George Orwell Classism

George Orwell

Politics and Classism.

Index

Introduction.

The History of George Orwell.

Road to Wigan pier

Animal Farm

Nineteen eighty-four

Conclusion.

Introduction

In this dissertation my main aim to describe George Orwell and find out what made him tick. Orwell was and is one of the most quoted men who ever lived and in his lifetime wrote such masterpieces as Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949), Animal farm (1945) and Road to Wigan Pier (1937). As well as being a novelist, Orwell also wrote essays and columns for newspapers. The reason why I chose to discuss the three books above are these are the three books that I will concentrate on during this dissertation. The three books have two very similar themes class and politics. Whether it be
poverty of the proles in Nineteen Eighty -Four (1949) or the poverty of the miners in Road to Wigan Pier (1937). Orwell uses poverty as a way to portray class difference which you will see in the bulk of this work. Through Orwells work there is a running theme a theme of politics a biased view of Orwells. Orwell was a man who believed in socialism and that is what I believe made him do some of the things that he did. For example, living as a tramp in Down and Out in Paris and London (1933) could be seen as Orwell trying to get to socialist roots the working class.

Before I start to concentrate on Orwell the author and start to read into his writing I am going to discuss Orwell 's history to give an insight into his view on politics and class status.

History

The British author Eric Blair, pen name of George Orwell, achieved prominence in the late 1940s. He wrote documentaries, essays, and criticism during the 1930s and later established himself as one of the most important and influential voices of the century. I have got the information for this section from a combination of George Orwell: a life Crick, 1980 and Davidson, 1996.

Eric Arthur Blair (later George Orwell) was born in 1903 in the Indian village of Motihari, which lies near the border of Nepal. At that time India was a part of the British Empire, and Blair 's father, Richard, held a post as an agent in the Opium Department of the Indian Civil Service. Blair 's paternal grandfather, too, had been part of the British Raj and had served in the Indian Army. The Blairs led a relatively privileged and fairly pleasant life, helping to administer the Empire though they where not very wealthy. Orwell later described them ironically as "lower-upper-middle class". This description using class as a tool to give an impression of what sort of family he came from shows the importance that Orwell put upon class even though he did put it ironically. Orwell 's family owned no property, had no extensive investments, they were like many middle-class English families of that time, totally dependent on the British Empire for their livelihood and prospects. In 1907, when Eric was about eight years old, the family returned to England and lived at Henley. With some difficulty, Blair 's parents sent their son to a private school in Sussex at the age of eight. At the age of thirteen he won a scholarship to Wellington, and soon after, another to Eton, the famous public school.

His parents had forced him to work hard, and now after winning the scholarship, he was not interested any more in further mental exertion unrelated to his private ambition. At the beginning of Why I Write, he explains that from the age of five or six he had known that he would be, must be, a writer. But in order to become a writer one had to read literature. But English literature was not a major subject at Eton, where most boys came from backgrounds so literary that to teach them 'English Literature ' would be absurd. One of Orwells tutors later declared that his famous pupil had done absolutely no work for five years. This was not true: Orwell had apprenticed himself to the masters of English prose who most appealed to him including Swift, Sterne and Jack London (Why I write).

However, he had finished the final examinations at Eton as number 138 of 167.
He neglected to win a university scholarship, and in 1922 Eric Blair joined the Indian Imperial Police. In doing so he was already breaking away from the path most of his school fellows would take, for Eton often led to either Oxford or Cambridge. Instead, he was drawn to a life of travel and action. He trained in Burma, and served there in the police force for five years. In 1927, while home on leave, he resigned. There had been at least two reasons for this: firstly, his life as a policeman was a distraction from the life he really wanted, which was to be a writer; and secondly, he had come to feel that, as a policeman in Burma, he was supporting a political system in which he could no longer believe in. Even as early as this, his ideas about writing and his political ideas were closely linked. It was not simply that he wished to break away from British Imperialism in India he wished to "escape from ... every form of man 's dominion over man", as he said in The Road to Wigan Pier (1937), and the social structure from which he came, depended, as he saw it, on just that "dominion over others" - not just over the Burmese, but over the English working class. These strong political views and ambition to become a writer drove him to success. But it was not one or the other that gave him his success it was his ability to combine the two interests of politics and writing and put it in such a way that
anyone could read it. In some cases without even realising the political connotations i.e. Animal farm (1945).

Back in London Orwell settled down in Portobello Road.
There, at the age of twenty-four, he started to teach himself how to write. His neighbours were impressed by his determination. Week after week he remained in his unheated bedroom, thawing his hands over a candle when they became too numb to write. (Why I Write, 1947) In spring of 1928, he turned his back on his own inherited values by taking a drastic step. For more than one year he lived among the poor, first in London, then in Paris. For him the poor were victims of injustice, playing the same part as the Burmese played in their country. One reason for going to live among the poor was to overcome a repulsion which he considered typical of his own class or classism. In Paris he lived and worked in a working-class quarter. At that time around 1929, he tells us, Paris was full of artists and would-be artists. There Orwell led a life that was far from bohemian; when he eventually got a job, he worked as a dishwasher. Once again his journey was downward into the life to which he felt he should expose himself, the life of poverty-stricken, or of those who barely scraped a living. Though this journey through class was Orwell 's goal, what was the point of doing it? I believe that Orwell was trying to remove himself from his own class of the bourgeoisie and trying to gain a classless status. But to do that he would have to remove all the ideals that he was brought up with to gain what he wanted would take generations of
families not stereotyping other people and not stereotyping themselves into a certain class. For example, the upper and middle class look down on the lower class not because they are completely different but because they live a different style of life. For all they know it could be happier or more rewarding than the more genteel lifestyles but the upper and middle class will always distinguish themselves from the lower classes because they see themselves as being superior to the lower classes.

