2. Welcome
•You have been selected for this
session because of your ability and
enthusiasm in English and/or History
•This morning’s session will help you to
develop a deeper understanding of
Animal Farm and the ideas behind the
writing of it
•It should also help to prepare you for
the English/History/World Politics
courses available at IB Diploma Level
3. Learning Aims
•To understand the social, historical
and political context in which George
Orwell was writing
•To explore and analyse a range of
other writing by George Orwell
•To consider how George Orwell would
respond to life in the 21st Century
4. Outcome
•To produce a 21st Century piece of
Orwellian writing – using George
Orwell’s techniques to express your
views on a modern issue
5. Revision
1. When did George Orwell write
Animal Farm?
2. What messages did he wish to
convey through this book?
3. What techniques did he use to
achieve this?
6. Revision
1. When did George Orwell write
Animal Farm? 1945
2. What messages did he wish to
convey through this book? How
wickedness, indifference,
ignorance, greed and myopia
corrupt the revolution.
3. What techniques did he use to
achieve this? Satire and allegory
7. Revision
Look at the card you have been given.
1. Who or what is depicted in the
picture?
2. What does Orwell use this
character/ event/item to represent?
3. What message is he trying to
convey through his depiction of
this?
8. Nineteen Eighty-four
1984 was Orwell’s last major work, written in
1948 when he was dying of TB
A dystopian novel, imagining life under a
repressive surveillance state
The novel has been viewed as a prediction of
the future if totalitarianism continued - a
continuation of the ideas of Animal Farm
A major influence on our culture – Big Brother
and Room 101 both come from this novel
9. Chapter One
We are going to read the first chapter
of the novel.
As we read, consider Orwell’s
presentation of the following:
1.Life in London in 1984
2.The Party and its relation to its
people
3.New technologies/innovations
4.Winston, the protagonist
10. Group Discussion
What unfamiliar terms (neologisms) does
Orwell use to describe life in 1984?
What do you think it would be like to live in
‘Airstrip One’?
What techniques do The Party use to control
their people?
What impressions do you form of Winston,
the protagonist of the novel? What predictions
would you make about his role in the novel?
11. Room 101
Winston and Julia begin a relationship and
start working for “The Brotherhood”, a secret
rebellious organisation
However, they are betrayed, imprisoned and
subjected to a range of torture
We are going to watch the most famous
torture scene from the film version of 1984 –
Winston’s visit to Room 101:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?
v=pLFIxt2cK_0
12. Room 101
What techniques does The Party use
to torture Winston?
What are they hoping to achieve
through this torture? Why?
Can Orwell’s vision of the future be
taken at all seriously – could the world
ever become like this? Has it already?
13. Orwell Today
What are the major issues facing
British/world society today?
What might George Orwell have to say
about these if he were writing today?
What writing can you imagine Orwell
producing in the present day?
14. Creative Writing Task
Create your own piece of Orwellian writing about a 21st
century social/political issue – choose one of the
following:
1.An allegory using different characters and settings
to tell the story of a recent/current event
2.An essay/non-fiction piece describing views on a
current issue
3.A dystopia suggesting what the world might be like
in the future (eg.2084) if current trends continue
Remember to use Orwellian techniques (irony,
description, neologisms etc.) in your writing
15. Creative Writing Tips
Never use a metaphor, simile or other figure of speech
which you are used to seeing in print.
Never use a long word where a short one will do.
If it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out.
Never use the passive where you can use the active.
Never use a foreign phrase, a scientific word or a
jargon word if you can think of an everyday
English equivalent.
16. Reflection
What have you learnt about George
Orwell today?
What have you found most interesting?
How has this supported your learning
in English and/or History?
Has this helped you to reflect on
current affairs – if so, how?
Is there anything else you think should
be included in future sessions?
17. Orwell Trivia Quiz
• In what year was George Orwell born?
• What is George Orwell's real name?
• Which school did George Orwell attend?
• Where was Orwell born?
• Which war did Orwell fight in?
• Where did Orwell write Nineteen Eighty-Four?
• What was the subject of Orwell's first article for the
Observer in 1942?
• Winston Smith was a character in which Orwell
book?
