George Orwell: His life
From his birth in 1903, George Orwell knew he was destined to be a writer. Combining this innate affection towards English and the history he would face later on had one clear outcome evident in his novels Animal Farm and 1984: driven political writing.
His natural writing skills lead him to aspiring a career in literature, however, he was not very successful at first. After failure upon failure, painful illnesses, severe poverty and homelessness he sincerely understood the life of the lower class and the oppression that came from the upper-class (Orwell, 1947) and grew to appreciate socialism; both of which are very prominent themes in his novel Animal Farm (Scmoop, 2008). Temporarily giving up on his writing career as a result of his poverty, he enlisted in the Spanish Military.
Enlisting taught him a very vital lesson: the influence that comes with propaganda. Serving the military he witnessed his own friends committing both their actions and attitudes to anti-democracy as an effect of propaganda (Orwell, 1947). He then swore to expose the influential power that was propaganda, an achievement evident in Old Major’s speech at the beginning of Animal Farm. Additionally choosing to write propaganda against Stalin’s corruption within USSR came naturally with his keen political sense.
Growing upon his experience in the lower class he grew passionate to oust Stalin and the USSR for what he ‘really’ was (Orwell, 1947). Orwell could not stand to watch the ‘Stalinist corruption of socialist ideals’ (george-orwell-novels, n.d), and found that it was the ‘utmost’ important’ to expose this. Being the socialism advocate that he was, he utilized his knowledge of propaganda to write the fairy tale-esque fable, Animal Farm: the satirical novel about the oppression unto animals and the corruption of power, i.e, a simplified USSR.
In hindsight, it should be ‘crystal clear’ as to why and how Orwell was inclined to write about the Soviet Union. It was because he empathized with the lower class; it was because he understood the negative influence that came with propaganda; it was because that he saw the USSR as a complete farce of the ‘socialist ideals’. Driven by these lessons, he published Animal Farm in 1947: a ‘well-written’ revelation of the faults within the USSR.
His natural writing skills lead him to aspiring a career in literature, however, he was not very successful at first. After failure upon failure, painful illnesses, severe poverty and homelessness he sincerely understood the life of the lower class and the oppression that came from the upper-class (Orwell, 1947) and grew to appreciate socialism; both of which are very prominent themes in his novel Animal Farm (Scmoop, 2008). Temporarily giving up on his writing career as a result of his poverty, he enlisted in the Spanish Military.
Enlisting taught him a very vital lesson: the influence that comes with propaganda. Serving the military he witnessed his own friends committing both their actions and attitudes to anti-democracy as an effect of propaganda (Orwell, 1947). He then swore to expose the influential power that was propaganda, an achievement evident in Old Major’s speech at the beginning of Animal Farm. Additionally choosing to write propaganda against Stalin’s corruption within USSR came naturally with his keen political sense.
Growing upon his experience in the lower class he grew passionate to oust Stalin and the USSR for what he ‘really’ was (Orwell, 1947). Orwell could not stand to watch the ‘Stalinist corruption of socialist ideals’ (george-orwell-novels, n.d), and found that it was the ‘utmost’ important’ to expose this. Being the socialism advocate that he was, he utilized his knowledge of propaganda to write the fairy tale-esque fable, Animal Farm: the satirical novel about the oppression unto animals and the corruption of power, i.e, a simplified USSR.
In hindsight, it should be ‘crystal clear’ as to why and how Orwell was inclined to write about the Soviet Union. It was because he empathized with the lower class; it was because he understood the negative influence that came with propaganda; it was because that he saw the USSR as a complete farce of the ‘socialist ideals’. Driven by these lessons, he published Animal Farm in 1947: a ‘well-written’ revelation of the faults within the USSR.