Down and Out in Paris and London (1933) was completed in October 1930 and came to only 35,000 words for Orwell had used only a part of his material. After two rejections from publishers Orwell wrote Burmese Days (published in 1934), a book based on his experiences in the colonial service. By doing this Orwell showed his inner strength because though he had been turned down twice he still wrote another book which got published as did the first book.

We owe the rescue of Down and Out to Mabel Firez: She was asked to destroy the script, but save the paper clips. Instead she took the manuscript and brought it to Leonard Monroe, literary agent at the house of Gollancz, and bullied him to read it. Soon it was accepted: on condition that all swearwords were deleted and certain names changed. Having completed this last revision Eric wrote to Victor Gollancz: '...I would prefer the book to be published pseudonymously. I have no reputation that is lost by doing this and if the book has any kind of success I can always use this pseudonym again. ' But Orwell 's reasons for taking the name Orwell are much more complicated than those that writers usually have when adopting a pen-name. In effect, it meant that Eric Blair would somehow have to shed his old identity and take on a new one. This is exactly what he tried to do: he tried to change himself from Eric Blair, old Etonian and English colonial policemen, into George Orwell, classless anti-authoritarian.

Down and Out in Paris and London (1930) is not a novel; it is a kind of documentary account of life unknown to most of its readers. And this was the point of it: he wished to bring the English middle class, of which he was a member, to an understanding that the life they led and enjoyed, was founded upon the life under their very noses. Here we see two typical aspects of Orwell as a writer, his idea of himself as the exposer of painful truth, which people for various reasons do not wish to see; and his idea of himself as a representative of the English moral conscience. (Winston Smith - 1984 - last representative of moral values). Nineteen Eighty-four (1949) was originally going to be called 'The last man in Europe ' because Orwell created Winston as being the only man left with the power to think freely away from the Party.

His next book A Clergyman 's Daughter (1935) and Keep The Aspidistra Flying (1936). In 1936 he opened a village shop in Wallington, Hertfordshire where he did business in the mornings and wrote in the afternoons. The same year he married Eileen O 'Shaughnessy and also received a commission from the Left Book Club to examine the conditions of the poor and unemployed. This resulted in The Road to Wigan Pier (1937). He went on living among the poor about whom he was to write his book. Once again it was a journey away from the comparative comfort of middle-class life. His account of mining communities in the north of England in this book is full of detail and conveys to the reader what it was like to go down a mine. When the Left Book Club read what he had written about the English class system and English socialism in the 'The Road to Wigan Pier ' (1937). They were not pleased, and when the book was published it contained a preface by Victor Gollancz taking issue with many of Orwell 's main points. The Left Book Club wasn 't pleased because in the second half of the book Orwell criticised English socialism, because in his eyes it was mostly unrealistic, and another fact criticised by Orwell was that most of the socialists tended to be members of the middle class. The kind of socialist Orwell makes fun of is the sort who spouts phrases like "proletarian solidarity", and who puts off decent people, the people for whom Orwell wants to write.

Having completed The Road to Wigan Pier (1937 published date) he went to Spain at the end of 1936, with the idea of writing newspaper articles on the Civil War, which had broken out there. The conflict in Spain was between the communist, socialist Republic, and General Franco 's Fascist military rebellion. When Orwell arrived in Barcelona he was astonished by the atmosphere he found there: what had seemed impossible in England seemed a fact of daily life in Spain. Class distinctions seemed to have vanished. There was a shortage of everything, but there was equality. Orwell joined in the struggle by enlisting in the militia of the POUM (Partido Obrero de Unificación de Marxista), which was associated with the British Labour Party For the first time in his life socialism seemed a reality, something for which it was worth fighting for. Orwell received a basic military training and was sent to the front in Aragon, near Zaragoza. He spent a couple of dull months there, and he was wounded in the throat. Three and a half months later, when he returned to Barcelona, he found it a changed city. No longer a place where the socialist word "comrade" was really felt to mean something, it was a city returning to "normal". Even worse, he was to find that the group he was with, the POUM, was now accused of being a Fascist militia, secretly helping Franco. Orwell had to sleep in the open to avoid showing his papers, and eventually managed to escape into France with his wife. His account of his time in Spain was published in Homage to Catalonia (1938). His experiences in Spain left two impressions on Orwell 's mind: firstly, they showed him that socialism in action was a human possibility, if only a temporary one. He never forgot the exhilaration of those first days in Barcelona, when a new society seemed possible, where "comradeship was a reality, instead of a dream. But secondly he saw the experience of the city returning to normal as a gloomy confirmation of the fact that there will always be different classes, that there is something in the human nature that seeks violence, conflict, power over others. It is clear that these two impressions, of hope, on the one hand, and despair, on the other, are entirely contradictory. Nevertheless, despite the despair and confusion of his return to Barcelona (there were street fights between different groups of socialists), Orwell left Spain with a hopeful impression.

