George Orwell by class 5B Liceo Scientifico Statale Enrico Medi Barcellona P.G. (Messina)

 

 

George Orwell is the outstanding English example of the politically committed intellectual, the kind of writer who considers his own art a possible instrument in the liberation of mankind.

His name has unfortunately become a synonym only for pessimism and gloomy prophecies and it is associated with his two masterpieces: ”Animal farm” and “1984”.
He had a negative and pessimistic view of the masses. He believed in the common people, but he knew that they can be easily manipulated through the corruption of language; this way can explain the circular structure of his books: they end where they started.

“Animal farm” is a political fable in the form of an allegory. The main reason which led Orwell to write this book was his disillusionment with Stalinism and totalitarianism. Moreover, he made clear allusions to parallel events in Soviet Russia, for instance, the failure of the five year plan,  the flight of Trotsky, the Moscow show trials, the non-aggression pact between Soviet Russia and Nazi Germany in 1949, which led to the partition of Poland and to the second world war.

The main theme is that all revolutions fail  and disappoint the expectation of their promoters, and, in the end, the ideals that inspired them are diluted by the ruling elite which concentrates power into its own hands.

The other themes are: animals exploited by men, workers exploited by their masters, the proletariat exploited by the rich.

“1984” is a novel about the society of the future. The original title should have been "the last man in Europe", probably inspired by the strong presence of Winston Churchill (who also provided the first name of the protagonist), who remained virtually the "last defender" of Europe in the second world war before the intervention of the United States.

The outstanding achievement of this book is the highly original and informative account Orwell gives of the political mechanisms of totalitarianism: the methods by which thought is controlled, privacy invaded, and personal resistance broken down.

One of the most interesting sections of the book is a long account of the way a totalitarian state attempts to control the thoughts of its citizens through language.