5/23/2023 0 Comments 1984 george orwell essayIt is a chronicle of a crushing, obliterating defeat.) (He also envisioned what a mass-media-fueled totalitarian victory might look like - a critical aspect of the book’s plot that many people who haven’t read 1984 since high school have probably forgotten. Orwell, the pen name of the Indian-born Eric Arthur Blair, speaks to us in this moment not only because he understood that words have the power both to shackle and to liberate, but also because 1984 inscribed on the literary imagination a vision of what a mass-media-fueled totalitarianism might look like. That both novels are suddenly on the radar of people who probably haven’t given Orwell a second thought in years is hardly surprising at a time when war refugees are painted as national security threats, white nationalists hold positions of power in the White House and an American president is openly involved in an abusive relationship with the English language. Orwell’s earlier (and arguably greater) allegory, Animal Farm, is also getting its due. His seven-decade-old dystopian classic, 1984, recently made waves by topping a bunch of bestseller lists. To the surprise of absolutely no one, George Orwell is everywhere these days. Forget ‘1984’ - Today, Orwell’s Essays Matter More You’ll get more from “Why I Write” than from ‘Animal Farm.’ Image: Luca Cerabona
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