Posted by pete on January 03, 2002 at 06:51:53:
In Reply to: what does "keep the aspidistras flying" mean anyway? posted by Laura on January 02, 2002 at 16:03:00:
For George Orwell the 'Apidistra' smybolised everything that he attempted to reject in his world.
He portrays this through Gordon Comstock, who is the main character in the novel, a struggling young writer who despite modest success with his poetry, embarks on a downhill struggle into poverty even though he has the chance to 'make good' and get a good job in advertising, an industry he dislikes because of its shallow misrepresentation of 'real life'.
The apidistra was a plant that many young English couples would have bought in the 1930's, perhaps to place on their window sill to suggest their 'respectability' and the fact that they have a good job, house, a family, a future, but most of all, 'success'. For George Orwell (Gordon Comstock), the Apidistra sybolised dull, lifeless respectability and submission to the 'money-god' and he chose the Apidistra to highlight his own disaffection with his society.
In the novel Gordon Comstock has his own Apidistra in his small bedroom where he spends most of his time writing, and he makes many futile attempts to kill the plant by pouring various chemicals etc on it. But the plant always survives, in the same way as the 'money-god' does.
At the end of the novel Gordon finds himself in a difficult situation where he has to make the choice of supporting his pregnant wife, marry her and 'make good' which would have challenged his chosen way of life, a life of poverty and rejection of money. He marries her, and the first thing he does is buy an Apidistra for the house. The irony is clear...Gordon submits, unwillingly, to the life he so much tried to reject and this is the reason he calls the book 'Keep the Apidistra Flying' instead of, for example, 'Don't keep the Apidistra Flying'. It is a tragedy,a mockery, a satire of all that he deplores about modern society and the way money has its say in EVERYTHING we do.