ORWELL
HOMAGE TO CATALONIA
A combatant and an eye-witness of the events, Orwell examines the contemporary accounts in the newspapers and in the war reports to show how the facts happened differ from the facts narrated, how such narratives were fabricated to create different enemies and serve different, if not opposite, ideologies.
He thus reflects on how propaganda not only alter facts, but often creates them to suit a precise ideology.
It is Orwell’s personal account of his experiences and observations during the Spanish Civil War.
Such experience was one of the shaping events on his political outlook and a significant part of what led him to write, in 1946: «Every line of serious work that I have written since 1936 has been written, directly or indirectly, against
totalitarianism».
ANIMAL FARM, A FAIRY STORY (1945)
So, they rebel under the leadership of the pigs Napoleon and Snowball. They take over the farm, and rename it ‘Animal Farm’. Its aim is to benefit all who walk on four legs.
They set up some rules as ‘All animals are equals’, which though soon becomes 'All animals are equal. But some animals are more equal than others’, as the pigs become the new rulers.
They want to create a society where the animals can be equal, free, and happy.
■ Ending lines: “The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again; but already it was impossible to say which was
which.”
It is a fairy story on a group of farm animals who rebel against their human farmer, the lazy and drunken Mr. Jones
Therefore, the rebellion is betrayed and the farm ends up in a state as bad as it was before, under the dictatorship of the pig Napoleon.
1984
MAIN THEMES
Individuals are deprived of privacy, dignity, truth, memory and freedom (there is also the Thought Police who can read your thoughts and prevent crimes)
1984 (published in 1949) is a novel about a dystopian society of the future where individuals are controlled by the Big Brother, an omnipresent dictator. Whatever you do, wherever you are, ‘Big Brother is Watching You’
Language = instead of adding words, words are eliminated from the dictionaries; can you imagine why?
Propaganda = continuous messages to brainwash people’s minds and prefabricate their vision and their interpretation of reality
Love is a crime and sexuality is forbidden except for procreation ( = to provide children)
Totalitarianism: a pervasive power which has total control over bodies and minds
VITA
he could not stand
he was born in 1903 in India, and was the son of a minor colonial official
Eton: he began to develop an independent-minded personality
real name: Eric Blair
lack of privacy
humiliating punishments
pressure to conform to the english school values (development of character, spirit of competition, rigid adherence to discipline)
he professed atheism and socialism
he passed the exams to serve for Burma's Police, but he decided to left because he wished to escape from every form of man's domination over man
SOCIAL EXPERIMENT (back in London)
wearing second-hand clothes
he spent short perids leaving in common lodging-houses (London East End) with down-and-outs
he learnt how institutions for poor people worked
PARIS
he worked as a dishwasher in an hotel
PSEUDONYM
he began publishing his works with the pseudonym of George Orwell
George: typical english name
Orwell: name of the river he was fond of