The Pen Is Mightier Than the Sword. the Role of Language in George Orwell’s Works

Thesis (M.A.) from the year 2015 in the subject English - Literature, Works, grade: 1.3, University of Tubingen (English Department), language: English, abstract: The role of language and in particular how it can be manipulated pervaded George Orwell’s works from the very beginning. Most readers are familiar with 1984, but the crucial role of language in shaping our lives came up as soon as Burmese Days. This work analyses many of Orwell’s works, prose as well as essays, and shows the paramount importance language and its manipulation played in Orwell’s works. George Orwell was unarguably one of the, if not the, most influential political writers in English of the twentieth century, the cultural icon and mythic figure who is probably more quoted and referenced than any other modern writer (Rodden, Preface x). Today as well as when he was alive, Orwell was more than a novelist and essayist, but he produced writing in every possible form: reportages, poetry, film and book reviews, opinion columns. Yet, Orwell today has become more than a writer: during the seven decades since his death, he has become a cultural icon, a mythic literary and public personality (Rodden, Preface xi) who is not only canonised in school books but who has also become some sort of intellectual hero. The main reason for this is most probably Orwell’s literary integrity or, what is sometimes called, a sense of decency, (Atkins 1) which he displayed throughout his whole life. […]