Special thanks to Cluster_of_thoughts for recommending George Orwell to discuss!
❝Perhaps one did not want to be loved so much as to be understood.❞
-- George Orwell, 1984
English novelist, essayist, and critic famous for his novels, Animal Farm (1945) and Nineteen Eighty-four (1949), Eric Arthur Blair who wrote under his pseudonym, George Orwell. He was born June 25, 1903 in Bengal, India, and his family returned to England; he went sent to a preparatory boarding school on the Sussex coast in 1911.
He won scholarships to Wellington and Eton, briefly attended the former before continuing his studies at the latter, where he stayed from 1917 to 1921. Aldous Huxley was one of his masters when he attended Eton. From a young age, he had wanted to become a writer.
After his studies, in 1922, Orwell followed his family tradition to went to Burma to be an assistant district superintendent in the Indian Imperial Police. When he realized how much against their will the Burmese were ruled by the British, he felt ashamed of his role as a colonial police officer. In the beginning of 1928, Orwell resigned from the imperial police.
He lived in East End of London to live in cheap lodging houses among laborers and beggars. He also worked as a dishwasher in French hotels and restaurants. These years of experience inspired and added into his first book, Down and Out in Paris and London (1933). A year later, he wrote a fiction novel, Burmese Days (1934) which dives into a portrayal of a sensitive and emotionally isolated individual who is at odds with an oppressive or dishonest social environment.
He has published six fiction novels and three non-fiction stories. His most well-known are Animal Farm, which is a political fable based on the story of the Russian Revolution and its betrayal by Joseph Stalin, and his dystopian novel Nineteen-Eighty four, which as a warning after years of brooding on the twin menaces of Nazism and Stalinism.
In London, Orwell passed away on January 21, 1950 of tuberculosis.
Discussion Questions:
Fables provide a new perspective. What elements / methods make you, the reader, see in a new way? Have you written a fable before? Would you like to try to?
Dystopia novels have increased within the past ten years. What novel have you read that would be apart of this genre?
Which of Orwell's writings is your favorite? Have you reread his writings?
Always open to additional questions and comments on about George Orwell and his works.
If there is another author you would like to see a discussion on, please post your suggestion in the comments below for a chance to be featured in a future chapter!
Resources:
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