Review: George Orwell's 'Why I Write '

George Orwell is well-known for writing novels with strong political purpose. 'The animal farm' and '1984' is especially known for its criticism against the communism. However, in his work 'Why I Write', he insists that readers should also make efforts to focus on the artistic view that is hidden inside his novels. 

Now here is his work 'Why I Write'. In this piece of writing, there are quite diverse genres although it only comprises 5-6 pages. 

Based on the genre of this writing and the writing style that he used, we can find out that his main ideas perfectly fit into his style of writing and genres that he used. 

           In 'Why I Write', George Orwell portrays the life of himself as a writer and several motives  that writers use to start writing; sheer egoism, aesthetic enthusiasm, historical impulse, and political purpose. He uses the genre of autobiography, explanative essay,and poem to elaborate his process of effort to become a creative writer and suggests appropriate attitude that writers should possess. 

           In the beginning, Orwell insists that every readers should be aware of the writer's overall life and how he had developed his style of writing over time. He believed that one cannot make precise interpretation of others' writing if they are not cognizant of their background. As a famed writer of his time, he states that 'I give all my background information because I do not think one can assess a writer's motives without knowing something of his early development'. This statement shows his firm dislike towards people's tendency to construe his writing based on the time setting that he lived in which was chaotic. Also he mentions that writings should not directly expose political issues or concerns but rather implicitly criticize the 'uncomfortable' facts that the society has during the era. In other words, he emphasizes that all writings (or prose) should make a focus on turning a piece of writing to an art by making an 'acceptable' balance  between political and aesthetic views. 

          First of all, autobiographical components are found in the beginning. Orwell mostly writes about the difficulties and dilemmas that he encountered in his early days and juxtapose them in chronological order. He states that 'I wrote bad and usually unfinished nature poems in the Georgian style' and 'my writing became more and more a mere description of what I was doing and the things I saw.' In this way, he is reflected as a 'humble' and 'mature' writer which adds a conviction to what he explains throughout his writing.

          In addition, the fact that four motives why writers write were explained in the form of explainative essay makes his writing more reliable. After he gives his information about his literary ambitions and many attempts to become a skillful writer, readers may conclude that his life could be full of failures. However, by utilizing the genre of explanative essays, he recovers his faith from the readers by sounding like an expert writer and begins his explanation about his second main idea. In other words, this type of genre does not always give out simple information to readers but also it convinces readers to believe in writer's thoughts.

           The poem that appears in the middle of this writing portrays the dilemma that he encountered during his 'dark age'. Through  this genre, he succeeds in expressing the significance of adding aesthetic sense to piece of writing to prevent certain purposes to be exposed on the surface. The succinct languages of poems usually symbolize particular subject that the author tries to express. In this writing, expressions such as 'I am the worm' or 'my enemies' demonstrates how certain ideas can be described without using 'purple passages' and his ability to write with artistic view. 

          Not only the genres, but also his writing style performs a role pertinent to the main ideas. Orwell attempts to insert his emotion into his writing to illustrate his aesthetic enthusiasm by using quite noticeable expressions such as 'I was outraging my true nature' and 'writing with astonishing speed'. Through this process, he might have been trying to escape from people's inclination to approach to his work only in political aspects. Usage of quotes, similes, and metaphors such as 'Good prose is like a windowpane.' and the lines from 'Paradise Lost' also accentuates that he has the ability to write with an artistic sense. 

          With components of autobiography, explanative essay, and poem combined, Orwell's depiction of the struggle to merge the artistic purpose and political purpose into one and emphasizing the importance of being conscious of author's background makes a suggestion to both readers and writers about the most effective and appropriate ways of reading and writing. The usage of similes and metaphors and other literary tools also support these two main ideas. George Orwell, although he is misunderstood as a writer who strongly creates work based solely on his political beliefs, his absolute intelligence and skill in writing shown in this piece of writing safely brings the readers to his ultimate 'destination'.