Orwell and Empire
Published on 14. July 2022
Book
Hardback
216 pages
978-0-19-286409-3 (ISBN)
Description
Considers George Orwell's writing about the East, and the presence of the East in his writing.
George Orwell was born in India and served in the Imperial Police in Burma as a young man. Orwell and Empire is a study of his writing about the East and the East in his writing. It argues that empire was central to his cultural identity and that his experience of colonial life was a crucial factor, in ways that have not been recognized, in shaping the writer he became.
Orwell and Empire is about all his writings, fictional and non-fictional. It pays particular attention to work that derives directly from his Burmese years including the well-known narratives 'A Hanging' and 'Shooting an Elephant' and his first novel Burmese Days. It goes on to explore the theme of empire throughout his work, through to Nineteen Eighty-Four and beyond, and charts the way his evolving views on class, race, gender, and authority were shaped by his experience in the East and the Anglo-Indian attitudes he had inherited. Orwell's socialism and his hatred of authoritarianism grew out of his anti-imperialism as The Road to Wigan Pier makes explicit. But this was not a straightforward repudiation or a painless process. He understood that, 'it is very difficult to escape, culturally, from the class into which you have been born.' His whole career was a creative quarrel with himself and with his Anglo-Indian patrimony. In a way that anticipates current debates about the imperial legacy, he struggled to come to terms with his own history.
George Orwell was born in India and served in the Imperial Police in Burma as a young man. Orwell and Empire is a study of his writing about the East and the East in his writing. It argues that empire was central to his cultural identity and that his experience of colonial life was a crucial factor, in ways that have not been recognized, in shaping the writer he became.
Orwell and Empire is about all his writings, fictional and non-fictional. It pays particular attention to work that derives directly from his Burmese years including the well-known narratives 'A Hanging' and 'Shooting an Elephant' and his first novel Burmese Days. It goes on to explore the theme of empire throughout his work, through to Nineteen Eighty-Four and beyond, and charts the way his evolving views on class, race, gender, and authority were shaped by his experience in the East and the Anglo-Indian attitudes he had inherited. Orwell's socialism and his hatred of authoritarianism grew out of his anti-imperialism as The Road to Wigan Pier makes explicit. But this was not a straightforward repudiation or a painless process. He understood that, 'it is very difficult to escape, culturally, from the class into which you have been born.' His whole career was a creative quarrel with himself and with his Anglo-Indian patrimony. In a way that anticipates current debates about the imperial legacy, he struggled to come to terms with his own history.
Reviews / Votes
Kerr's insights on Orwell and Rudyard Kipling are particularly perceptive. No other writer was more important to Orwell: his whole life "was a conversation, or quarrel, with Kipling", quoting him frequently throughout his writings. While it is tempting to see the two writers as opposites, Kerr is keen to identify their similarities: "Both of them were patriots though highly critical of their fellow-countrymen and frequently of their government. Both were public intellectuals who used their writing to raise political consciousness. Both loved animals and wrote books about them and both had a strong feeling for the English countryside". * Richard Lance Keeble, English Studies * eminently readable, and a fascinating new look at Orwell's work * , Shiny New Books * Thoughtful and methodical, Orwell and Empire is a good guide to [Orwell's] complex and not always consistent imperial attitudes. * Professor Krishan Kumar, The Times Literary Supplement * [T]his is among the most enjoyable books on the subject of Orwell that I have discovered in a long time, and without doubt the finest work on Orwell's connection to empire and the east that it has been my privilege to read. * Ron Bateman, The Orwell Society * This is a highly readable, deftly written book. The broad contours of the argument, that Orwell's experiences of empire were formative, and significant across his entire oeuvre have been outlined. * Jay Parker, The Hang Seng University of Hong Kong * Douglas Kerr, author of Eastern Figures-Orient and Empire in British Writing (2008) and the excellent Conan Doyle: Writing, profession and practice (2013), has written in Orwell and Empire an important, engaging and readable study of Orwell's work through the prism of the writer's Anglo-Indian attitudes and his experiences as an officer in the Burmese police. Douglas Kerr has written an intelligent, nuanced, and thoughtprovoking study of Orwell, one which shows him as a complex writer and a man of his time, but also illuminates those times and their issues. By reflection this book also encourages the reader to explore and understand more of Kipling. This book and this stance provide an excellent basis by which to approach Orwell-and Kipling. * Andrew Scragg, Kipling Journal * This is an accessible, well-informed and wide-ranging reading of Orwell's work. Kerr is aperceptive guide and the volume as a whole offers numerous insights into Orwell, empire and Orwell's fictional and non-fictional writing. * Robert Gavin Hampson *More details
Language
English
Place of publication
Oxford
United Kingdom
Target group
College/higher education
Dimensions
Height: 224 mm
Width: 311 mm
Thickness: 21 mm
Weight
382 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-19-286409-3 (9780192864093)
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Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions
Person
Douglas Kerr is Honorary Professor of English at University of Hong Kong and Honorary Research Fellow at Birkbeck College, University of London. His first book was about the war poet Wilfred Owen and much of his later work studies English literature about the East in colonial and postcolonial times. His most recent book is Conan Doyle: Writing, Profession, and Practice (OUP, 2013) and he is general editor of the Edinburgh Edition of the Works of Conan Doyle.
Content
1: Introduction: Anglo-India 2: Animals 3: Environment: Burmese Days 4: Class 5: Empire 6: Geography 7: Women 8: Race 9: Police 10: The Law 11: Literature Notes Bibliography