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Directions for questions 51 to 53: The passage given below is followed by a set of three questions. Choose the most appropriate answer to each question.
George Orwell (June 25, 1903-January 21, 1950) was the pen-name of Eric Arthur Blair, a British author and journalist best known for his allegorical political novels, Animal Farm and Nineteen Eighty- Four. The latter, which describes a futuristic dystopian society, led to the use of the adjective ‘Orwellian’ to describe totalitarian mechanisms of thought-control.
Upon completing his studies at Eton, having no prospect of gaining a university scholarship and his family’s means being insufficient to pay for his tuition, Eric joined the Indian Imperial Police in Burma in 1922. He resigned and returned to England in 1928 having grown to hate imperialism (as evidenced by first novel Burmese Days, published in 1934, and by such notable essays as ‘A Hanging', and 'Shooting an Elephant’). He adopted his pen name in 1933, while writing for the New Adelphi. Perhaps surprisingly for a writer with progressive, socialist views, he chose a pen name that stressed his deep and life-long affection for the English tradition and countryside: George is the patron saint of England, while the River Orwell in Suffolk was one of his most beloved English sites.
Blair lived for several years in poverty, sometimes homeless, sometimes doing itinerant work, as he recalled in the book Down and Out in Paris and London. He eventually found work as a schoolteacher until ill health forced him to give this up to work part-time as an assistant in a secondhand bookshop in Hampstead.
During most of his professional life time Orwell was best known for his journalism, both in the British press and in books of reportage such as Homage to Catalonia (describing his activities during the Spanish Civil War), Down and Out in Paris and London (describing a period of poverty in these cities), and The Road to Wigan Pier (which described the living conditions of poor miners in northern England). According to Newsweek, Orwell "was the finest journalist of his day and the foremost architect of the English essay since Hazlitt.”
Orwell is, however, most remembered today for two of his novels: Animal Farm and Nineteen Eighty-Four. The former is an allegory of the corruption of the socialist ideals of the Russian Revolution by Stalinism, and the latter is Orwell's prophetic vision of the results of totalitarianism. Nineteen Eighty-Four also presents Orwell’s philosophy reguarding metaphysical objectivism. Orwell had returned from Catalonia a staunch anti-Stalinist and anti-Communist, but he remained to the end a man of the left and, in his own words, a ‘democratic socialist’.
Another widely known work of Orwell is his classic essay “Politics and the English Language", in which he decries the effects of political propaganda, official language, and superficial thinking on literary styles, vocabulary, and ultimately on thought itself. Orwell's concern over the declining power of language to capture and express reality with honesty is also reflected in his invention of "Newspeak”, the language of the imaginary country of Oceania in his novel Nineteen Eighty-Four. Newspeak is a variant of English in which vocabulary is strictly limited by government fiat. The goal is to make it increasingly difficult to express ideas that contradict the official line - and, in time, even to conceive such ideas, (cf. Sapir- Whorf Hypothesis).
Orwell's literary and political career was dominated by the tension between his desire for greater equality and social justice, and his ambivalent attitude towards his own middle-class background. "You have nothing to lose but your aitches" as he once said in mocking of middleclass taboos about pronunciation.
George Orwell (June 25, 1903-January 21, 1950) was the pen-name of Eric Arthur Blair, a British author and journalist best known for his allegorical political novels, Animal Farm and Nineteen Eighty- Four. The latter, which describes a futuristic dystopian society, led to the use of the adjective ‘Orwellian’ to describe totalitarian mechanisms of thought-control.
Upon completing his studies at Eton, having no prospect of gaining a university scholarship and his family’s means being insufficient to pay for his tuition, Eric joined the Indian Imperial Police in Burma in 1922. He resigned and returned to England in 1928 having grown to hate imperialism (as evidenced by first novel Burmese Days, published in 1934, and by such notable essays as ‘A Hanging', and 'Shooting an Elephant’). He adopted his pen name in 1933, while writing for the New Adelphi. Perhaps surprisingly for a writer with progressive, socialist views, he chose a pen name that stressed his deep and life-long affection for the English tradition and countryside: George is the patron saint of England, while the River Orwell in Suffolk was one of his most beloved English sites.
Blair lived for several years in poverty, sometimes homeless, sometimes doing itinerant work, as he recalled in the book Down and Out in Paris and London. He eventually found work as a schoolteacher until ill health forced him to give this up to work part-time as an assistant in a secondhand bookshop in Hampstead.
During most of his professional life time Orwell was best known for his journalism, both in the British press and in books of reportage such as Homage to Catalonia (describing his activities during the Spanish Civil War), Down and Out in Paris and London (describing a period of poverty in these cities), and The Road to Wigan Pier (which described the living conditions of poor miners in northern England). According to Newsweek, Orwell "was the finest journalist of his day and the foremost architect of the English essay since Hazlitt.”
Orwell is, however, most remembered today for two of his novels: Animal Farm and Nineteen Eighty-Four. The former is an allegory of the corruption of the socialist ideals of the Russian Revolution by Stalinism, and the latter is Orwell's prophetic vision of the results of totalitarianism. Nineteen Eighty-Four also presents Orwell’s philosophy reguarding metaphysical objectivism. Orwell had returned from Catalonia a staunch anti-Stalinist and anti-Communist, but he remained to the end a man of the left and, in his own words, a ‘democratic socialist’.
Another widely known work of Orwell is his classic essay “Politics and the English Language", in which he decries the effects of political propaganda, official language, and superficial thinking on literary styles, vocabulary, and ultimately on thought itself. Orwell's concern over the declining power of language to capture and express reality with honesty is also reflected in his invention of "Newspeak”, the language of the imaginary country of Oceania in his novel Nineteen Eighty-Four. Newspeak is a variant of English in which vocabulary is strictly limited by government fiat. The goal is to make it increasingly difficult to express ideas that contradict the official line - and, in time, even to conceive such ideas, (cf. Sapir- Whorf Hypothesis).
Orwell's literary and political career was dominated by the tension between his desire for greater equality and social justice, and his ambivalent attitude towards his own middle-class background. "You have nothing to lose but your aitches" as he once said in mocking of middleclass taboos about pronunciation.
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Question : 51
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