Lesson 5
Questions and Suggestions
B. Answer the following questions
1. Why was Orwell not liked by his classmates all through his school days?
He developed disagreeable mannerisms which made him unpopular with his classmates through his school days.
2. Did he like what he wrote in his early years? What was the reason he frequently did not finish things he wrote in childhood?
He disliked his early writings. He thought his works were plagiaristic and bad.
3. What kind of novels did Orwell want to write at the age of sixteen?
He wanted to write enormous naturalistic novels with unhappy endings, full of detailed descriptions and arresting similes, and also full of purple passages in which words were used partly for the sake of their sound.
4. What are the four reasons he gave for writing prose?
What do you think of his argument?
Orwell lists “four great motives for writing” which he feels exist in every writer. They are as follows:
a. Sheer egoism; b. Aesthetic enthusiasm; c. Historical impulse; d. Political purpose
5. In what way do you think his little poem expressed his dilemma?
In the poem, the author compared both the peaceful time in the past and the unhappy present life. He expressed his disbelief in and dissatisfaction with both capitalism and communism. He wanted to live in a world without any hypocrisy or totalitarianism.
6. By what means can we keep our esthetic and intellectual integrity?
We should be conscious of our political bias.
7. Why did he want to make political writing into an art?
He wanted to expose some lie, to draw attention to some fact, and to get a hearing.
8. What problems did he have in trying to make political writing into
an art?
He had problems of construction, language, and truthfulness.
9. What did he think is good prose? What did he think of his own writings?
Good prose is like a window pane. He says, “it is invariably where I lacked a political purpose that I wrote lifeless books and was betrayed into purple passages, sentences without meaning, decorative adjectives and humbug generally.”
10. Why didn’t Orwell want to give people the impression that his motives in writing were wholly public-spirited?
He said that by nature he was a person in whom the first three motives would outweigh the fourth. In a peaceful age, he might have remained almost unaware of his political loyalties. But in his later years he wrote with a sense of injustice. He was forced to write because there was some lie that he wanted to expose, some fact to which he wanted to draw attention, and his initial concern was to get a hearing.