In 1938, Orwell became ill with tuberculosis and spent the winter in Morocco. While being there, he wrote his next book, a novel entitled Coming up for Air, published in 1939, the year the long-threatened war between England and Germany broke out. Orwell wanted to fight, as he has done in Spain, against the fascist enemy, but he was declared physically unfit. In 1941 he joined the British Broadcasting Corporation as talks producer in the Indian section of the eastern service. He served in the Home Guard, a wartime civilian body for local defence. In 1943 he left the BBC to become literary editor of the Tribune and began writing Animal Farm (1945). In 1944 the Orwells adopted a son, but in 1945 his wife died during an operation. Towards the end of the war, Orwell went to Europe as a reporter. Late in 1945 he went to the island of Jura off the Scottish coast, and settled there in 1946. He wrote 'Nineteen Eighty-Four ' (1949) there. The island 's climate was unsuitable for someone suffering from tuberculosis and 'Nineteen Eighty-Four ' (1949) reflects the bleakness of human suffering, the indignity of pain. Indeed, he said that the book wouldn 't have been so gloomy had he not been so ill. Later that year he married Sonia Brownell. He died in January 1950.

Road To Wigan Pier

The reason I have chose to look into 'Road to Wigan Pier ' (1937) first is because of the content of the book. 'Road to Wigan Pier ' (1937) is a book based on information collected by Orwell and in that respect not unlike 'Down and Out In Paris and London ' (1933). The second reason why I chose to do this book first is that by doing this book first then 'Animal Farm ' (1945) and finally 'Nineteen Eighty-four ' (1949), the books are in chronological order starting from Orwell 's earliest book through to his latest. By doing this it will hopefully show Orwell 's political progression, if any throughout the novels.

'Road to Wigan Pier ' (1937) is a book based in two parts with the first part talking about the north/poor and the second part talking about the middle to upper class/south that Orwell belonged. In the first part of this book Orwell tries to give the reader a detailed view of the conditions of the poor and unemployed. In the first chapter of the first part, Orwell describes the Brooker family. They belong to the so-called "wealthy" among the poor ones. In their house, they have installed a cheap lodging-house and a tiny shop. Both Mr and Mrs Brooker are already pensioners, and with the rent they get for the rooms, they can afford at least enough to eat. Generally, the people who live in this lodging house are unmarried or very old and also pensioners. Orwell himself spends a couple of weeks in this house during his research. In the second chapter he describes the life of the miners. Their working conditions are very bad, it is very hot, dusty, and where the miners have just a minimum of space in the tunnels. The work is also very dangerous, the coal-miners often handle dynamite and the tunnels aren 't very stable. Orwell describes how he went down to see the working conditions underground there. He describes that the place where the coal is extracted from is not just right at the elevator, but often lies some miles away from it. And the tunnel is often only three to four feet high. This means that the miners not only have to work under the hardest conditions, but also have to "travel", this means going to the working place in the miners ' jargon, for about half an hour, Orwell who is not experienced, needed about one hour to get there. ("After half a mile it gets an unbearable agony", 1/2 P 23).

In the next chapter Orwell takes a look at the social situation of the average miner. First of all he looks at the hygienic situation of the miners, for many people believe that miners generally do not wash. But in fact only every third mine has a bath or shower for the miners (P33). The situation in the homes of the miners is even worse. Only a couple of houses in the industrial region have bathrooms. The rest of the coal-workers have to wash in small basins. The miners also have very little time, although they work only seven hours a day, but actually getting to the pit, and the travelling underground can take up to three hours. So the average miner has about four hours of leisure time, including washing, dressing and eating, by mentioning this Orwell is saying how hard the miners work. Then there is the common belief that miners are comparatively well paid, about ten to eleven shillings a week. But this is very misleading, because only the "coal getter" is paid this rate, whereas for example the "dattler" (someone who does not actually gets the coal but is vital in the getting of the coal) is paid eight to nine shilling per shift. But one also has to look at the conditions the miners are paid for. So the "getter" is paid for the tons he extracts. On the one hand he is dependent on the quality of the coal, and when the machinery breaks down it may rob him a day or two of earnings. Another fact is that miners regualry did not work six days a week. In 1936 the average earning of the miners per shift actually was 9s 1¾d. But even this sum is just a gross earning; there are all kinds of stoppages, which are deducted from the miner 's wage every week. In total, these stoppages make up around 4s 5d per week.

The next chapter deals with the housing situation in those districts. The main problem is the housing shortage in this region. So people are ready to accept any dirty hole, bugs, blackmailing agents and bad landlords, just to get a roof over their heads. And as long as the housing shortage exists, the local authorities did not do anything to make the existing houses higher in quality. The authorities can condemn a house, but they cannot pull it down till the tenant has another house to live in. But there is another problem resulting from this one. The landlord will surely not invest more money that he can help in a house that is going to be pulled down in the future. With that being the case the housing market was in a vicious circle, where the only winners are the land lords because they are renting out housing which should be ripped down, hence making money from nothing in theory. Orwell has made notes of dozens of houses in this region, and here are two examples:

House in Wigan, near Scholes quarter:

Condemned house, four rooms (two up, two down) + coal hole, walls falling to pieces, water comes into upstairs rooms in quantities, downstairs windows will not open. Rent 6s, Rates 3s 6d total 9s 6d.

