Orwell, George - Life and Works

George Orwell

George Orwell was the pen name of the English author, Eric Arthur Blair. He changed his name into G O because George is a traditional English name, while Orwell is the name of a small river in Suffolk. He was born in 1903 in Motihari, in India but in 1911 he was sent to a private preparatory school in England and then graduated from Eton College. After service with the Indian Imperial Police from 1922 to 1927, returned to Europe to become a writer.

He lived for several years in poverty among the poor of Paris and London. His earliest experiences resulted in the book, Down and Out in Paris and London. In 1936 he married Eileen O’Shaughnessy, and in 1937, he went with her to Spain where he fought against the Fascists in the Spanish Civil War. This tragic event inspired his Homage To Catalonia (1938).
Back to England, O. returned to Journalism and political studies. He wrote a lot of newspaper-article, book reviews and essays, and at the same time started working on his most popular book, Animal Farm, which made him famous all over the world.
From Orwell's novel Animal Farm comes the sentence, "All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others", describing theoretical equality in a grossly unequal society.
In 1945, when this novel was published, his wife died.
In his essay Politics and the English Language (1946), Orwell wrote about the importance of honest and clear language and said that vague writing can be used as a powerful tool of political manipulation.
1984, his second most important novel, came out of the chaotic postwar period 1945-49.
Orwell's book is the most penetrating work produced in Orwell's generation on the current trends in national policy and world affairs. It was the result of his sense of duty and the great desire to express what he had learned of totalitarianism.
In Nineteen Eighty-Four he described how the state controlled thought by controlling language, making certain ideas literally unthinkable. The adjective Orwellian refers to the frightening world of Nineteen Eighty-Four, in which the state controls thought and misinformation is widespread. Several words and phrases from Nineteen Eighty-Four have entered popular language. Big Brother is a supreme dictator who watches everyone. Orwell describe an imaginary city which is governed by Big Brother, a dictator; on all the wall of the city there are a lot of posters that show things like big brother is watching you.
In 1950 he wrote Shooting an elephant which is a collection of essays revealing the behavior of the colonial officers. One of his most famous essay is A hanging (1931), in which a Hindu man is hanged in a hurry.
In the meantime, Orwell’s health got worse (he suffered from tuberculosis). He died on January 21, 1950, just as he was about to leave for a sanitarium in Switzerland.