18. Orwell Trivia Quiz
• In what year was George Orwell born? 1903
• What is George Orwell's real name? Eric Blair
• Which school did George Orwell attend? Eton Colllege
• Where was Orwell born? Bengal
• Which war did Orwell fight in? Spanish Civil War
• Where did Orwell write Nineteen Eighty-Four? Isle of Jura
• What was the subject of Orwell's first article for the Observer in
1942? India
• Winston Smith was a character in which Orwell book?
Nineteen Eighty-Four
19. Orwell Timeline
• Jun 25, 1903
• George Orwell Born
• Eric Arthur Blair—later known as George Orwell
—is born in Motihari, Bengal, a British colony in
what is now India. His father, Richard
Walmesley Blair, works in the Indian Civil
Service overseeing opium exports to Asia.
20. Orwell Timeline
• 1904
• Young Orwell Moves to England
• The young Eric Blair travels to England with his
mother, Ida Mabel Limouzin Blair, and his six-
year-old sister Marjorie. The Blair children are
raised in England and see their father only
during his sporadic returns from India.
23. Orwell Timeline
• May 1917
• Scholarship to Eton
• Eric Blair enters Eton, the famous boys' prep
school in England, as the recipient of a
prestigious King's Scholarship.
25. Orwell Timeline
• 1917
• What else happened?
• Russian (Bolshevik) Revolution led by Lenin and
Trotsky; Communist Party replaces czars
26. Orwell Timeline
• Dec 1921
• Orwell Leaves Eton
• After a lacklustre academic career, Eric Blair
leaves Eton without a diploma. He later records
his bitter memories of the English prep school
system in a posthumously published essay
sardonically entitled "Such, Such Were the
Joys."
27. Orwell Timeline
• Jun 1922
• Orwell in Burma
• Eric Blair passes the entrance exam of the
Indian Imperial Police, the police force set up by
the British to maintain law and order in their
colonies. He is posted to Burma. His
experiences in Burma provide material for
essays such as "A Hanging" and his first novel,
Burmese Days.
29. Orwell Timeline
• 1922
• What else happened?
• Mussolini, fascist dictator, takes control of Italy;
Stalin appointed Secretary General of
Communist Party by Lenin (Lenin dies 1924)
30. Orwell Timeline
• Jun 1927
• Orwell Quits Indian Imperial Police
• Blair contracts dengue fever. After five years in the
Imperial Police, Blair leaves Burma because of poor
health. Following his return to England, he resigns from
the police, disillusioned with British imperialism. He
decides instead to become a writer. He spends the next
few years drifting around England and Paris, working
odd jobs, writing and living amongst the poor. In an
attempt to gain material for his writing, he even at one
point tries—unsuccessfully—to get arrested.
32. Orwell Timeline
• 1929
• What happened?
• Stalin expels Trotsky and opposition leaders; he
becomes dictator of U.S.S.R.
33. Orwell Timeline
• 1933
• Eric Blair Becomes George Orwell
• Eric Arthur Blair adopts the pen name George Orwell,
combining the names of the then-monarch and a nearby
river. Shortly after he publishes his first book, a narrative
of his tramp-like existence in Europe entitled Down and
Out in Paris and London.
35. Orwell Timeline
• 1933
• What else happened?
• Hitler is elected Chancellor of Germany; a fascist
dictator. Hitler enacts laws revoking the rights of Jews in
Germany.
36. Orwell Timeline
• 1934
• Burmese Days
• Orwell's first novel, Burmese Days, is published. The
book is a bitter depiction of prejudice and corruption in
imperial Burma and is based on his experiences there.
Toward the year's end, following his recovery from a
bout of pneumonia, Orwell moves to London to work in a
used bookstore.
37. Orwell Timeline
• 1935
• A Clergyman's Daughter
• Orwell publishes his second novel, entitled A
Clergyman's Daughter. He wrote the book the previous
year while recovering from pneumonia.
38. Orwell Timeline
• Jan 31, 1936
• The Road to Wigan Pier
• Orwell embarks on a two-month trip to northern England
to investigate living conditions among coal miners there.
He publishes his findings a year later in the book The
Road to Wigan Pier. Orwell's horror at the miners' living
and working conditions marks an important step in his
political development, and the second half of his book is
a passionate argument in favour of socialism.