House in Barnsley, Peel Street:

Back to back (front house facing street, back house facing yard), two up and two down + large cellar, all rooms are about 10 square feet, living room very dark, gaslight at 4½d a day, distance to the lavatory 70 yards (lies in the yard), four beds for eight persons (parents, two girls, one 27, young man, and three children), bugs very bad, smell upstairs almost unbearable. Rent 5s 7½d including rates.

Another problem in these regions is that whole rows of houses are undermined, and the windows often are ten to twenty degrees off the horizontal. Because of the bad housing situation there are also so-called "caravan dwellers". In Wigan alone, which has a population of 85,000, there are about 200 caravans, inhabited by about 700 people. In the whole of Britain there might be around ten thousand families living in caravans. The worst thing about those caravans is that the people who live in such a place don 't even save money, because the rent can make up to ten shillings! Despite this problems the city of Barnsley, for example, built a new town hall for 150,000 pounds, although there is a need of over 2,000 houses, not to mention public baths (the public baths in Barnsley contain nineteen men 's slipper baths - in a town with 70,000 inhabitants, largely miners who do not have baths at home).

The next chapter of The Road to Wigan Pier deals with unemployment. In 1937 there were about two million unemployed. But this number only shows how many persons are receiving the dole. One has to take this number and multiply it by at least three to get the number of persons actually living on the dole. But there is a large number of people that have work, but who from a financial point of view might as well be unemployed, because they are not drawing anything that can be described as a living wage. Together with the pensioners in the industrial regions that make around fifteen million poor and underfed people. In Wigan alone there are around 30,000 drawing or living on the dole. So every third person in Wigan is dependent on social help. The money that the families get varies from twenty-five to thirty shillings per week. One organisation that helps the unemployed is the NUWM (National Unemployed Workers Movement).

In the second part Orwell describes his personal idea of socialism, and what socialism is like in England. The general idea of Orwell 's is that socialism and communism are no longer movements of the working class. The movement is lead by the middle-class, the bourgeoisie. But firstly he explains how the English class-system works. In Britain it isn 't possible to determine the class of a person by simply looking at his or her income. In England tradition plays a very important role, and therefore one can find middle-class persons with an income up to 2,000 pounds a year, and down to 300 pounds a year. The things that make up a middle-class person are his behaviour, birth and profession. The people around 400 pounds led a life on two social levels. For Example, they had a standard of living comparable to a well-situated worker, but knew everything about good behaviour, how to give a servant a tip, how to ride a horse, about a decent dinner, although they could never afford a servant or a good dinner. One could say that they are struggling to live genteel lives on what are virtually working-class incomes. So the colonies (India and Africa) are very attractive to this social caste, for the people would earn as much as in England (if they had a job in the administration or army), and could afford a servant and many things more and, what was most important, they could act like big gentleman.

Another aspect of the class-system in Britain is what seems the inherited rejection of the lower classes. Orwell here tells a story of his early boyhood, when he felt that lower-class people were almost subhuman, that they had coarse faces, hideous accents, gross manners, and that they hated everyone who was not like themselves. This rejection somehow results from the time before the war (World War One) when it was impossible or at least very dangerous for a well-dressed person to go through a slum street. Whole quarters were considered unsafe because of hooligans. But nevertheless the rejection of the lower-class also has physical roots. 'So the children of the middle-class were always taught that the working class smelled ' according to Orwell and his upbringing (Bernarnd Crick, Orwell had an irrational prejudice that the working class smelt and this dominated his thought of 'them '.) So in fact, Orwell does not hide from the fact that he came across instances, which might re-affirm this notion or image of un-cleanliness. He also, however, describes how he would watch a minor wash from the waist up. Reading this particular section, one is struck by the methodological readiness and precision of such an exercise. The reader may also be reminded by the author 's humanity, when the minor calls upon the help of his wife to wash his back. There is thus, two contrary reports about this issue of cleanliness from people from a similar background. What one notices, is that Orwell here is infact saying, that of course all working class people are not clean. But this is not because 'they ' are all lazy. Some are and some aren 't, like the rest of humanity. "Yet, the environment of the working people does dictate to a large degree dictate that they (minors for instance) cannot always stay clean. This of course, is perfectly obvious, but worth emphiasing. It is not the case, that the working class if given indoor baths, would use them for coal storage" (Glen Robinson 20/05/04)

But what about those middle-class people whose views are not reactionary but "advanced"? Beneath his revolutionary mask, is he so much different from the others? Are there any changes in his habits, his taste and his manners, his ideology, as it is called in the communist jargon? Is there any change at all except that he votes Labour or Communist? It can be observed that the middle-classed communist still associates with the middle-class, still lives among the middle-class, and his tastes are those of a bourgeois person. The main thing Orwell criticises is that middle-class communists and socialists often speak against their own class, but that they evidently have the behaviour and manner of a middle-class person. The socialists who make propaganda for "proletarian solidarity" generally don 't even have a lot of contact with the class they are "fighting for". The only contact with the working-class that socialists generally have is with the lower-class intelligentsia at the various political workshops. Generally, Orwell says that socialism is a nearly impossible thing. This negative view of the possibility of socialism could be seen as down to the time Orwell spent in Barcelona which he explains in 'Homage to Catalonia ' (1936). When Orweel first got to Barcelona the city was one of revolution where people on the street called each other comrade and at this point according to the novel Orwell believed that socialism had a chance to succeed. This did not last long though because when Orwell returned to Barcelona later on in the novel it was a city in turmoil where different socialist groups fought each other in the streets to try to take control rather than acting as one. I imagine Orwell seeing that made his optimism from his first visit disappear and give him doubts about whether socialism is ever possible in society. In my opinion in the other two novels that I am going to discuss Orwell believes that socialism is a dream because in 'Nineteen Eighty-four ' (1949) Winston gives into Big Brother and in 'Animal Farm ' (1945) where the animals cant distinguish between animal and man in the farm house. The name of the farm is also changed back to manor farm because Napoleon the leader of the pigs is trying to join ranks with the other farmers.

