives deep into to the social reality of 1930s British society and explore the social and economic struggle that prevails through Europe. Struggles depicted in the novel are part of the larger picture in which Orwell addresses society’s leaning towards more socialist ideals and governmental systems. Orwell’s account is specifically of England however his experience is indicative of conditions in most countries across the European continent.

Orwell starts his work by describing his stay at a working-class house. The Brookers ran a lodging house that is overrun with black beetles and crumbs. The house, noticeably in complete decay, is home to a handful of men that pay a substantial amount of their income to the Brookers. For Orwell, the stay is part of his investigation of the working and living conditions in industrial towns. What he learns and learns will not be forgotten. From Mrs. Brooker wiping her plump, oversized face on scraps of torn off newspaper, to Mr. Brooker serving dirty, blackened bread to the tenants, Orwell receives a repulsive look into the everyday lives of the working-class. However,

Orwell suggests several reasons for the moderate response to the troubled economic conditions. He writes that many of the working had a sense of the inability to make change within society through the political process. When he questioned a working-class person on why they would not form a union, Orwell quotes them stating he was immediately told that “they” would never allow it. I asked who are they.1 The working-class had a feeling the current management and political system would discourage formation of any beneficial organization that was truly on the behalf of the workers. Orwell goes on to also point out that many of the working-class may have not truly been aware of the actual conditions that they were living. When talking to a miner,