British author George Orwell, the
pen name of Eric Arthur Blair, was born on June 25, 1903, in Motihari, India near the Nepalese border. At the time of Blair’s birth, India was part of the British Empire, and his father, Richard, worked as an agent in the Opium Department of the Indian Civil Service.The Blair family lived a middle-class lifestyle, yet chose to return to England in 1907, when Eric was eight years old. Originally enrolling in a private school in Sussex, Eric won a scholarship to Wellington at age 13, and another scholarship to Eton, a prestigious college preparatory school.
From a young age, Eric Blair desired to be a writer. Although he had worked very hard to be accepted to Eton, teenaged Eric was no longer particularly interested in exerting himself academically, unless it was toward a goal he had chosen. To this end, he spent much of his time reading the works of well-known British authors, and less time completing the required academics.
After graduating at the bottom of his class from Eton, Blair joined the Indian Imperial Police in Burma where he served for five years. In 1927, Blair resigned from his position so he could spend more time writing. He had also grown disdainful of the police force since he felt that working as a policeman supported a political structure he did not believe in. The burgeoning author did write about his time as a police officer, though, in Burmese Days (1934).
Now living in London and Paris, Blair chose to live among the poor and those who had been trampled upon in society. Originally titled A Scullion’s Diary, the author compiled his experiences in Down and Out in Paris and London (1933). Upon publishing this novel, Eric Blair took the pen name of George Orwell so he could rid himself of his Eton background and reinvent himself as an anti-authoritarian citizen who belonged to no particular social class. Down and Out in Paris and London also began Orwell’s lifelong ambition of writing to enlighten people about painful truths and to place himself in the position of being an arbiter of moral conscience.
In his next book, The Road to Wigan Pier (1937), Orwell brought to life the miners in north England. He also criticized English socialists who he thought used all the appropriate vocabulary, such as “proletarian solidarity,” (supporting the working class) but who did not actually live out the life of their mottos.
After finishing The Road to Wigan Pier, Orwell traveled to Spain to fight for the Loyalists in the Spanish Civil War. There, Orwell first lived in a land without class distinctions and watched his socialist comrades live according to their beliefs. After being wounded, Orwell fled from Spain as the Communists tried to eradicate their previously socialist allies. In 1938, the author composed Homage to Catalonia about his time in Spain. In the volume, Orwell relates that his experiences in Spain showed him that socialism was truly possible, but also forced him to realize that class differences, as well as violence, conflict, and power struggles will always exist.
When war began between England and Germany in 1939, Orwell was unable to fight against fascism since he was recovering from a bout with tuberculosis. He instead joined the British Broadcasting Company (BBC) working as a producer for its Indian division. Some believe that Orwell’s stint with the BBC may have inspired the “newspeak” language he employs in 1984.
In 1943, Orwell resigned from the BBC and went to work as a literary editor for the Tribune and began writing Animal Farm (1945), a modern fable which speaks out against Stalinist Russia and the Communist Regime. Later in 1945, the author relocated to the Scottish island of Jura where he composed 1984 (1949). When Orwell wrote 1984, the world was recovering from World War II and the issues it raised concerning fascism. This same time period also marks the beginning of the Cold War and democratic countries’ reckoning with rising communist states. This masterpiece portrays Orwell’s fear of mankind evolving into an overly bureaucratized state and reflects the pain the author suffered as he continued to cope with tuberculosis.
George Orwell (Eric Arthur Blair) died on January 21, 1950, in London, England.