Animal Farm

Orwell 's Animal Farm was published in 1943, and unlike 'Road to Wigan Pier ' (1937) and 'Homage to Catalonia ' (1936) was not based on a real event or social situation. It was fictional, but with realistic tendencies even though the book is about talking farm animals the real issue is Orwell 's politics. The book almost went unpublished because of the novels seemingly attack on Stalin who at that time was Britain 's ally. Though the overall opinion of critics seems to be that the book is about Stalins Russia it could be about the French, the main pig in the novel is called Napoleon. The book could also be about the English revolution in the 17th century. For this work though I am going to presume that the novel is about Stalins Russia.

The basis of Animal Farm (1943) is that a group of animals took over a farm and ran it for themselves. The problem with the farm is that the pigs become corrupt and start to change things for their own liking and become worse farmers than the old farmer, Mr Jones. They feed the animals less and have them working longer hours but make them feel by propaganda that they are in fact eating more and having more leisure time and in general are better off.

In Animal Farm (1943) the theory of Animalism is drawn up into seven commandments exclusively by Snowball, Squealer and Napoleon (the three main pigs). Animalism quickly becomes a means of breeding such a great fear of man into the animals so that they would become even more determined to work hard. By doing this Orwell is attacking Stalin for betraying the revolution to suit his own means.

Orwell hints at the shortcomings of Old Major 's Marxist teachings in a number of subtle ways. The supposition that all animals are "comrades" is undermined straight away by the fact that the dogs and cats openly show hostility to the rats, who "only by a swift dash for their holes" escape from the dogs with their lives. A second point that undermines the Animalist maxim is that "All animals are equal" realistically that even before the revolution there is evidence of a basic hierarchical society. The pigs straight away take their places "immediately in front of the platform" (Ch.I) when the animals meet to hear Old Major 's speech, thus signalling the fact that they are seen as more important than other animals. It is the pigs who take it upon themselves to direct the revolution, and it is they who assume leadership after Jones had been driven out.

'Animal Farm ' (1945) follows the events of the Russian Revolution quite closely with characters from the book representing real life people or groups. The way that Orwell presents these real-life people in the book gives an insight into his political feelings.

Old Major represents a mixture of Marx and Lenin. He preaches the Marxist Doctrine of Revolutionary Socialism and provides the basic beliefs, which later become the Seven Commandments. He is presented as being a kindly, wise, natural leader who has a dream about a Utopia where 'All animals are equal ' (Ch. I ). Orwell shows Old Major in a sympathetic light. Old Major is seen as having good intentions but too much of a naive idealism to realise that not all animals share the same public-spiritedness that he does. Revolution leads to power, and once power is achieved it is prone to being abused. Orwell himself believed that revolution was not the answer, he believed that revolution was not a way of changing society: it was in fact merely a way of keeping it the same. Revolutions often have good intentions and provide new faces with a new rhetoric but soon it is hard to tell the new faces from the old. The answer according to Orwell was reform, not revolution: Reform really changes. Orwell believed that 'The Left ' in Russia had been tricked into revolution by its enemies. (www.greatlit.com).

Farmer Jones can be seen as representing Czar Nicolas II who was the leader of Russia before the Revolution. Right at the start of the book Orwell shows Jones as being a drunk, neglectful Farmer who cares very little about his animals. The farm was in a terrible state "the fields were full of weeds, the buildings wanted roofing, the hedges were neglected, and the animals were underfed"(Ch.I). Orwell clearly wanted to show that Nicolas was a bad ruler who ran Russia for his personal benefit only. The animals were clearly oppressed and had good reason to want change. Orwell deliberately contrasts the improving way of life for the animals after the revolution with the poor lives they had under Jones. He also draws parallels between Jones 's drunkenness and the drunkenness of the pigs after they had moved into the house. Jones and Napoleon are as bad as each other, both exploit the animals for his own benefit: they are typical all-powerful dictators motivated solely by self-interest.

Orwell 's attitude towards religion is shown through the way that he presents Moses the Raven who symbolises organised religion in Russia. Orwell is very critical of religion, describing Moses as being "a spy, a tale bearer but also a clever talker". At first Moses was loyal to Jones, just as the Russian Church had been to the Czarist Regime. Orwell showed how Moses 's tales of a heaven called "Sugarcandy Mountain" were useful to Jones as a way of keeping the animals in order, religion gave them hopes of a better life after they died and their belief made them more willing to accept their current harsh lives. Religion was contrary to the beliefs of Socialism and so the Church was heavily opposed after the revolution hence Moses ' disappearance. Moses 's return in Chapter IX represents the way in which Stalin allowed religion to re-establish itself in Russia, as he realised that he could use it, just as Nicolas II had, as a way of pacifying the Russians as well as the animals in the novel. Orwell showed religion to be a both a crutch for the animals to lean on when times were bad (gave them unrealistic hopes for the future), and also as a means of preventing rebellion against authority (whether it be Czarist or Communist).

