George Orwell Why I Write Analysis

When I first read George Orwell’s “Why I Write,” I wondered why he explained his childhood with great detail. Orwell spends almost an entire page of a four-page essay explaining that he did not simply start writing novels (1). Instead, he recounts that he made up detailed stories in his mind, felt that most of his early writing was a failure, and mostly engaged—in what he refers to as—literary activities before he started to—as he calls it— write seriously (1). I thought that most children used their imagination to describe mundane activities in a creative way, but Orwell uses the description for a creative purpose itself. Orwell uses his own life experiences of how he came to be an author as the lead-up to what he calls the “four great motives for writing,” which are sheer egoism, aesthetic enthusiasm, historical impulse, and political purpose (2). Orwell states that, in most of his early life, before writing “Why I Write,” that …show more content…
I think a minor reason was that Orwell wanted to include it for aesthetic value. However, while that is a valid reason, I think he also had more important motives for including the poem. It seems as though Orwell wanted to use the poem as a creative way to move his essay along, as well as expressing how the process of figuring out where he fits in the world made him feel. Most importantly, I think Orwell’s main motivation for including the poem was to subtly help express the main theme of his essay: Orwell has avoided political writing for most of his life, but he now wants to turn it into an art that he feels has an important purpose. Thus, it seems fitting to me that he includes a poem mid-essay that has major political undertones as a way to transition to his discussion of the importance of political purpose in his own