Everybody has an opinion, everyone has a name, and everyone has an idea. All ideas start with something is an influence. According to The New Lexington Webster’s Dictionary, an influence is a person’s indirect power over men, events, or things. All authors have some kind of influence to their writings, so what was George Orwell’s?
George Orwell was born on June 25, 1903 in Motihari, Bengal, India. He was born with the name Eric Arthur Blair. At the age of one, his mother took him to England where he received most of his education. When he turned five, he attended a small Anglican school in Henley - on –Thames. Apparently he did very well in school because two year later, he was recommended to the headmaster to go to a very successful preparatory school, St. Cyprian’s School. St. Cyprian’s school was, at the time, one of the most successful preparatory schools in England. Orwell attended this school on a scholarship that allowed his parents to only pay half of the usual expenses. Because of his time at St. Cyprian’s School, he earned a scholarship to both Wellington and Eton colleges. After attending Wellington for a year, Orwell moved to Eton and was a King’s Scholar from 1917 to 1921. Some people say that he did very well at Eton, but others say that he wasn’t a good student at all. The statement that he did very well in his schooling at Eton is true because he was nominated as King’s scholar, which is only given to people who do the best at their work. His family could not afford to send him to college, so after his time at Eton so he instead joined the Indian Imperial Police in Burma.
George Orwell did not have a very big family. His mom, Ida Mabel Blair was born the daughter of a teak merchant. Richard Walmesley Blair was working for the Indian civil service as a British official. Orwell said that his parents’ attitude towards social status was much higher than there relation to income. Also in his family were his two sisters, Marjorie and Avril. During his lifetime, Orwell wrote several novels, short stories, and essays. He got the ideas for many of his writings from events that happened in his life. All of his stories were written right after a major event in his life happened. His first novel, Burmese Days and his two essays ‘A Hanging’ and ‘Shooting an Elephant’ were written after realizing he hated imperialism Some of his first books, Down and Out in Paris and London, A Clergyman’s Daughter, and The Road to Wigan Pier, were all written about his experiences living in poverty. Another story he wrote about an experience he had was Homage to Catalonia, which was based on his career as a soldier during the Spanish Civil War. After realizing that he was very good at shaping propaganda, he wrote that he felt like an “orange that has been trodden on by a very dirty boot.” In 1949 Nineteen Eighty-Four, his best known novel was written. Nineteen Eighty-Four” was written during a time when Orwell was staying on Jura, an island off the coast of Scotland, for vacation. From the novel Nineteen Eighty-Four we got these words and phrases commonly used in the English language: memory hole, big brother, room 101, double think, thought police, and newspeak. Also taken from Nineteen Eighty-Four was the quote “Big brother is watching you.” During the time when Orwell wrote The Road to Wigan Pier, Newsweek said that Orwell “was the finest journalist of his day and the foremost architect of the English essay since Hazlitt.” Many people say that his novel Animal Farm was a reference to Stalinism. Orwell said that he did not write it about Stalinism and stated that he was simply a ‘democratic socialist.’ One of his most famous quotes, “All animals are equal but some animals are more equal than others” was from Animal Farm. In his essay Such, Such Were the Joys he said that he resented his time at St. Cyprian’s school, but he did manage to get two scholarships during his time