Eric Arthur Blair, who is also known by his author name by George Orwell, is an English Novelist, journalist, and intellectual who wrote about awareness of social injustice, the opposition of totalitarianism and outspoken support of democratic socialism. He is own from his dystopian novels such as 1984 and Animal Farm. Orwell often wrote literary criticism, poetry, and fiction about the thought-provoking arguments that challenged the status Quo and society. Colonialism is the practice of acquiring full or partial political control over another country and exploiting its resources and its people.
Orwell despised imperialist in a colonized country. He wittiness this during his tenure with the imperialist police. This paper will discuss Orwell’s view on Colonialism, and how it affected his writing and how it has affected other writers, speakers and intellectual. This paper will also focus on and analyze George Orwell’s work and characterize how they portray the relationship between colonizer and the people being colonized.
Eric Arthur Blair was born in Motihari, Bihar, British India, which was colonized by the British. As a first hand, Blair experienced being the colonizer on foreign land. He came from a decent wealthy British family. At a young age, Blair was an avid reader, and he especially enjoyed books by H.G. wells, such as the book A Modern Utopia. Blair had always dreamt of being a writer when he was a young. However, it was not until Blair became a young adult is when started to become of aware of political and social issues that were plaguing many countries around the world.
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When Blair moved to Burma with his family and started working the imperialist police, he started to see the moral dilemma that was colonialism. According to Debbie Hertz from postcolonialweb.org, she states that “Orwell’s moral conflict stems from his position as the despised Imperialist in a colonized country. Ironically, however, Orwell claims that during his tenure with the Imperialist Police, ‘I had already made up my mind that imperialism was an evil thing and the sooner I chucked up my job and got out of it the better.
Theoretically – and secretly, of course – I was all for the Burmese and all against their oppressors, the British’ (p.3). Seeing the ‘dirty work’ of the British Imperialists ‘oppressed me with an intolerable sense of guilt’ (3). (Hertz) Essentially, Blair became aware of the situation being actively involved in protecting the British Citizen in Burma. This is what sparked Blair to become a writer, and so took on the alias of George Orwell. Essentially, George Orwell was disgusted by the thought of a strong nation imposing its will onto another weaker nation.
As his life process, Orwell found his career as a writer, often writing nonfictional books about the living conditions of the poor. He wrote down many of his experiences and observation travel different parts of the world. He also wrote various political commentary that challenged the status quo at the time. Traveling and having various political jobs are what influenced Orwell to be against colonialism. As Orwell’s writing started to become famous, he started focusing on writing fictional books.
However, one of his most popular nonfiction essays was In Shooting an Elephant, which describes an incident where Orwell has to shoot an elephant to protect villagers. He picks up a rifle and shoots towards the Elephant to scare it. It is this moment he realizes that he is a protector of these villagers, but instead he is a tool to the imperialistic system that controls this colonized nation. He states that “And it was at this moment, as I stood there with the rifle in my hands, that I first grasped the hollowness, the futility of the white man’s dominion in the East.
Here was I, the white man with his gun, standing in front of the unarmed native crowd–seemingly the leading actor of the piece; but in reality, I was only an absurd puppet pushed to and by the will of those yellow faces behind. I perceived at this moment that when the white man turns tyrant, it is his freedom that he destroys.” (Orwell p3) Working as an imperialist police officer is what caused Orwell to recognize the situation that was happening in India and especially poor cities like Burma. He began to realize that the nature of these first world countries imposing their ideologies on other undeveloped nation was a form of feeding the Whiteman’s ego.
He recognized that the imperialistic domination over India was just used to exploit the nation for its resources, such as its people, money, and material. Debbie Hurtz perfectly sums up the emotions and thoughts that Orwell might have felt when he shot that Elephant. She states that “Orwell abandons his morals and kills the elephant to garner the approval of the Burmans. He feels compelled to shoot the animal because the Burmans ‘did not like me, but with the magical rifle in my hands, I was momentarily worth watching’ (6). Orwell speaks of himself when he says, ‘it is the condition of [the imperialist’s] rule that he shall spend his life in trying to impress the ‘natives,’ and so in every crisis, he has got to do what the ‘natives’ expect of him. He wears a mask, and his face grows to fit it’ (7). Orwell’s story portrays him as suffocating under a mask which he loathes.” (Hertz) At this moment when Orwell started to work for the British imperialist, he understood how colonialism had impact on other human beings.
