Posted by Me after i wrote the essay on February 16, 2003 at 18:02:54:
In Reply to: Re: what best describes Orwell's style? posted by Alan Hogue on January 07, 2003 at 20:13:47:
Style Analysis
“He who controls the past controls the future and he who controls the future controls the past”. In Nineteen Eighty-Four this quote goes as far as describing the entire ideological basis of George Orwell’s perspective of a totalitarian government. Almost all of his non-fiction short stories, essays and novels have been true-life accounts. In one of his essays entitled Why I Write, Orwell stated that he wanted to capture the truth of human nature, as exemplified in his story of poverty, Down and Out in Paris and London; he captured the realism of life during the Spanish Civil War in Homage to Catalonia; and in The Road to Wigan Pier, Orwell studied the human misery in an exploitative social order. Even in his finest fictional novels, Orwell conveys the same basis of human reality. Nineteen Eighty-Four explored his hatred towards totalitarianism; Animal Farm was his satirical, allegorical and metaphorical masterpiece elucidating his abhorrence of Stalin’s totalitarian rule over Russia. Orwell’s non-fiction greatly differs from his fiction, yet they both constitute the same understanding of human decency. His fiction contains many details with the use of imagery and extended meanings of themes through symbolism. Orwell’s non-fiction is structured very different because he utilizes first person point of view, colloquial diction and tone that points out that people are decent.
Orwell greatly utilized imagery in his fiction pieces to depict the horror of Stalin’s reign over Russia. While not only focusing on the political views of Stalinism, Orwell succeeded in illustrating the perverted ways that Stalin treated his citizens. This quote from Animal Farm, demonstrates Orwell’s use of harsh imagery.
“Immediately the dogs bounded forward, seized four of the pigs by the ear and dragged them, squealing with pain and terror, to Napoleon’s feet. The pigs’ ears were bleeding…The dogs promptly tore (the pigs’) throats out…so the tale of confessions and executions went on, until there was a pile of corpses lying at Napoleon’s feet.” -Animal Farm
This quote dramatically describes Napoleon ruling the farm. Since Orwell wished to describe the murders of Stalin’s citizens as graphically as he could, he used intense action verbs such as ‘bounded’, ‘seized’ and ‘dragged’. The sick imagery used in describing the dead animals at Napoleon’s feet was devastating; one could envision the aftermath of an open war field with dead bodies sprawled out everywhere.
Orwell hated totalitarianism. He despised Joseph Stalin and his regime. His first fiction book, Animal Farm, was a satirical attack on the governing of Stalin. There are many symbols and metaphors, ranging from the setting to the characters. At first, the animals living on the Manor Farm were secretly planning to overthrow their leader, Mr. Jones. They were oppressed, over-worked animals and hated to see their ‘leader’ not contributing to the running of their farm. Symbolically, this is very important. The farm before the animals took over was symbolic for Russia under the rule of the Czar, before the revolution in 1917. Just like the farm, approximately ninety percent of the citizens of Russia were living below the poverty level, working for hardly any pay and had horrible living conditions. The state of Manor Farm reflected just that. After the revolution, both in Animal Farm, and Russia, there were many wonderful thoughts of what their land could turn into. At first, everybody was contributing ideas to how the government should be run, hence, everything being run in a communist manner. But as our animal instincts begin to take course, one group, or one person had to take complete control. In Animal Farm, the pigs preached that they would make the best leaders because they are the smartest. Their leader would be Napoleon, who symbolized Stalin and his regime rising up to power in Russia. As more time went by, the pigs gave themselves more and more power. They began to modify rules from the ‘7 commandments’, in order to better suit their lifestyle, allowing themselves to sleep in beds and associate with humans. Russian politics paralleled these endeavors. Stalin rose up, took control of Russia and soon was governing as a totalitarian, under the name of a communist. From then on, both in Russian history and the story of Animal Farm, the fall of the governments paralleled one another. Orwell successfully created the satirical allegory of the 1940’s with his keen use of imagery and symbolism.
Orwell’s non-fiction writing greatly differs from his fiction. His stories are real-life events utilizing first person point of view, colloquial diction and a sympathetic tone. By using a first person point of view, Orwell captures and gives a definite feeling that the novel is his real life story.
“Hitherto I had not thought about the future, but I now realized that I must do something at once. I decided to start looking for a job.” -Down and Out in Paris and London
The use of Orwell’s ‘I’s obviously suggest a first person point of view. Sensing that Orwell wanted the reader to understand that this is his story, he chose to write his non-fiction novels in first person, allowing the reader to understand his direct feelings.
Orwell has been known to use colloquialism as one of his main features in his writing. “Ah, mais, mon ami.” Other colloquial devices were used in Down and Out in Paris and London. ‘ “Neat ‘eh? Then, you see, he could borrow a thousand francs on the security of the ticket. That is what I mean by brains Mon ami…’ Both quotes contain French, which categorize this piece as colloquial because French and sporadic, sentences such as “Neat ‘eh?” are not formal English. The other colloquial device Orwell was the term “...” to convey to the reader that the dialogue of the character was lame and boring. By using this technique Orwell was trying to drone the speaker’s voice out. Even though this technique is not often used in literature, Orwell used it to make the dialogue more colloquial.
John Atkins wrote, “The common element in all George Orwell’s writing was a sense of decency.” Reflecting the style of Orwell’s work, this quote states many true and commonly overlooked aspects of his writing. The tone in Shooting an Elephant is very straightforward. “But I did not want to shoot the elephant.” This exemplifies Orwell’s ‘sense of decency’. In the story, Orwell accounted “two thousand ‘natives’ marching at my heels.” His thoughts of what a waste it would be to kill the elephant ran through his mind, thinking of the “preoccupied grandmotherly air that elephants have,” considering “It would be an act of murder to shoot him”. The sensitive tone used to describe the “beast” certainly gives the reader a sympathetic feeling for the elephant. The use of the affectionate tone thoroughly works its way into Orwell’s stories. Orwell’s uses of caring tones reveal his ‘sense of decency’.
In his fiction, Orwell powerfully utilizes imagery and symbolism, whereas in his non-fiction, he utilizes tone manipulation, colloquial diction and first person point of view. Altogether, they are literary masterpieces that constitute human decency.