Orwell 's views about Trotsky were mixed and these contrasting feelings are shown in the way he describes Snowball (who can be seen as representing Trotsky in the book). Snowball is shown to have been a key factor in the success of the Battle of the Cowshed, his bravery was inspirational to animals around him. Orwell also describes him as being "brilliant and inventive" in Chapter 2. Snowball is also shown to have a darker side, the fact that he supported Napoleon 's seizure of the apples shows that he is also susceptible to greed. Orwell clearly preferred Trotsky to Stalin, but saw him as merely the lesser of two evils, the main difference between the two being that Stalin used terror and force in order to assert his authority over the animals and Trotsky main support was gained from his inspiring speeches. Snowball 's collaboration with Napoleon in the taking of the apples, leads us to wonder whether life for the animals would really have been much better under Snowball than it was under Napoleon.

Orwell 's attitude towards Stalin is hinted at even in the naming of his equivalent in the book. 'Napoleon ' was the name of a famous French revolutionary leader who tyrannised his people and was regarded by some as being the Anti-Christ. As far as Orwell was concerned, Stalin represented the main force behind the threat to true Socialism. Stalin claimed to be committed to making a fair and equal society but Orwell saw him in a very different light. In 'Animal Farm ' (1945) Orwell closely follows Napoleon 's rise to power and illustrates to the reader how Napoleon used cunning and brute force to gain and maintain power on Animal Farm. Orwell is keen to try and show how evil Stalin was and how far removed the way he ran Russia was from the original Marxist Socialist beliefs. These beliefs had been the inspiration for the revolution in the first place. (Orwell, (1947) Why I write).

The character Boxer in 'Animal Farm ' can be seen as representing the typical loyal hard working, man. His name originates from the Boxer Rebellion in China, which signalled the rise of Communism in China. Orwell shows Boxer as being an honest worker who follows Animalism faithfully without fully understanding its more intricate details. Boxer is of limited intelligence and has complete trust in the pigs. His maxims are "Napoleon is always right" and "I must work harder" they are ultimately his downfall; he works himself to exhaustion and is sent off to the knackers yard by Napoleon, not realising his fate until it is too late. The example of Boxer is used by Orwell to show to the reader that even the most loyal and honest people suffer under such a brutal regime. The fact that Napoleon sends Boxer off to his death signals to the reader how corrupt this Stalinesque figure has become. Boxer 's demise illustrates what can happen to those who have blind trust in their rulers.

The dogs in 'Animal Farm ' are a metaphor for the Terror State, which Stalin created in Russia as a means of keeping his political opponents in order, or in the case of Hitler the Gestapo. They are a tool of oppression for both Jones and Napoleon. Their lack of loyalty to Animalism right from the start puts the whole principles of Animalism into question. If "All animals are comrades" then why do the dogs attack the rats at the first meeting in the barn?

The gradual changing of the Seven Commandments of Animalism is one of the main devices which Orwell uses when illustrating to the reader the extent of the betrayal of the revolution (this is much like any political party 's election promises). The commandments, which were themselves a crude simplification of Old Major 's teachings, were altered by Squealer in order to suit Napoleon 's requirements. The fact that even these blatant changes went almost unnoticed by many of the Animals shows how little they really understood Old Major 's teachings and casts further doubt on Old Major 's supposed "wisdom". Eventually the seven commandments change to just one line 'all animals are equal but some animals are more equal than others '.

The constant arguing between Snowball and Napoleon over almost every issue (most notably the windmill) on Animal Farm caused great tension. Within Russia the arguments between Trotsky and Stalin were also ongoing. Orwell mirrors this in the situation between Snowball and Napoleon, saying how "These two disagreed at every point disagreement was possible". In the same way that Trotsky was exiled to Mexico due to Stalin 's fears that Trotsky 's supporters would assasinate him, Snowball was chased out of the farm by Napoleon who feared him in a similar way.

Now that I have summarised the book I am now going to talk about the classism within the book. As I mentioned earlier in this essay before the revolution there was already a hierarchy set up among the animals. We see this at the beginning of the book when Old Major calls a meeting. At this meeting the pigs go straight to the front row of the barn showing that they are more important than the other animals. When the revolution is initiated and Jones is thrown out of the farm we soon start to see that the pigs are taking advantage of the other animals. I believe that in a class structure the hierarchy would go as followed: Napoleon, followed by the rest of the pigs who symbolise the bourgeoisie, then followed by all the other animals who symbolise the working class. If we take the bulk of the animals except the pigs and the raven who symbolises religion. We see how the upper class in AnimalFarm enslave the working class. The most blatant example of this is when Boxer is sent to the knackers-yard because he is to unfit to work. All the way through the book Boxer was the one who would work harder and carry out tasks without question because he believes that "Napoleon is always right". This symbolism of class within Russia shows Orwells opinion of communism within Russia. This is also a commandment in Animalism that is changed to suit the pigs 'All animals are equal but some animals are more equal than others '. The changing of commandments to suit their own needs shows that because the pigs where already thought to be higher up the hierarchical ladder they had no intention of dropping down in class to a classless society. This is the same in all societies the poor would always like to gain stature but the rich and middle class would not like to lose what they already have. This is what would happen if socialism was to happen in England, the upper classes would fight against it because of the way they had been brought up to feel that they are better than the working class as the pigs seem to think in Animal Farm (1945). With this in mind is a true socialist society ever possible? Orwell seems to believe that it is not, this is not to say that a version of socialism couldn 't work, but only that it would not be Marx 's view of socialism. This again leads us back to 'Homage to Catalonia '(1936) and Orwell 's time in Barcelona which I ended my section on 'The Road to Wigan Pier ' (1937) on.

