Literary Criticism Of George Orwell Essay Research

Paper * Again, sorry about that spacing, there’s more where this came from, though! * LITERARY CRITICISM Eric Blair s Evaluation of Animal Farm (positive)… Eric Blair wrote much in response to George Orwell s Animal Farm. The following is a small excerpt which I feel best describes his positive review of the book in a limited amount of writing… Orwell is significant for his unwavering commitment, both as an individual and as an artist, to personal freedom and social justice. While he wrote a variety of works, his novels Animal Farm (1945) and Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949) are best known and most widely read. Animal Farm, a deceptively simple animal fable about a barnyard revolt, satirizes the consequences of the Russian Revolution, while also suggesting reasons for the universal failure of most revolutionary ideas. Orwell s skill in creating a narrative that functions on several levels is almost unanimously applauded, and the novel is generally regarded as a masterpiece of English prose. Nineteen Eighty-Four attacks totalitarianism, warning that absolute power in the hands of a Western democracy could result in a repressive regime. Orwell s ability to perceive the social effects of political theories inspired Irving Howe to call him the greatest moral force in English letters during the past several decades. Frederick R. Karl s Evaluation of Animal Farm (negative)… The following is an excerpt from Frederick R. Karl s 1972 essay titled, George Orwell: The White Man s Burden. Orwell does frequently fail us, however, in not clearly indicating what belongs to literature and what is proper to history. History demands, among other things, blinding clarity, while literature can be impressionistic, frenzied, symbolic, romantic. Between the two, as Aristotle remarked in his Poetics, there is bound to be a clash, for the intention of one differs crucially from that of the other. Thus, we often feel that Orwell as a topical writer has not integrated the two elements sufficiently, so that one frequently gains at the expense of the other. There is no conscious sacrifice on Orwell s part, but there is an evident lack of imagination, the synthetic process capable of wedding dissimilars. Having accepted Naturalism as the mode for his type of novel, Orwell forsakes those techniques that might have projected his political ideas into deeply felt literary experiences. Lacking Zola s tremendous intensity, he cannot compensate for what he loses through unadventurous methods. An Evaluation of Animal Farm from a Potential Publisher of the book (negative)… After the Animal Farm is over, there is a section (in my copy of the book) titled, APPENDIX 1 Orwell s Proposed Preface to Animal Farm. In this proposed preface, Orwell speaks of a publisher who started by accepting the book, but went against publishing it after consulting someone from the Ministry of Information. Here is an extract of a letter from the publisher featured within APPENDIX 1. I mentioned the reaction I had had from an important official in the Ministry of Information with regard to Animal Farm. I must confess that this expression of opinion has given me seriously to think…. I can see now that it might be regarded as something which it was highly ill-advised to publish at the present time. If the fable were addressed generally to dictators and dictatorships at large then publication would be alright, but the fable does follow, as I see now, so completely the progress of the Russian Soviet and their two dictators, that it can apply only to Russia, to the exclusion of the other dictatorships. Another thing: it would be less offensive if the predominant caste in the fable were not pigs. I think the choice of pigs as the ruling caste will no doubt give offence to many people, and particularly to anyone who is a bit touchy, as undoubtedly the Russians are.