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George Orwell (1903-1950)

Born Eric Blair in India on June 25, 1903, George Orwell was educated as a scholarship student at prestigious boarding schools in England. Because of his background—he famously described his family as “lower-upper-middle class”—he never quite fit in and felt oppressed and outraged by the dictatorial control that the schools he attended exercised over their students’ lives. After graduating from Eton, Orwell decided to forego college to work as a British Imperial Policeman in Burma. He hated his duties in Burma, where he was required to enforce the strict laws of a political regime he despised. His failing health, which troubled him throughout his life, caused him to return to England on convalescent leave. Once back in England, he quit the Imperial Police and dedicated himself to becoming a writer.

Inspired by the 1903 book The People of the Abyss by American writer Jack London, which detailed the author's experience in the slums of London, England, Orwell lived among the very poor in Paris and London. After reemerging, and using the pseudonym George Orwell, he published a book about these experiences, Down and Out in Paris and London (1933). He later lived among destitute coal miners in northern England, an experience that convinced him to give up on capitalism in favor of democratic socialism.

In 1936, Orwell traveled to Spain to report on the Spanish Civil War, where he witnessed firsthand the nightmarish atrocities committed by fascist supporters of Francisco Franco. The rise to power and the subsequent brutality of dictators including Franco in Spain, Adolf Hitler in Germany, and Joseph Stalin in the Soviet Union inspired Orwell’s mounting hatred of totalitarianism and political authority. Orwell devoted his energy to writing novels that were politically charged, first with Animal Farm in 1945, then with 1984 in 1949.

Orwell had been in declining health for several years by the time 1984 was written and published. He was diagnosed with tuberculosis late in 1947. Nevertheless, he was able to write his enduring novel, which was published to immediate acclaim in June 1949. In October of 1949, Orwell married Sonia Brownell while he was confined to a hospital. His health continued to worsen after his marriage, and he died on January 21, 1950, at the age of 46.

Orwell and the Exploration and Expansion of the Dystopian Novel Genre

Animal Farm is a satirical allegory that explores the Russian Revolution and the subsequent rise of Stalinism. Set on a farm, the story begins with the animals overthrowing their human oppressors, led by the pigs who represent the ruling class. Initially, the animals establish a utopian society based on the principles of equality and solidarity. However, as the pigs consolidate power, they betray the very ideals they espoused, turning the farm into a dystopian regime mirroring the oppressive human rule they initially rebelled against.

Like Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World (1932), 1984 is one of the most famous novels of the negative utopian, or dystopian, genre. Unlike a utopian novel, in which the writer aims to portray the perfect human society, a dystopian novel does the exact opposite: it shows the worst human society imaginable, to convince readers to avoid any path that might lead toward such societal degradation.

Long after its publication and Orwell’s subsequent death, 1984 remains as one of the most powerful warnings ever issued against the dangers of a totalitarian society. Having witnessed the danger of absolute political authority in an age of advanced technology in Spain, Germany, and the Soviet Union, he vividly illustrated that peril harshly in 1984.

1984 Then and Now

In 1949, in the early days of the nuclear age and before television had become a solid fixture in the family home, Orwell’s vision of a post-atomic dictatorship in which every individual would be monitored ceaselessly by means of the telescreen seemed terrifyingly possible. That Orwell postulated such a society a mere 35 years into the future compounded this fear. Of course, the world that Orwell envisioned in the novel 1984 did not materialize by the year 1984. That year found the authoritarian regime in the Soviet Union beset with domestic and foreign struggles. Within just a few years, the Berlin Wall fell, marking the disintegration of that particular authoritative political apparatus, which had cruelly ruled the millions of people living within the Soviet sphere of influence.

However, as we have seen since the fall of the Soviet empire, authoritarian governments have remained and continue to periodically pop up around the globe. Thus 1984 remains an important novel as the threats of totalitarianism persist–in part for the alarm Orwell sounds against the abusive nature and technological reach of authoritarian orders, as well as for his penetrating analysis of the psychology of power and the ways that manipulations of language and history can be used as mechanisms of control.

Next section Historical Context: Why Orwell Wrote 1984

Popular pages: 1984

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