George Orwell: Linguistic Entropy, Political Conformity and Too Many Metaphors

I have read George Orwell’s Animal Farm and have heard nothing but praise for his popular dystopian novel Nineteen Eighty-Four. Because of this, I was intrigued to see a non-fiction essay written by Orwell and read it in one sitting on the bus home from school. What I read, I realize, is not only important for emerging students to consider but something vital to speakers and readers of any language, and a chance for them to (I’m going to use something Orwell would disapprove of here for the desirable effect) look in the mirror and reflect (I wonder what Orwell thought of puns?).

Orwell makes his stance on the state of the English well known from the opening sentence of the essay. He deliberates reasons for why it has ended up this way, ranging from political entropy to paradoxical notions of bad writing supporting bad thoughts creating more bad writing. George argues that the English prose is riddled with vagueness and meaninglessness, and that its most harmful place is in politics. Orwell is particularly loathsome when it comes to politics, it is possible that he was deeply influenced by the various wars he experienced, sometimes first-hand. He suggests that the use of ready-made phrasing, lousy words, pretentious diction and other fillers are merely replacements for the author, allowing them to avoid having to come up with his or her own means of expressing thoughts/ideas. Orwell goes on to actually suggest their might be a cure for all that was gone wrong with the English Language, stating six rules such as “Never use a long word when a short one will do”. To me, that particular rule is the most important one, necessary in the delivery of efficiently and effectively writing. Reader comprehension and precision in writing is key to Orwell, something he believes has been lost in the mess of dressed-up sentences and even scholarly work, as pointed out in his examples of ugly, unclear writing.

I recognize that in this blog entry, I will have committed some of the “mental vices” George brought forward in his critique of those examples. I can’t help but wonder how much more time-consuming writing would become if we made an effort to make every aspect of writing our own. Humans are creatures of habit and copy each other; that is part of how we learn. Though Orwell stresses the simplification of language, he advises the complete avoidance of ready-made phrases, the elimination of various literary techniques (who is the judge of what ones are acceptable) and to completely change the attitude towards writing. There is much more, and that alone makes writing sound like an immensely complicated craft that everyone has to learn all over again, because according to Orwell, we’re doing it wrong. That’s intimidating, to say the least; I also cannot help to think that if we all were to write in this ideal fashion, some wise and critical thinker, not unlike Orwell, would rise to find gaps and major flaws within its logic, deeming it detrimental to society, prove it is used corruptly for political gain and harmful to the way we think. It seems impossible and too grand a task to change the way humans write, and consequently think. The variety of conflicting opinions that could rise would constrain progress (for example, some people would not call it progress at all) to a slow crawl. Who, then, decides what is best for the English language? The government? If that’s the case, I’d rather see a horde of academics fight it out, actually.

I am skeptical only because I feel a strange sensation of intrigue and distrust in anyone’s claim to absolute truth; I intend to use doubt not to feed my cynicism but as a healthy measure for balancing the information entering my head day to day. The more evidence George provided, the more convinced I usually found myself of his arguments. I recognize Orwell is far more learned and clever than I should ever hope to be on this subject. If I were to completely replace meaning with metaphors and vague phrasing, I would say: “Orwell is a tall tree and I am a sprout, only recently having poked my head out of the soil. I am overwhelmed like the prisoner who escaped Plato’s cave, blinded from only just seeing light, while Orwell is, how do I put it? Heavily sunburnt.” There I completely replaced the information, though my point is perceivable. I think there is some room in essay writing for poetic relief, given the appropriate informal circumstances (in this case, a blog entry).

I appreciate the inspirational tone in the conclusion of the essay in an attempt to persuade me to try and change habit, if even for my own benefit. To apply oneself to helping people think more clearly and more easily express that human thought - without the clutter of unnecessary factors - is admirable, and I am already observing my writing in new ways because of it. Though Orwell probably had civilization as a whole in mind, I can imagine he’d have been pleased to know that.

  

References

Orwell, G. (1946). Politics and the English Language. Horizon, 8

A Discovery in the Joy of Writing - On an excerpt from 'On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft' by Stephen King

Personal narratives often facilitate emotional connections to the reader, particularly when they speak of something as nostalgic as the blurred, hazy memories of our childhood. In this article, Stephen King describes a situation he faced when he was around 7 or 8 years of age, too sick to attend school and finish the first grade. He explains how he spent his days at home, while his brother moved on in school. But his life did not stand as still as one might think; he read comics and got lost in their narratives to the point of inspiration. King goes on to explain a vital learning process in reading that I found myself identifying to very well: where imitation takes a fundamental role in shaping the creation of writing. He copied the core of stories and added his own touches to them and showed them to his Mom, seeking approval and deeply enjoying the satisfaction of it. She did, however, encourage him to write his own stories, which he consequently did with four more. He received a quarter for each, and King describes this dollar he earns as the first he made in his career of writing. A dollar, in substance, seems so little. But when we consider the circumstances and what separate kind of truer worth this dollar had, we see it as a tiny milestone in his journey of being a renowned writer.

By reading this article, I have formed my own theories as to why King not only became a fantastic writer but also leaned to the paranormal and fantasy genres. Being sick for any length of time induces boredom, a kind of mental discomfort in an already depressive state. King's escape into comic books and narratives appear to have been just the distraction he needed to get him through a difficult part of his life; the idea of an ill body but a thriving, exercised imagination depicts evidence of the human resilience and spirit.

I imagine people caught in the net of their dreary repetitive lives, detached from the world in a way similar to King as an ill child, hungry for an escape into narratives so vivid and captivating that they transcend a reader's own reality. For them, King's writing has the power to do just that.

Joey Ness

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http://critical-blogger.blogspot.ca/

Annotated Biblio

King, S.(2000). Writing The Literacy Narrative. In S. Blau & K. Burak (Eds.), Writing In the Works (42-50). Boston, MA: Wadsworth Cengage Learning.