39. Orwell Timeline
• Jun 9, 1936
• Orwell Marriage
• George Orwell marries Eileen Maud O'Shaughnessy, a
student he met in London. The couple settles into a tiny
cottage in Hertfordshire, England. Orwell also publishes
the novel Keep the Aspidistra Flying.
41. Orwell Timeline
• 1936
• What else happened?
• Spanish General Franco, a fascist, revolts against the
“popular front” government of a coalition of workers and
capitalist parties; aided by Hitler, Stalin, Mussolini.
42. Orwell Timeline
• 1937
• Orwell in the Spanish Civil War
• Orwell spends six months fighting in the Spanish Civil
War on the side of the left-wing Republican government,
which is under attack from General Francisco Franco's
fascists. Orwell volunteers for an anti-Stalinist unit. He is
shot in the throat by a Kremlin-sponsored sniper but
survives. His experience in Spain is the defining moment
of Orwell's political awakening. He leaves Spain with a
lifelong hatred of totalitarianism, and this stance forms
the basis of all of his following works.
43. Orwell Timeline
• Apr 1938
• Homage to Catalonia
• In April Orwell publishes Homage to Catalonia, a
nonfiction book about his experiences in Spain.
45. Orwell Timeline
• 1938
• What else happened?
• “Kristallnacht”—Jewish homes and businesses are
destroyed; Jews sent to concentration camps.
46. Orwell Timeline
• 1939
• Coming Up For Air
• England enters World War II. Orwell volunteers for
military service but is turned down because of his poor
health. Instead he writes prolifically, turning out essays,
reviews, and a novel set in England entitled Coming Up
For Air.
49. Orwell Timeline
• Aug 1941
• Orwell's Wartime Propaganda Work
• Orwell takes a job with the BBC producing wartime
propaganda broadcasts for India. He creates cultural
radio programs featuring English and Indian authors,
while still writing essays and reviews for left-wing
publications.
53. Orwell Timeline
• 1942
• What else happened?
• 110,000 Japanese Americans on West Coast placed in
Relocation Camps by U.S. Army until 1944.
54. Orwell Timeline
• Sep 1943
• Orwell Leaves BBC
• George Orwell resigns from the BBC.
55. Orwell Timeline
• Nov 1943
• Orwell Writes for Socialist Newspaper
• Orwell takes a job as the literary editor of the Tribune, a
weekly socialist newspaper. He writes book reviews and
a column entitled "As I Please."
56. Orwell Timeline
• Jun 1944
• Orwells Adopt Son
• Orwell and his wife adopt a baby boy. They name him
Richard Horatio Blair. In the same month a bomb lands
near the family's basement apartment in London. They
are not injured, but their home is destroyed.
57. Orwell Timeline
• Mar 29, 1945
• Death of Orwell's Wife
• Orwell's wife Eileen O'Shaughnessy dies during a
hysterectomy. Orwell raises their son alone with the help
of his sister Avril Blair.
58. Orwell Timeline
• Aug 17, 1945
• Animal Farm
• Animal Farm: A Fairy Story is published in the United Kingdom,
overcoming initial resistance from publishers who believe it is too
critical of Britain's wartime ally Russia. (A Soviet spy working in the
British Ministry of Information also helps to delay publication.) The
novel, an allegory of totalitarianism, gets a positive reception and
goes on to become one of Orwell's best-known works. It's published
a year later in the U.S. Orwell has by now quit his post at the
Tribune and is working as a freelance correspondent for the
Observer.
60. Orwell Timeline
• 1945
• What else happened?
• Hitler defeated; WWII ends; U.S. drops atomic bombs on Hiroshima
and Nagasaki, Japan, in August.
61. Orwell Timeline
• 1946
• "Politics and the English Language"
• Orwell publishes the essay "Politics and the English Language," a
satirical skewering of bad writing and its political consequences.
Though his writing career is flourishing, his personal life flounders.
He makes several awkward marriage proposals to different women
and is turned down. His home is decrepit. In May, following the
death of his older sister Marjorie, Orwell moves to the Scottish
island of Jura for the remainder of the year.
62. Orwell Timeline
• 1947
• Orwell Contracts Tuberculosis
• Orwell returns to London to write. It is so cold in the winter that he
burns his books and his son's toys for heat. In April he returns to
Jura. In December, his poor health worsens and he is diagnosed
with tuberculosis.
