Blogpost #19
On the 25th of June in 1903, the 20th century English author and journalist Eric Arthur Blair was born in eastern India. The son of a British colonial civil servant, Blair was a member of the Indian Imperial Police in Burma, before moving to Paris and becoming a writer in 1927. His lack of success forced him into a series of menial jobs. These experiences were later expressed in his first book, "Down and Out in Paris and London"which was published in 1933.
Shortly before its publication, Blair officially changed his name to George Orwell. By the time he was 33, Orwell had traveled to Spain to fight for the Republicans against Franco's Nationalists, but was forced to flee in fear of his own life when Soviet-backed communists were suppressing revolutionary socialist dissenters. These experiences allegedly turned him into a lifelong Anti-Stalinist.
When Orwell published his essay "Politics and the English Language" in the 1946, not only had he already gotten recognition for his infamous satire novel "Animal farm" in 1945, but he was also the literary editor for a left-wing magazine known as theTribune. For the first time in his life, his successes ensured that he would be financially comfortable. Orwell's political experiences as an activist, his cultural back round and aspirations were crucial to his works as a novelist, journalist and author. In the second part of his essay, Orwell claims that political language always follows the same lifeless and imitative style, one that is used against its own people. "Political speech and writing are largely the defense of the indefensible." He also mentions that "this invasion of one's mind can only be prevented if one is constantly on guard against them." Orwell's recurring idea against the fight of entering this reduced state of consciousness comes from personal experience, as he worked for the BBC propaganda between 1941-43.