Transcript George Orwell (1903-1950) and 1984

•The real name: Eric
Arthur Blair
•Born in Motihari, Bengal
in 1903 to British colonial
figures
•Sent to preparatory
school in Eastbourne in
1911 where he felt like an
outcast
•Humiliating punishments and
rigid adherence to discipline
• Such, such were the joys
(1953): pressure to conform
to the traditional values of
society
•Scolarship and opportunity to
go to Eton where he
developed his personality
•Member of the Indian Imperial Police 1922-1927
•Burmese days (1934): he recorded his experiences
•He returns to England in 1927 and feels sympathy for
the oppressed by living among the urban poor
•Down and out in Paris and London (1933): about the
institutions for the poor like hostels, prisons, and
hospitals
•Keep the aspidistra flying (1936): studies about
English values and life
•marriage with Eileen O’Shaughnessy in 1936
•The road to Wigan Pier (1937): about the miners’ life
•Spanish civil war in 1937: he fought in the ranks
of the supporters of the left-wing Loyalists
against Fascism
•Homage to Catalonia and Inside the Whale:
he stresses the similarity of communists and
Fascists
•He joined the BBC in 1941 broadcasting
cultural and political programmes to India
•He died of tubercolosis in 1950
•His experiences contributed to his ability
to see his country from the outside and to
judge its weakness and strenghts
•Conflict between his middle-class
background and his emotional
identification with the working class
•Desire to reveal real facts and inform the
people about political matters
•Writing has a positive social function
•Written in 1948: a possible ghastly
dictatorship set in a hypotethical 1984
•Oceania: a vast totalitarian system including
North America, Australia and South Africa
•Big brother: a mysterious leader who
controls all the popolation through
“telescreens”. He is a combination of Stalin
and Hitler
•“Thoughtcrime”and “doublethink”:
analogy with Russia and Germany
•Sense of loss, feeling that beauty and
truth and all emotions and values belong
to the past
• sex is forbidden and it is only a means for
reproduction
•Smith: the commonest English surname;
Winston: evokes Churchill’s patriotic
appeals for sacrifice during the Second
World
War
•Alienation from society and desire for
spiritual and moral integrity: he writes a
diary
•The tone of the book becomes increasingly
pessimistic and violent
•Orwell presents a frightening picture of
the future
•The party has absolute control of the press,
communication and propaganda
•The language and history are controlled
in the interests of the state
•Any form of rebellion against the rules is
punished with prison and torture
by Andrea Davì