In this week's letters to the editor: Sassoons are not Sacklers; Proud of Mayor Breed; The perils of adulation; Students show us the way; Weaponizing the Holocaust
30th April 2020 by
George Orwell and Fatherhood: Part One
The most important influence on George Orwell was probably his father. This essay, then, explores the crucial theme of fatherhood in a number of contrasting ways. It first examines the responses of both Orwell and his contemporaries to his father. It then looks at the many fascinating representations of fathers in his novels. Orwell’s own strikingly progressive attitudes as a dad are highlighted as are, finally, the responses of his son, Richard Blair, to having the celebrated author of
Nineteen Eighty-Four as a father.
Richard Walmesley Blair – Long Due a Re-Assessment
The Crazy Real-Life Story Of 1984 Author George Orwell Justin Sullivan/Getty Images
By S. Flannagan/Jan. 11, 2021 3:08 pm EDT/Updated: Jan. 11, 2021 3:10 pm EDT
There s an old stereotype about novelists that they ll do anything to get new material. In the case of George Orwell, one of the most quoted (and misquoted) authors of the 20th century, this certainly rings true. In fact, the British author had what can only be described as an almost pathological necessity to accumulate experiences through which to understand the world anew.
Born into a moderately wealthy family as Eric Arthur Blair in India in 1903, according to Biography, his father worked in the Indian Civil Service, overseeing the cultivation of poppies and the production and export of opium to China on behalf of the British Empire, per the BBC. Orwell s mother, who returned to England with her son and his older sister when he was just a year old, was from a cash-poor aristocratic background. And