George Orwell Political Writing

1331 Words6 Pages
Draft 1.1 During the 20th century, many prominent American writers believed that the English language was in a state of decline. George Orwell was one of these prominent writers. He believes that “most people who bother with the matter at all would admit that the English language is in a bad way (Orwell 205)” and he suggests solutions that he believes would help solve that problem. In the article, “Politics and the English language” by George Orwell, the author uses invective language and a number of juxtapositions and illustration to effectively argue that the state of the English language is in decline due to current political styles and the common writing habits that society had adapted. In Orwell’s writing, he kept an invective tone throughout all his arguments. It is quite clear that this issue of the English language has been tormenting him before this article and it shows in his writing. It is clearly shown when arguing about some of the poor habits that are rampant in current English writing. He writes that “modern writing at its worst does not consist in picking out words for the sake of their meaning and inventing images in order to make the meaning clearer. It consists in gumming together long strips of words which have already been set in order by someone else, and making the results presentable by sheer humbug (Orwell 209).” Orwell uses powerful but invective language to argue that current writing habits are ineffective in affecting the audience in any meaningful way. He shows the weakness of the English language while displaying a powerful alternative to current writing styles. Another reason for his use of invective language is due to the dishonest nature of political writing. Orwell stated that political writing was formed “to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind (Orwell 214).” This
Open Document