1. George Orwell
Author

2. Orwell’s Early Background
His father was a colonial officer in the British military stationed in
India
He was born in India as Eric Blair and moved to England where he
took his pseudonym, or pen name, from the River Orwell
He was educated at Eton College in Windsor, England and
had a professor named Aldous Huxley who wrote the
famous dystopia, Brave New World, an archetype which influenced
Orwell’s own writing

3. Orwell Began to Ask Why
Orwell developed a very independent viewpoint, especially to values that people “just accepted”
He tried working for the Indian Imperial Police (in Burma), but hated it because the Burmese people rejected him, so he returned to England to try writing full time.

4. Orwell as a Writer The Beginning of His Writing Career
Orwell was deeply affected by the poverty he saw
His travels in East London and Paris, France showed him the “down-and-outers” about which he would start to write
He lived among these homeless people and learned their
struggles firsthand
This led to a number of essays and
his first novel, Down and Out in Paris
and London
He was becoming very political by the time he wrote Burmese Days.

5. Orwell’s Tragic Life
Orwell involved himself in fighting for the oppressed
Orwell married Eileen O'Shaughnessy in 1936 and decided to fight in the Spanish Civil War in 1937 even though he did not live there
He was shot in the throat and the arm while in the war, but survived his injuries
Orwell was often sick, and he was eventually diagnosed with tuberculosis in 1938
The couple adopted a son in 1944
Eileen died during an operation in 1945, so Orwell’s sister, Avril,
came to live with him to help care for the child

6. Orwell as a Writer
To support himself, Orwell wrote essays and literary criticisms.
He also worked for the BBC in 1941 as a producer and a newsman
He eventually found himself producing propaganda for Great Britain during WWII
He resigned in 1943 and wrote the novel Animal Farm in 1945 at the end of WWII

7. Orwell and His Great Works
His Writing Career & Animal Farm…
Orwell wrote Animal Farm in 1945, and it was highly successful
The novel is a satirical piece with the Soviet Union as its target
Two pigs are the main protagonists and are believed to be Joseph Stalin and Leon Trotsky, both important figures in the Communist revolution of 1917 in Russia
The novel is both dystopian and allegorical
as it deals with animals on a farm, but it
symbolically tells another story

8. Philosophical Underpinnings for Orwell’s Great Works
Much of Orwell’s writing was inspired by and was a reaction to some political philosophies:
--Socialism: property & distribution of wealth are controlled by governments to increase social and economic equality.
--Communism: goal is to form a classless society based on common ownership of the state where everyone is equal. The roots of Communism go back to the philosophical work of Karl Marx who believed communism should replace other forms of government.
Marx: “From each according to his ability—to each according to his needs.”

9. Orwell’s Political Views
Joseph Stalin attempted to put Marx’s philosophies into practice after the 1917 Revolution in Russia which established the Soviet Socialist Republic (Soviet Union)
Orwell saw himself as a “democratic socialist,” which, to him, was something much different than what Stalin practiced

10. Philosophical Underpinnings for Orwell’s Great Works
Thomas More (English Author) invented the term “Utopia” in 1516—Utopia translates to no place, and it is a fictional paradise where everyone is equal. In some ways, Communism seeks to achieve this kind of paradise or at least a “workers paradise.” The workers paradise was Marx’s last stage in his vision for his Socialist society.

11. Philosophical Underpinnings for
Orwell’s Great Works
Dystopia is a vision of an often futuristic society, which has developed into a negative version of Utopia. A dystopia is often characterized by a totalitarian form of government.
This totalitarian government uses different kinds of repressive social control systems, a lack or total absence of individual freedoms and expressions, and a state of constant warfare or violence.
Look for some of these features in Orwell’s works, especially Nineteen Eighty-Four (1984)

12. Orwell and His Great Works
His Writing Career & 1984…
In 1949, Orwell published arguably one of
the greatest novels of the 20th Century,
Nineteen Eighty-Four (or 1984)
The novel is the essence of dystopian as it paints
a disturbing vision of a world where Big Brother
controls everything and three nations are at war
Really the novel is about Orwell’s theory on what a society would be like if it controlled every aspect of a
person’s life

13. How Did Orwell Know?
The technology in 1984 described is far ahead of its
time, and some might say it is quite
prophetic given the technology we have
today and the possibility that it could be
used by a government to spy on its citizens
The novel was a massive success and lives
on today, even though Orwell died from tuberculosis just a year after it was published in 1950