63. Orwell Timeline
• Jan 1949
• Writing Nineteen Eighty-Four
• A month after finishing the manuscript of his latest novel, Nineteen
Eighty-Four, Orwell checks into a sanatorium in England to recover
from tuberculosis. His health is very bad, and friends are worried
about him.
64. Orwell Timeline
• Mar 1949
• Orwell Informs on Suspected Communists
• A friend named Celia Kirwan comes to visit Orwell at the hospital
where he is recuperating. She is working for a propaganda unit of
the British government and asks Orwell if there is anyone who
should not be hired for the unit. In what turns out to be a
controversial move, Orwell gives Kirwan a list of people whom he
suspects of having communist sympathies.
65. Orwell Timeline
• Mar 1949
• Orwell Informs on Suspected Communists
• A friend named Celia Kirwan comes to visit Orwell at the hospital
where he is recuperating. She is working for a propaganda unit of
the British government and asks Orwell if there is anyone who
should not be hired for the unit. In what turns out to be a
controversial move, Orwell gives Kirwan a list of people whom he
suspects of having communist sympathies.
66. Orwell Timeline
• Jun 1949
• Nineteen Eighty-Four Published
• The novel Nineteen Eighty-Four is published. The novel, portraying
a creepy dystopia of total government control, is a huge hit with
readers and critics.
67. Orwell Timeline
• Oct 13, 1949
• Orwell's Second Marriage
• His health failing fast, Orwell marries an editorial assistant named
Sonia Brownell in his hospital room in London.
68. Orwell Timeline
• Jan 21, 1950
• Death of George Orwell
• George Orwell dies of tuberculosis. He is buried in an Anglican
ceremony in Oxfordshire, England, under a simple plaque reading
"Here lies Eric Arthur Blair."
69. Orwell Timeline
• Critic and biographer, Tom Hopkinson, writes in his introduction on
Orwell that all of Orwell’s works are similar in that they reflect the life
experiences of the author.
• “They are all tales of solitary characters, each in one way or another
an expression of Orwell himself, seen against backgrounds that are
taken from his own experience.”
• Although there is a danger in looking for similarities in an author’s
life and his or her fictional work, an examination of the important
personal and world events that shaped Orwell’s life and thought is
helpful in gaining insight into the political and social ideas found
within his novels.
70. Orwell Timeline
• Directions: Answer the questions below using the time line.
• Questions:
• Which personal events seem to have affected Orwell the most?
Explain your reasons.
• What three wars had a personal influence over Orwell? In which
war did he actually fight?
• Which fascist dictators rose to power during Orwell’s lifetime?
• Which novel by Orwell is a direct satire about Stalin and his political
practices?
• Which “totalitarian” event occurred in the United States during World
War I?
71. Orwell Timeline
• Directions: Answer the questions below using the time line.
• Questions:
• Which book gives evidence that Orwell’s experiences at boarding
school developed in him a sympathy for the poor and a lasting
dislike for social status and power based upon wealth?
• Into what social class was Orwell born? Was Orwell ever truly
poor?
• Looking at the themes and topics of Orwell’s novels, is Hopkinson’s
statement (above) valid?
• Which world event do you think had the most profound influence on
Orwell as he wrote 1984? Why do you think this?
• Was Orwell ever married? Did he have any children?
72. Orwell Timeline
• Directions: Answer the questions below using the time line.
• Questions:
• Which book gives evidence that Orwell’s experiences at boarding
school developed in him a sympathy for the poor and a lasting
dislike for social status and power based upon wealth?
• Into what social class was Orwell born? Was Orwell ever truly
poor?
• Looking at the themes and topics of Orwell’s novels, is Hopkinson’s
statement (above) valid?
• Which world event do you think had the most profound influence on
Orwell as he wrote 1984? Why do you think this?
• Was Orwell ever married? Did he have any children?
73. Orwell Timeline
• Directions: Answer the questions below using the time line.
• Questions:
• Why didn’t Orwell fight against the Nazis in World War II?
• What did Orwell decide to do after he graduated from a prestigious
preparatory high school? Why do you think he dislike this job?
• Was Orwell’s first book based on his own experiences? Explain.
• In what book did Orwell express a concern for the poor working
class in England?
