The Life and Work of George Orwell

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The Life and Work of George Orwell

George Orwell is the name of the person behind brilliant works of literature such as Animal Farm and "1984". After my closer study of his book Animal Farm, I decided to look more closely into the person who wrote that brilliant allegory. I also tried to understand why, and how it was possible for a man raised far from communist/totalitarian regime could describe it so precisely in such an amazing prophetic way.

Born under the name of Eric Blair on June 25 1903, in India in the family of an Imperial Officer, after going to boarding school and then to Eton, he decided to stop with his education and enlisted in the Indian Imperial Police at the age of 20. He served in Burma for 5 years and later described that period as the most miserable times and that he hated being the bully arresting people to be beaten.

After he left Burma Eric wanted to experience the life of the oppressed, so he moved to Paris disguised as a homeless poor. He started living the life of tramps and all kinds of poor homeless, but soon he found himself in their true situation, without a serious job, Eric was forced to live on the streets and to make only enough not to starve. At that time he wrote his first book: "Down and Out in Paris and London" and was able to publish it under the pen name of George Orwell. The book was a success, and after that he wrote and published in three years three more books: "Burmese days," "a Clergyman's daughter" and " Keep the Aspidistra Flying."

In 1937 Orwell went to Spain to report on the civil war and, according to Judy P. Sopronyi's article George Orwell on the Road to Nineteen Eighty-Four", got really involved in the idea of Socialism, he was thrilled by the idea of everyone treating each other as equals and his log sense of guilt for being born in the upper-middle class, as he called it, had found its cure. It wasn't long before he found out that regardless of how flawless an ideology was, people could twist it viciously in order to make it work for their own political ambitions. His personal experience was involved in that notion, because after being loyal to, and fighting on the side of the Republicans, he was quickly turned into the enemy for no apparent reason, and was forced to return to England to avoid arrest.

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