Nineteen Eighty-Four

Orwell wrote Nineteen Eighty-four (1949) to try and show how political systems can suppress individual freedom. Nineteen Eighty-four (1949) is a warning for the future that of what society could become should totalitarianism be allowed to achieve dominance. The totalitarian Dystopia in Nineteen Eighty-four is inescapable for those who suffer under it and is constantly changing for the worst, which no one ever realises except Winston. The world of Nineteen Eighty-four is a model of Orwell 's idea of a Totalitarian state that has evolved into its ultimate form. However, Orwell is not trying to make a complete and accurate prediction of what the world will be like in the future under a totalitarian government, but instead he represents it as an extreme instance that sheds light on the nature of current societies that already exist. Shortly before his death Orwell spoke of Nineteen Eighty-four, saying "I do not believe that the kind of society I describe necessarily will arrive, but I believe that something resembling it could arrive ".Orwell, (1947) Why I write)

Orwell once said he writes, "because there is some lie that I want to expose". It is this fundamental lie upon which the political structure of Nineteen Eighty-four rests. The very slogans of the party are contradictions: "War is Peace, Freedom is Slavery, Ignorance is Strength". In writing Nineteen Eighty-four Orwell wanted to expose the cruelty of political oppression and the kind of lie on which that inhumanity depends.

(Orwell,(1947)Why I write)

'Nineteen Eighty-four '(1949) can be interpreted as an anti-political book, the nightmarish world in which Winston lives is one where politics has displaced humanity and the state has stifled society in its quest for total control over its inhabitants. The purpose of the Party was not to rule for the general good, but in order to have control over everyone and everything. Power is everything. The most startling concept that Orwell deals with in 'Nineteen Eighty-four ' (1949) is the idea that a political party could see power as being the ultimate goal . The Party rules over its people without even the pretence that it is governing for the benefit of the people.

'Nineteen Eighty-four ' (1949) has a narrow plot which focuses mainly on the life of Winston Smith. However, Orwell makes a political point from this, Winston Smith is the only person left who is worth writing about; all the rest have been brainwashed already. When considering the title for the novel Orwell mentioned in a letter that he was considering "The Last Man in Europe" a clear indication that he saw Winston Smith as the last true free thinker in Europe within the novel.

The political and human aspects of Nineteen Eighty-four are very closely linked. Every thought that Winston makes against Big Brother is Thoughtcrime, every time he writes another entry in his diary he is risking arrest, even embracing Julia was "a blow struck against the party". His very relationship with her was "a political act".

In Nineteen Eighty-four Orwell examines how the human spirit copes under the worst conditions possible. Winston is, as O 'Brien laughingly calls him, "the guardian of human spirit", a half starved wreck of a man. He is the last person alive capable of free thought against The Party. Orwell shows how political organisations are capable of doing anything in order to reach their goals. In this case The Party 's goal is to eradicate individual thought and they are prepared to do anything in order to achieve their goal and think nothing of torture. Winston 's heresy is his insistence on the individual 's right to make up his own mind rather than having to follow what the Party perceives as truth and so he is tortured constantly until, eventually, he has learned to "love Big Brother"(Section 3, Ch.VI).

In 1984 there has been no improvement in the living standards of the average person since1948. Orwell deliberately kept it this way in the belief that should people not have to concentrate on trying to get the bare essentials for life then they might turn their attentions to demanding more from the Party. Orwell makes a political point from the similarity of living conditions in 1948 and 1984. The opening chapter of Nineteen Eighty-four describes how the lift seldom worked even "at the best of times", that "the electricity was cut off during daylight hours", and how he had to use "coarse soap" and "blunt razor blades. Winston has a nagging belief that life used to be better than what he could remember but he couldn 't prove it, when he spoke to the old prole in a pub the only fact that he could extract from him was that "the beer tasted better before Big Brother".

The description that Orwell gives of Big Brother as being "a man of about forty-five, with a heavy black moustache and ruggedly handsome features" immediately brings the image of Stalin to the reader 's mind. 'Big Brother ' is the icon of the Party and it is under his name that every Party announcement is given, "every success, every achievement, every victory, every scientific discovery, all knowledge, all wisdom, all happiness, all virtue, are held to issue directly from his leadership and inspiration" (Part II, Ch.IX, Goldstein 's book, Chapter I).

The character of Goldstein is designed to resemble Stalin 's political arch-enemy Trotsky. Just as in Animal Farm a Trotsky-like scapegoat is blamed for all problems and is labelled an enemy of the people by a government led by a Stalinesque figure. Goldstein 's book "The Theory and Practise of Oligarchical Collectivism" is an obvious replica of Trotsky 's "The Revolution Betrayed". The sections of Goldstein 's book which are printed in 'Nineteen Eighty-four ' serves two purposes - firstly it identifies many of the ways in which the Party manipulates its own people (they are merely "cheap labour"), and secondly it mocks Trotsky 's revolutionary rhetoric and ridiculous paradoxes such as "The fields are cultivated with horse plows while books are written by machinery". The name Goldstein is also a Jewish sounding name which Orwell used to show that the politicians of the future still has the same enemy as it does when he was writing 'Nineteen Eighty- Four '.(1949) Also by using a Jewish name Orwell compares the future to Hitler 's Germany by making a Jew the common enemy.