He also wrote about a situation where he saw an innocent man hung for a trivial incident in his essay A Hanging. This is essay revolves around another incident where Orwell had served in the British Imperial Police from 1922 to 1927. The name of the man who is hung is not named, nor is the crime mentioned. However, this was another moment that made the importance of humanity and how every person is created is equal. He expresses that “It is curious, but till that moment I had never realized what it means to destroy a healthy, conscious man. When I saw the prisoner step aside to avoid the puddle, I saw the mystery, the unspeakable wrongness, of cutting a life short when it is in full tide. This man was not dying, and he was alive just as we are alive.
All the organs of his body were working – bowels digesting food, skin renewing itself, nails growing, tissues forming – all toiling away in solemn foolery. His nails would still be growing when he stood on the drop when he was falling through the air with a tenth of a second to live. His eyes saw the yellow gravel and the grey walls, and his brain still remembered, foresaw, reasoned – even about puddles. He and we were a party of men walking together, seeing, hearing, feeling, understanding the same world; and in two minutes, with a sudden snap, one of us would be gone – one mind less, one world less.” (Orwell p4) Again, Orwell recognized that the British imperialist was occupying land that had different social norms, religious beliefs, and ideas. The British were trying to impose their ideologies onto this country.
He mostly wrote because he wanted to change the world. After writing his first favorite book Animal Farm, Orwell’s wrote an essay called Why I write, and it states that “What I have most wanted to do throughout the past ten years is to do political writing into an art. My starting point is always a feeling of partisanship, a sense of injustice. When I sit down to write a book, I do not say to myself, “I am going to produce a work of art.” I write it because there is some lie that I want to expose, some fact to which I want to draw attention, and my initial concern is to get a hearing” (Orwell p8).
In his two essays A Hanging and Shooting an Elephant, he wanted to expose the truth about Colonialism. Great Britain was not helping India to become more developed, but rather rich white men wanted to use India to exploit its people who cheap labor, use all of its raw material, and exploit that land. Essentially, it is a conquest of a country but disguised as providing and helping these countries.
As mentioned before, Orwell’s family grew up in British India, and many of his family members were involved in colonial affairs. According to Radka Straková “Moreover, being a part of the colonial machinery seemed to be quite acceptable and attractive alternative for uncertain young Orwell as his image of the East had been supposedly shaped by his family, which was closely involved in colonial affairs.
As Emma Larkin observes, Orwell‘s father, Richard Walmesley Blair, worked in the colonial administration of India as an opium-tax collector, whilst his mother, Ida Mabel Blair, came from a prominent family of teak traders and shipbuilders, and had grown up in Burma.” (Straková) Essentially, Orwell was raised by the people who were oppressor the natives of that land. He witnessed how the poor were being treated, and he also understood how the government of all the Indian provinces was under control by the British empire. What is sad is that the British empire could use force and subdue a population of several million subjects.
George Orwell’s book was best known for his criticism on totalitarian systems. The theme of his favorite book Animal Farm is about farm animals revolting their human masters. Mostly, it depicts the human master are tyrants and slaughtering these animals for food. Another book called Burmese Days, it demonstrates the idea that unwritten rules that colonizers have to obey. He references these rules when he states, “Keeping up our prestige, the firm hand (without the velvet glove), We white men must hang together, give them an inch and they will take an ell, and Esprit de corps” (Orwell p198). We can see how working as imperialist police had influenced some of George Orwell’s book and his view on Colonialism.
The main aim of this research paper to examine George’s Orwell’s views on colonialism and how it has impacted his work. By looking at his novels Animal Farm and Burmese Days, we can see his opinion. Especially with this his essay of “Shooting an Elephant and “A Hanging.” Also, how Orwell was raised, we can see that his upbringing and his environment is what caused him to become a writer. He used writing as a way to change the world and make people critically think about situations. He used his writing to help man kind to become more kinder, fairer and wiser.
What is interesting is that Orwell didn’t have a strong political view point from either right side or the left side, he wanted people to critically think about what social groups they are a part of and examine their flaws. In essence, Orwell was trying to teach the world about self-awareness. Orwell will go down in history as one the most influential writers of our time. Orwell always wanted to expose the truth, even if it hurt people’s feelings. Most of book have very tragic ending but I believe it is to give the a reader a sense of understanding our society around us and how it functions. Orwell had a unique perspective in life and we probably will not see a writer like him for several decades.
Works Cited
- Hertz Debbie ‘Orwell And Colonialism.’ Postcolonialweb.org. N. p., 2019. Web. 11 Jan. 2019.
- Orwell, George, and Jeremy Paxman. Shooting an Elephant. Penguin Classics, 2009.
- Orwell, George. A Hanging. Adelphi, 1931.
- Straková Radka Colonial Issues in the Work of George Orwell Dk.upce.cz. N. p., 2019. Web. 12 Jan. 2019.
