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THE HUMANISM OF GEORGE ORWELL

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Hale, Jeffrey Lee , The Humanism of George Orwell*

Master

of Arts (History), December, 1971, 107 pp., bibliography, 19

titles.

This paper argues that George Orwell was a myth maker

in the twentieth century, an age of existential perplexities.

Orwell recognized that man is innately "patriotic," that the

will-to-believe is part of his nature, but that the excesses

of scientific analysis have disrupted the absolutes of belief.

Through the Organic Metaphor, Orwell attempted to reconstruct

man's faith into an aesthetic, and consequently moral, sensibility.

Proposing to balance, and not replace, the Mechanistic

Metaphor of industrial society, Orwell sought human progress

along aesthetic lines,

"Socialism" was his political expres-

sion of the Organic Metaphor:

both advocated universal integ-

rity in time and space.

The sources are all primary.

All of Orwell's novels were

used, in addition to three essay collections:

Collected Essays;

The Orwell Reader; and The Collected Essays, Journalism and

Letters of George Orwell, Sonia Orwell and Ian Angus, editors,

four volumes?

Orwell's essays and book reviews contain his

best social criticisms.

There are six chapters.

The first chapter is the intro-

duction, which includes a biographical sketch of Orwell, definitions of the Organic and Mechanistic Metaphors, and a comment

on the bibliography.

The second chapter examines the oppression

of the common man by monopolistic capitalism in colonial Burma

and depression-ridden Europe, and Orwell's socialist advocations.

The next chapter deals with Orwell's relationship to

the English intelligentsia, his moral outrage at their worship

of Fascism and Communism, both equal forms of tyranny in his

mind.

Orwell feared that without moral revitalization, liberal

thought would be finished for all times.

The fourth chapter

is concerned with the problems of faith in the modern world

since man can no longer accept the "soul."

Orwell asserts

man's innate "patriotism," or desire to be loyal to something

eternal, for which Orwell proposes Brotherhood and socialism.

The fifth chapter covers Orwell's aesthetic complaints about

the contemporary technical world and what he has to say about

orthodox scientists.

The final chapter redefines the context

of these issues and affirms that Orwell was indeed a humanist

interested in the total progress of mankind.

The conclusion is that Orwell's ambiguous position as a

conservative and a liberal exists because of his implied and

never specified Organic Metaphor that would offer man satisfaction of moral and aesthetic demands.

THE HUMANISM OF GEORGE ORWELL

THESIS

Presented to the Graduate Council of the

North Texas State University in Partial

Fulfillment of the Requirements

For the Degree of

MASTER OF ARTS

By

Jeffrey Lee Hale, B. A,

Denton, Texas

December, 1971

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Page

Chapter

I.

II.

III.

IV.

V.

VI.

INTRODUCTION

1

TYRANNY AND THE COMMON MAN

10

DICTATORSHIP AND THE INTELLECTUAL

3^

FAITH AND SOCIAL PROGRESS

62

THE AESTHETICS OF SOCIAL PROGRESS

34

CONCLUSION

SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY

101

' . . 106

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