Orwell's essays speech 12/15
Orwell’s Essays Speech
Explore how time and place are used in your prescribed text to shape the audience’s understanding of how knowledge of the past sheds light on the present.
The statement by Charlie Reece “Our time and his time remain the same” instigates the questioning of how Orwell’s concept of freedom transcends the importance of individuality through time. By asking myself, ‘how does he promote these democratic principles of freedom in the face of political adversary?’ I am implored to examine the way in which Orwell’s essays use coherent structure and language to create timeless literary works. In both contemporary English society and my own, the core values of contextual integrity, individuality, freedom and truth are threatened by political manipulation and Orwell strives to reveal this to any society under the threat of political conformity.
Throughout the essays Notes on Nationalism and Politics and the English Language, Orwell highlights the negative influence of political ideologies and nationalism, criticizing it to be a ‘competitive prestige’ that discriminates individual thought. In the essay ‘Notes on Nationalism’ Orwell uses high modality language such as “must not” to warn his readers of against accepting a political ideology without question, as becoming too involved in nationalistic values associated around power gain, will cause a loss of identity. Since Orwell participated in a period of warfare and bloodshed of politically motivated sides, he is able to personify nationalism to be “power hunger tempered by self-deception” that clouds rational thought. Through the utilization of degrading tone, Orwell goes on to undermine nationalists, labelling them to be individuals classifying each other “like insects” and “confidently labelling … whole blocks of millions … to be merely good or bad”. The use of a simile and hyperbolic tone assist the reader to affiliate such ideologies with nationalism, clearly identifying that the issue of bias
Explore how time and place are used in your prescribed text to shape the audience’s understanding of how knowledge of the past sheds light on the present.
The statement by Charlie Reece “Our time and his time remain the same” instigates the questioning of how Orwell’s concept of freedom transcends the importance of individuality through time. By asking myself, ‘how does he promote these democratic principles of freedom in the face of political adversary?’ I am implored to examine the way in which Orwell’s essays use coherent structure and language to create timeless literary works. In both contemporary English society and my own, the core values of contextual integrity, individuality, freedom and truth are threatened by political manipulation and Orwell strives to reveal this to any society under the threat of political conformity.
Throughout the essays Notes on Nationalism and Politics and the English Language, Orwell highlights the negative influence of political ideologies and nationalism, criticizing it to be a ‘competitive prestige’ that discriminates individual thought. In the essay ‘Notes on Nationalism’ Orwell uses high modality language such as “must not” to warn his readers of against accepting a political ideology without question, as becoming too involved in nationalistic values associated around power gain, will cause a loss of identity. Since Orwell participated in a period of warfare and bloodshed of politically motivated sides, he is able to personify nationalism to be “power hunger tempered by self-deception” that clouds rational thought. Through the utilization of degrading tone, Orwell goes on to undermine nationalists, labelling them to be individuals classifying each other “like insects” and “confidently labelling … whole blocks of millions … to be merely good or bad”. The use of a simile and hyperbolic tone assist the reader to affiliate such ideologies with nationalism, clearly identifying that the issue of bias