George Orwell: A Literary Life

By Kate     date August 2024

Eric Arthur Blair. Or, better known by his pen name, George Orwell. One of history’s most famous authors, and one of my personal favourites. His brilliant political works, such as Animal Farm, have echoed down the halls of both literary brilliance and history, forever striking a chord with many. I was introduced to Animal Farm in year 8 and immediately fell in love with his writing. It was brilliant, the allegorical aspects fascinated me, and the link to real-world politics made it even better. Everything from the characters to the writing was something that made me want to continue reading. I do also need to thank my English teacher for not making it boring to learn about. And not only do I love Animal Farm and his political works, but I love his autobiographical works such as Homage to Catalonia and Down and Out in Paris and London. He illustrates everyday, mundane life in a way that doesn’t leave you bored. In Down and Out, he details the struggles of a man in poverty, and I found it to be quite a thought-provoking read and one that everyone should read. If you are like me, you are very fortunate to have everything you do have, but not everyone was or is. Poverty is still very much a big issue and has not changed much at all since the time of his novel. It opens your eyes to the struggles of others, and I think the novel is still very much applicable to the world we live in today. Everyone would benefit from reading this, and the world may become just that little bit better. And Homage to Catalonia details his time serving in the Spanish Civil War. He was there in person for a world-changing moment and writes about his experiences so brilliantly. I am a big history nerd, and I love learning about Spanish history. I learned of it from my Spanish teacher, who is also a huge Orwell fan, and I cannot thank him enough for the recommendation. The book is brilliant, and another novel I think most people should read. Anyway, I’m aware I’m rambling quite a bit today, but I love his work. This month is going to be dedicated to Orwell as he was born on the 25th June 1903. I hope this will open many eyes to the brilliance of Orwell’s work. Without further ado, I hope you enjoy reading this “Life of George Orwell” as much as I have enjoyed writing it.

Eric Arthur Blair was born on June 25th, 1903, to parents Richard Walmsley Blair and Ida Mabel Blair in Motihari, Bengal. His father worked there as an Opium Agent in the service of the Indian Civil Service. The family soon returned to England, where he was almost exclusively brought up by Ida. The Thames Valley locales would provide the background for his novel “Coming up for Air” (1939).

He was a studious child. He attended St Cyprian’s preparatory school and then won a King’s scholarship to Eton College. He got to the school in May 1917. Quite frankly, he slacked during his time at Eton. Later in his life, he wrote, “No one can look back on his school days and say they were altogether happy” and left a caustic memoir of his time at Eton. He would leave the school in December 1921, after only 1 term in the sixth form. The next June, he took the entrance exam for the Indian Imperial Police and passed. He was then accepted into the Burma division.

His years in Burma are often viewed as a morose period of separation from his family, but his family had connections to the Eastern Empire, and he had relatives there. That was a big part of the reason he applied for a post there. There really isn’t much known about his time in Burma except for the fact that it inspired some of his early writings, “A Hanging”, “Shooting an Elephant” and his first novel, “Burmese Days” (1934). He spent 5 years there, and it ruined his health. The fervour of the Imperial “racket” he had contributed to was wearing off. He left Burma in 1917 on a medical certificate. He decided to resign from the Burmese Police after his return to England.

For the next five years, he lived the life of an impoverished writer and vagrant. He would spend part of that time in his parents’ house in Southwold, Suffolk. In this period of his life, he taught in private schools at times, lived in Paris and masqueraded as a tramp. This was the background of his first published work in 1933, Down and Out in Paris and London. It was at this time that he chose his pen name, George Orwell, combining the names of monarchs and a river. Unfortunately, he suffered a long bout of pneumonia in 1934, which brought his teaching career to an end. He used his long, recuperative stay in Suffolk to finish his second novel, A Clergyman’s Daughter (1935). He then went to London, where he worked in a bookshop. This would prove to be a productive period of his life as he married his wife, Eileen O’Shaughnessy, and wrote his third novel, “Keep the Aspidistra Flying” (1936), which was partly based on his book trade experiences.

The couple would begin their married life in a cottage in Wallington, Hertfordshire. During this time, Orwell gathered his material from his trip to the industrial north to complete “The Road to Wigan Pier” in 1937. The second half of the book focuses on long, polemic views on socialism, but his political views were not yet fully formed. However, he was about to experience the defining political moment in his life.

The six months he spent in Barcelona in 1937 as a Republican volunteer fighting against the fascist dictator, Franco. He was shot in the throat during service and it narrowly missed his carotid artery, meaning he survived. Many thought him extremely lucky to have survived this incident, but as he states in “Homage to Catalonia” (1938), “I could not stop thinking that it would be even luckier not to be hit at all”. I cannot say I disagree. He was also present when Soviet-sponsored hit-squads attempted to suppress the Trotskyist POUM militia, of which he had been a member. He said that Spain had made him “believe in Socialism for the first time” and completely oppose totalitarian political systems.

“Homage to Catalonia, an account of his time in Spain, was published in 1938, when he was back in England. He would, unfortunately, suffer a life-threatening lung haemorrhage and would spend a year recuperating in both England and Morocco. The global conflict known as WWII was on the horizon, and Orwell remained opposed to it. However, the Russo-German pact of August 1939 made him change his mind. He now had hopes that the war would foster a sense of socialist purpose, which he details in his 1941 pamphlet essay, The Lion and the Unicorn: Socialism and the English Genius. Due to being rejected from serving in the military based on his health, he began working for the BBC as a talk producer in their Eastern services. He grew to dislike this job as he felt that the atmosphere “is something between a girls’ school and a lunatic asylum, and all we are doing at present is useless, or slightly worse than useless”. He then secured a job as the literary editor for the Tribune in 1943, and he also contributed to a column called “As I please”.

He wrote Animal Farm (my favourite of his works and in my top three books) in the middle of 1944, and it was a bitter satire and allegory of the Russian Soviet Union. However, thanks to pressure from a Russian Spy working in the Ministry of Information and publishers’ hesitance to publish it during the war meant that it wasn’t published until August 1945. Unfortunately, Orwell’s personal life was in ruins at this point. His wife had died from a routine surgery due to heart failure during the procedure 5 months before this. Shortly before that, the couple had adopted a boy called Richard Horatio Blair, whom Orwell was now determined to raise on his own with the help of his sister, Avril.

With the help of his friend, David Astor, he started exploring the possibility of living on the Scottish island of Jura. He spent most of the last 5 years of his life struggling with worsening health in the Inner Hebrides while trying to complete his novel 1984. Sadly, upon finishing the draft, he suffered a complete physical collapse and was taken to a nursing home in Cotswold, as he was suffering from advanced tuberculosis.

Unfortunately, the success of 1984, which was published in 1949, came too late for Orwell. He was moved to the University College Hospital in September and died there on the 21st of January 1950 at the age of 46 years old. Shortly before his death, he made an unexpected second marriage to a woman called Sonia Brownwell.

That was a day of great loss for the literary world and he has been and will be remembered for his brilliant political works and his observations about humans. He was revolutionary and even tried to warn us against the future. How close are we to the dystopia he created, where clocks strike 13 and Big Brother is always watching? Did we heed his warning, or will we continue to ignore it? That’s up for you to decide.

I have absolutely loved writing this piece for the website as George Orwell is one my absolute favourite people of the literary world. I can only hope that you enjoyed it and I apologise for all the rambling I did at the start! What’s your favourite of Orwell’s works? Mine is definitely Animal Farm, but I’ll spare you the rant about it . Who’s your Orwell?

Happy reading!

Kate x