In Section 1,Chapter 7 Winston writes in his Diary "If there is hope, it lies in the Proles". However, there is no evidence of any revolutionary desires amongst the Proletariat at all in the novel. O-Brien laughs at Winston in 3.3 for placing his hopes in them and declares "The proletarians will never revolt". The reason for this is that the Proles do not show the intelligence, or the desire to revolt. The Party no longer fears the proles because as a class they have become totally demoralised. Orwell himself confessed in a letter written in 1940 "I have never met a genuine working man who accepted Marxism".

One of the major issues in Nineteen Eighty-four is the nature of freedom and the way that Totalitarianism has the capacity to destroy it. Winston 's comment in his diary that "Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two makes four" encapsulates Orwell 's belief that the individual must have the right to make up his own mind, regardless of official political party lines. This seems to be an attack on socialism, Nazism and Stalinism, because without freedom of speech people cant better themselves and the want to be better than someone else is what created class boundaries in the beginning, human nature.

In Nineteen Eighty-Four there are only two classes of people, people who are in The Party and the Proles. The proles make up about 81% of the population of Oceania. The Party itself is only interested in them as labour, because the proles are mainly employed in industry and on farms. Without their labour, Oceania would break down. Despite this fact, the Party completely ignores this social caste. The curious thing about this behaviour is that the Party calls itself socialist, and generally socialism is a movement of the proletariat. Orwell again had pointed at another regime, the Nazis, who had put "socialism" into their name and they where anything but a movement of the people.

In Oceania, the proles live in very desolate and poor quarters. Compared with the districts where the members of the Party live, there are far fewer television screens, and policemen. The differences between the Proles and The Party in the book, are the rules and laws, which they have to abide to. The laws of the Proles are the laws that we recognise today to an extent, but the laws for The Party members are basically not laws of the body, but laws of the mind and word. By that I mean they are laws that stop you from speaking your mind because the party 's aim is to control your mind and only let you think what they want you to think. This difference symbolises Orwell 's view of class his class upbringing as upper middle class and the working class as being so vast. With no one being able to pass through the class barrier which is Prole and Party. Is not unlike the class boundaries of when Orwell wrote 'Nineteen Eighty- Four ' (1949). By this I mean that it was difficult for anyone to change from one class to another without still keeping the ideals of that individuals upbringing. A person from the middle class can become unemployed and have to get a job in a factory but will still see himself as middle class because that is the way he was brought up. The fact that the Proles cannot change to become Party members is a fact that maybe Orwell is mentioning about the future and maybe that eventually the class you are brought up in will be the class you stay in for the rest of your life, with the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer.

In conclusion the novel is one that gives out the same messages as the other two novels that I have discussed. Change is the theme running through the novels and the want for change, real change is something that never happens it may happen for a short while as in 'Animal Farm ' but eventually individuals greed or fear as in 'Nineteen Eighty -Four ' end up controlling the individual and the society. I believe that these three books are the bi-products of 'Homage to Catalonia ' in the sense that in 'Homage to Catalonia ' a change happens in Barcelona. But by the time Orwell goes to fight and returns there is a power struggle between the 'comrades ' of the revolution creating change. This makes it easier for the government to take control again making the book and the books a vicious cycle where revolution only makes the opposing government/force stronger. Or in the case of 'Animal Farm ' when a revolution is successful the power goes to the revolutionary leaders heads and they become just as bad as the men they have replaced or worse as in the novel.

Conclusion

It seems to me that Orwell as well meaning as possible is just like the bourgeoisie that he describes in the second part of 'The Road to Wigan Pier '. He does not deny that he was brought up in a social upper middle class and quite the opposite of denying it he jokes at the point. Orwell mentions that he was taught that the lower classes smelt, but Orwell as it seems to me was a man trying to gain a classless status. He was trying to be a man who did not stereotype people no matter what class or job they did. I think one of Orwell 's main reasons for doing this was to get down to a level where he thought he could be socialist within a Marxist sense. The logic behind this is that socialism is a movement of the working class and for Orwell not to be a hypocrite of his own work, he had to have some kind of legitimate connection with the working class. This is possibly why he wrote 'down and out in Paris and London '(1933) and why he wrote 'The Road to Wigan Pier ' (1937). The point that I am getting to is walking around with holes in your pants for a year does not make you a tramp as the same as living with the working class does not make you working class. The reasoning behind this is Orwell always has the opportunity to escape from his current surroundings and go back to his middle class life when the real working class do not have this luxury. This is not to say that Orwell is not a man whose heart lay completely within the socialist realm of politics. But it is one thing to play at being working class and another being born into it.

Bibliography

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Orwell George, (1934) Burmese Days, George Orwell The complete Novels: Penguin Books, London, 1944.

Orwell, George, (1933) Down and out in Paris and London: Penguin Books, London.

Orwell, George, (1949) Nineteen Eighty-four, George Orwell The complete Novels: Penguin Books, London, 1954.

Orwell, George, (1937) Road to Wigan Pier: Penguin Books, London, 1969.

Orwell, George. (1947) Why I write

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http://www.Greatlit.com. 12/03/04.